Uncompromising Faith in the Fiery Furnace, Part 1 B

And the whole thing then poses a conflict for us throughout this chapter between worshiping the true God and worshiping the self-centered egomaniac. Now I want you to see this choice clearly in mind because this is the choice everybody makes.

You either worship God or false gods. When does it sneak up on you, the temptation to compromise? When you file your tax return, or when you're looking for an excuse, any excuse, to get out of a commitment you made, or when you're tired from work and you just want to escape to the TV or the internet? The fact is, the temptation to compromise probably will hit you before this day is over. How can you maintain integrity in every circumstance? Where can you turn for practical strategy and encouragement? Today's message on Grace To You can help you answer those important questions.

John MacArthur is here to show what a life without compromise looks like. So follow along in the book of Daniel as John begins today's lesson from his study titled An Uncompromising Life. From the very beginning, man has always set up his false gods, and the running conflict has gone on through all of human history, the conflict between the worship of the true God and the worship of false gods. In fact, let me say something that's kind of a basic statement you ought to remember. Idolatry is the most basic issue about which God is concerned.

Did you get that? Idolatry is the most basic issue in terms of the life of man about which God is concerned. You say, how do you know that?

How do you know he's more concerned about that than other things? Because it says so in Exodus chapter 20. That is the first of the Ten Commandments that the Lord gave, and it relates to idolatry. Exodus 20, listen to verse 3 and 4. Thou shalt, here's the first commandment, thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them, for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me, and showing mercy to thousands of them that love me and keep my commandments.

All right? There you have the first and the second commandment. The first one, have no other gods before me.

The second one, make no graven image. The primary issue then in the Ten Commandments, the beginning of it all, is the affirmation that there is to be no God substituted for the true God. That is God's basic concern in his dealing with man. When you abandon God, and you turn God loose, and you let God go, and you turn your back, then you invent your own gods because man is incurably religious, and in inventing his own gods he makes gods like himself, he becomes more like them and damns his own soul in the process.

You know, I'll just take it a step further. In the Scripture, it's not only wrong to worship something other than God, but it's wrong to worship God through the wrong method. You remember Saul when he was told by God not to take anything but to kill the king and all of the army and to take absolutely nothing, came back with all those sheep and all of those animals, and when Samuel came to him and said, What's going on? And I hear the bleeding of the sheep. You weren't supposed to take anything. And he says, I've taken them all to worship God.

And Samuel says to him, The throne is removed from your family. God wants you to worship him the way he says to worship him, not the way you choose to worship him. Idolatry is worshiping the wrong God and worshiping the right God in the wrong way.

And I think we have to be careful about that. I think idolatry is also worshiping symbols that may stand for God. You know, we've all been aware of what is known as the iconoclastic controversy from the word icon in Greek, which means image. Throughout the history of the church, the church was in its early manifestation of Romanism, wanting to put everything in statues. And the statues were everywhere, and there was always a controversy, and the going back and forth, and you still have crucifixes and other images and saints and so forth that represent a certain kind of idolatry.

And you say, Well, we don't really worship the idols. It's just that the representation is there. Yes, but the transition is so subtle.

So subtle. Let me show you an illustration. Look in your Bible at Numbers chapter 21. Numbers 21 verse 6. You remember how the Lord sent the fiery serpents among the people? They bit the people, and many people of Israel died. This was when they were with Moses, and the people were being disobedient to God. The Lord sent fiery serpents.

They bit. Therefore, the people came to Moses and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord. And against thee, pray unto the Lord that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses stood in their behalf. He prayed, and the Lord answered, somewhere between verse 7 and 8, and said, Make a serpent.

Set it on a pole. It shall come to pass. Every one that is bitten, when he looks up, shall live.

Now watch what happened. The children of Israel had sinned. God says there's going to be a punishment.

Snakes are going to bite you. If you look at the pole, you'll be healed. Now, I believe the pole was simply a symbol of God's power. There was no power in the pole. The power was with God. The look at the pole was simply an identification of their faith.

But I want you to see what happened. Go over to 2 Kings, chapter 18. Along comes Hezekiah, later in the history of Israel. And in Judah, we find that Hezekiah reigns as king, and he brings about a great revival. And one of the things he does in the revival is in verse 4, and I want you to see it. He removed the high places. Now watch this. And broke the images and cut down the idols.

Stop right there. He wiped out idolatry, but notice the next one. And he broke in pieces the bronze serpent that Moses had made. For unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it. And he called it nehushtan, which means the little brass thing. He treated it with disdain.

Get rid of that little brass thing. And they were all worshiping. In other words, something started out as a symbol. And it became an idol. And that is always the danger of an icon. That man will twist the symbol into an idol. So whether you're talking about worshiping a false god, or worshiping the true God in a wrong way, or worshiping God through a wrong image, it is all forbidden in Scripture. Now having understood that, that idolatry is forbidden, look with me at Daniel 3 and let's see what unfolds. Remember now that these young men were well educated in Hebrew doctrine and theology, and they knew exactly how God felt about idols. Now let's come to the text. We find in the opening of the text five major points, but I'm just going to start at the first one.

First we find the ceremony, the ceremony in verses 1 to 3. Let's look at it. Nebuchadnezzar, the king, by the way, is the king of the Babylonian empire, which is a marvelous, incredible empire stretching over the known world of the Middle East, and we don't really know even how far, and it had the inherent power to have stretched around the world, could it have extended itself. Nebuchadnezzar was the greatest monarch on the face of the earth, and he made an image of gold.

Now watch this. Whose height was three score cubits, and the breadth of it six cubits, and he set it up in the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon. Now Nebuchadnezzar makes this huge image. Now what's interesting about it is that it is an idolatrous act, and it seems very strange in the light of chapter 2, verse 47.

Look back at that. You remember in chapter 2 that Daniel had told this tremendous dream to Nebuchadnezzar? He had this dream about an image that had a gold head and it had brass, and then it had silver, and then it had iron and clay mixed, and he told him the meaning of all those things, and how all the world empires would come to pass, and how they would be destroyed by a stone cut out without hands in the final phase of their ten confederate kings, and he goes through all this marvelous interpretation of the dream, and Nebuchadnezzar knows that Daniel is telling him things that his own seers and magicians and Chaldeans didn't know. And so in response in verse 47, Nebuchadnezzar fell on his face, verse 46, worshipped Daniel and so forth, and then in 47 he said of a truth, it is that your God is the God of gods, and the Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets, seeing that thou couldest reveal this secret.

Now that's a pretty great statement. Your God is the God of gods. Your God is the ultimate deity. Your God is the revealer of secret, the Lord of kings.

That was in verse 47. Two verses later, he's building an idol to himself, fickle, fickle Nebuchadnezzar. Even the demonstration of the power of God couldn't override his unbelievable ego.

Incredible! The man is an egomaniac. In fact, I believe when Daniel started telling him that dream, he said, the top is a head of gold, and thou art that head of gold. Right there Nebuchadnezzar tuned out and thought, I'm the gold.

Everything else is inferior to me. And so he built a whole image of gold, just extended it all the way down. Nebuchadnezzar, the king, made an image of gold. I take it that this wasn't a human form.

It was made of gold, but believe me, it is so huge. You know what a cubit is? A cubit was measured from the elbow to the end of the hand.

It's approximately 18 inches. So 60 cubits would be 90 feet high. That's really high. I guess a telephone pole is about 60 feet high. So it would be half again as high as that. And it was 6 cubits wide, which really isn't very wide.

It's 9 feet wide, which means it was a great big long skinny thing. That would make it a 10 to 1 proportion, and most human beings are 4 to 1 or 5 to 1. Real skinny people are 6 to 1 and some are 3 to 1.

But anyway, I've seen some 2 to 1 come to think of it, but normally, normally it's about a 10... This kind of an image is a 10 to 1 ratio, which means it either was this long thin thing or that it was a high, high pedestal in which a normal 5 to 1 ratio man might have stood on. But it's a 90 foot high image. Now I don't believe that it was absolutely solid gold.

That would have been utterly prohibitive in terms of economics as well as a horrendous problem to construct and to move around. It is common in those times to find information to the effect that when they wanted to build such an image, they would build it out of wood and then they would cover it with a substance and they would overlay it with heavy gold. And it seems to me that that is the best way to perceive this image. In fact, this was rather common. If you make a footnote of Isaiah chapter 40 and Isaiah chapter 41, you will note a couple of places in those two chapters where such an overlaid wooden image of gold is indicated.

So that may be the more common way for them to do it. Now, the cost would still be utterly incredible. Just beyond your belief, the amount of money involved in that, mining gold in those days and getting gold was so difficult that it was just incredibly valuable. By the way, the 60 cubits and the 6 cubits is kind of an interesting indication to us because the Babylonians had what is known as a sexagasimal system. We have a decimal system based on tens, right? They had a system based on sixes. And this is a very important footnote because it is an indicator of the authenticity of Daniel as truly representative of the Babylonian times.

The higher critics want to shove it up nearly to the time of Christ to get it past the prophecies that it predicts because they don't want the Bible to make prediction, otherwise it's a divine book. But because it uses what is known as this sexagasimal system rather than a decimal system, it's indicative of the Babylonian times. Now, it's also fascinating to me, and this is another little footnote, that it is 60 cubits by six, and I see two sixes there.

The first king made an image of himself in sixes, and if you read Revelation 13, you will find that the last ruler of the times of the Gentiles, Nebuchadnezzar was the first, the last monarch of the times of the Gentiles will also set up an image of himself. It tells us that in Revelation chapter 13, it says in verses 14 and 15 he will make an image and the people will bow to the image and the number will be what? 6, 6, 6. It's as if it starts out with two sixes and ends up with three. Six is the number of man. Man tries 6, 6, 6, 6, 6, but he never hits seven.

That's the number of perfection. That's reserved for God. Nebuchadnezzar is like a preliminary picture of the Antichrist. Now, you'll notice in verse 1 that it says he set it up on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon. The plain of Dura as far as we know was just in the province of Babylon, just near the city itself, maybe six miles southeast of Babylon.

And by the way, this is fascinating. A French archeologist, I can't think if I can pronounce his name, I think it's Opert, something like that, was doing some digs down southeast of Babylon a few miles and he came across in his diggings an absolutely huge brick foundation that must have held some gigantic statue or obelisk. And as they began to do a little more study on the plain of Dura, it is the conviction of this French archeologist, Opert, that that is in fact the base of Nebuchadnezzar's image, still remaining underneath the soil of the centuries that have covered it over, the image being long gone.

Why? It was made of gold, folks. The next group that came in made sure that it doesn't just hang around until it blew away. The plain of Dura is a flat area where it would be visible.

Sticking up in the plain of Dura, can you imagine the sun in the Babylonian area would be so bright that that thing would sparkle and shine in an incredible display of grandeur. Now what is Nebuchadnezzar doing? We need to at least talk about that for a minute before we finish and we'll just cover this first point. What is he trying to do? What is he trying to prove?

What's his point here? Well, I believe he had some reasons for this. He was a smart man. He was one of the world's greatest architects. He was one of the world's greatest statesmen. He was one of the world's greatest soldiers and strategists.

This is not the village idiot. This is a very intelligent man. What's he doing? Well, what he's doing is pulling together his nation in an act of unity.

That's the first thing. He wanted to unify his nation. You unify your nation around a common objective. He wanted the whole pile of them to bow down to him. By the way, the Caesars did exactly the same thing, didn't they? They tried to get the whole empire to worship them as a unifying factor. Not only that, he wanted the allegiance of his leaders. He wanted all of his leaders to bow down to him. He wanted to make sure they were loyal and faithful to him. He wanted a single religion because he was afraid that a split of religion because religion is so deep in the heart of man that if they split over religions in the empire, they would fracture the empire.

But there was something even beyond that. I think politically he wanted the unity of the empire. I think just in terms of his own personal needs, he wanted the worship and allegiance of his leaders.

I think religiously he wanted one religion to hold the people together. But beyond all of that, the guy had an incredible ego and he just sought self-glory and he saw himself as the head of gold and he just lost control of himself and decided to go whole hog and make himself an image so that the whole world would worship him. He's a little different than Herod in Acts 12. Herod gave a great speech, put on his fancy robe, stood up, you know, in Acts 12 down there at Caesarea and he gave a great speech and the people said, Oh, it is the voice of a god and not a man.

And he just loved it, you know, he just ate it up. And the Bible says immediately he was eaten by worms and died because he gave not God the glory. Well Nebuchadnezzar didn't get eaten by worms, but he sought the glory. And the whole thing then poses a conflict for us throughout this chapter between worshiping the true God and worshiping the self-centered humanistic egomaniac.

Now I want you to see this choice clearly in mind because this is the choice everybody makes. You either worship God or false gods. Even as a Christian, listen, we can be lured to the worship of false gods, can't we?

We really can. That's what this chapter calls for. Well, let's see the rest of the ceremony very quickly in verses 2 and 3.

They both say essentially the same thing. Then Nebuchadnezzar the king, it's really kind of funny, I'll show you why. Nebuchadnezzar the king sent to gather together, and here we go, the princes. And the word literally means the governors and I think it goes in a descending rank here. The satraps were the top governors of the provinces in the Babylonian empire, alright?

The satraps. And then you have the governors and the captains. As best we can know, they were sort of secondary rulers in the divisions.

You might say that the governors were in the states and then the subdivisions were the counties which were ruled by the governors and the captains. And then there are the judges, and by the way, they were chief arbitrators and they were provincial judges throughout the Babylonian empire. Then there are the treasurers and they are the masters of the treasury. And then there are the counselors and they were the lawyers who made up the cabinets and the senates and whatever. And then there were the sheriffs and they were just exactly what we think.

They were minor judicial people who carried out justice. So you have all of these people, and then finally it says, and all the rulers of the provinces, he got everybody who was anybody in there to come to the dedication of the image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up. Now he wants everybody's allegiance, he wants to get the whole pile of them there, and so they all show up. And then look what it says in verse 3, this is really interesting. Then, the princes, the governors, the captains, the judges, the treasurers, the counselors, the sheriffs, and all the rulers of the provinces were gathered together under the dedication of the image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up.

Now why does it repeat all of that? You know when the Greeks came along and they were writing a Greek version known as the Septuagint, they just left out verse 3 because they said it's ridiculous to repeat the whole thing. I mean it just says in verse 2, the princes, the governors, the captains, the judges, the treasurers, the counselors, the sheriffs were all called. And then in verse 3 it says the princes, the governors, the captains, the judges, the treasurers, the counselors, the sheriffs all came.

Can't you say that a little shorter? Can't you just say everybody that was called came? Well I think it's very subtle.

I think it's very subtle. The repetition of verse 3 is a subtle, almost humorous insight into the lack of personal integrity by all the leaders of the whole empire. And it reiterates that they were all big shots, but none of them had the courage to say no. They all came, they all came, walked in there, spinelessly followed the lead of Nebuchadnezzar. All the great ones, it's tongue-in-cheek is what it is, all the big shots, all the great ones came and they all had to be humiliated and they all stood, it says in the end of verse 3, before the image Nebuchadnezzar had set up. There they all are, all the great princes, governors, captains, like a bunch of rubber ducks, all ready to quack the same way, no integrity, no character, no nothing. They responded as they were told. If Nebuchadnezzar says we all worship the idol, we all worship the idol. Guys, we've got to keep our jobs.

But it wasn't so with some others. What do you worship? When I say to you, is there an idol in your life, what do you think of? What immediately comes to mind?

That's probably it. What have you placed before God? Where have you put God? If you're not a Christian, you have all kinds of idols and you are living a life that is denying the glory of God. Won't you come to Jesus Christ and make Him the Savior, confess Him as Lord? Then there are many of you Christians who have Christ as Lord of your life and yet you find yourself diverted so often like that unstoppable river and you find yourself going in the wrong direction toward idols of this world. This would be a great time to open your heart and confess to the Lord that you have some idols. Have you examined your heart? What about possessions or plenty or pride or people, pleasure, projects, prominence? Is it education, prestige, sex, money? What is it?

Hobby, sports, entertainment, anything? All Christ and Christ alone is to be came. Father, speak to all our hearts and may we set aside the gods of this world, the emptiness, the deities that cannot respond and only steal us away from the virtue of your true and pure and eternal love for us. May we set aside the idols and worship you. No matter what Nebuchadnezzars there are in our lives who in their dominion and sovereignty cry to us to bow, may we never bow. May we not bow with the rest of the elite and the erudite and the educated and the proud of the earth, but may we like those three young Hebrew boys take our stand where it ought to be before Almighty God and unflinchingly stand true and never bow the knee to an idol.

Give us the kind of character that we see manifest in these three young boys. We who name the name of Christ and possess the power of the indwelling spirit. We who have all the resources that they have and perhaps even more to stand true. Help us not to compromise, not only not to eat the king's meat and drink the king's wine, but not to worship the king's gods. Help us to stand true, uncompromisingly to take our place in adoring and glorifying you. We thank you in Christ's name. Amen. This is Grace to You with John MacArthur. Thanks for being with us. For more than 54 years, John has been our featured speaker.

He's also chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary, and his current series here is titled An Uncompromising Life. John, you talked today about false worship, idols that drop believers away from worship of the one true God. And I'm wondering, once a Christian has identified a false idol, what is the next step? How do we free ourselves from that influence?

Well, I mean, it's pretty obvious. See it as an idol. My little children, keep yourselves from idols. That's what the apostle John said. My little children, keep yourselves from idols. He was writing to new believers, for the most part, and tells them, stay away from worshiping anything other than the true God.

That wasn't anything new. That's the first commandment way back in Exodus chapter 20. No other gods. And of course, today's culture tempts everybody with all kinds of distractions, all kinds of entertainment, all kinds of possessions, wealth, adventure, sports, whatever it is. And any of these things can become idols, sex and even perversions. You've got to be able to sort things out in the world. You have to see things the way they really are.

And I want to remind you about a book that we've been talking about in recent days. It's called Right Thinking in a World Gone Wrong. Right Thinking in a World Gone Wrong.

That's critical. As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. You have to think right about, well, things like political activism, homosexual marriage, entertainment, escapism, God, the problem of evil, abortion, surrogacy, all kinds of things. All of it is treated in this book, Right Thinking in a World Gone Wrong. A dozen of the leaders at Grace Community Church teamed up with me to write a book that applies biblical truth to the most talked about issues in today's culture. Right Thinking in a World Gone Wrong.

That's right, friend. If you're not sure how God's word speaks to today's social problems, or you're worried you might be compromised by the wrong thinking, this book called Right Thinking in a World Gone Wrong can be a big help. To place your order, contact us today. Right Thinking in a World Gone Wrong is reasonably priced, shipping is free. To order, call us toll-free at 800-55-GRACE. You will reach our customer service staff Monday through Friday from 730 in the morning till 4 o'clock in the afternoon Pacific time.

Or place your order anytime at our website, gty.org. Again, if there's a cultural issue you're concerned about, John and other pastors from Grace Community Church probably address it in this book. So order Right Thinking in a World Gone Wrong when you call 800-55-GRACE or go to gty.org. A reminder, too, about the brand new study guide for John's current series, An Uncompromising Life. It takes you deep into each lesson from this series with detailed outlines, plus questions that will enrich your personal and group study. For new Christians and veteran saints alike, this study guide lays out a clear path to greater commitment to our Lord. To order An Uncompromising Life, call 800-55-GRACE or go to gty.org. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson. Thanks for making this broadcast part of your day, and tune in tomorrow when John continues his series, An Uncompromising Life, with another half hour of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time, on Grace To You.