Uncompromising Faith in the Fiery Furnace, Part 2

How could anybody put principles so high that they would literally stand there while the entire mass of people went down. They would stand there resolute, ready to walk into a burning fiery furnace. Now that's character people.

That's functioning on internal principle, not external pressure. It's not happening, at least not yet, here in the United States. There's not widespread killing of Christians. But around the globe, Christians are being killed for their faith, and really, none of us can say that we won't face that situation someday. What does it take to stand strong when you have to decide between two options, your faith or your life? How can you face pressure like that with integrity that won't budge? Find out here on Grace to You as John MacArthur continues his compelling look at the Book of Daniel in a study titled An Uncompromising Life.

Follow along now as John begins the lesson. Our decisions, our attitudes, and our behaviors are determined by one of two things, external pressure or internal principle. Let me say it again. Our attitudes, our decisions, and our behaviors are determined by one of two things, external pressure or internal principle. And the battle is going on all the time in our lives between these two conflicting items. And we're very good at self-justification, so a lot of times when we succumb to external pressure, we define it as internal principle. But basically, we have to come down to that bottom line. Do we do what we do, say what we say, and act the way we act because we have convictions about it or because we feel the pressure coming from the outside? And are our convictions somewhat altered by whatever pressures are brought to bear upon us? There are times when I'm in a situation where if I say what I believe, I'll alienate a lot of people.

And I face that same bottom line. Do I say what I believe based on internal principle or do I succumb to the external pressure and let them hear what they'd rather hear? When you are working in a business situation and you have the opportunity to make hay, shall we say, to do very well by yourself and close a big deal by simply compromising a little bit, maybe telling a small lie, cheating in a small way, violating a rule that seems to you rather insignificant, do you succumb to that kind of external pressure or do you act completely and totally on the basis of what you know to be proper internal principle? Because that's really the key issue as we live and move in this world. And frankly, the world, if it ever needed it, needs now men and women who function on internal principle.

I don't know about you, but whether you're talking about politics or anything else, you get a little weary of people who succumb to external pressures and wind up ever saying what you want them to say. Now, as we approach the third chapter of Daniel, we're going to meet three young men who functioned on internal principle and they didn't really care what the external pressure was. And as followers of Jesus Christ, I think we have a lot to learn from these three young men. I want you to see yourself here. I'm not so concerned that you see Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego as that you see you here and that you see how you would respond in a similar situation.

I've been filtering that through my own mind now for several weeks. And I really want to put myself in the sermon and I want you to put yourself in the sermon because that is the only thing that's going to make it meaningful for you. It doesn't really matter that these three Hebrew young men did what they did. It doesn't really matter to us today unless there is something here that we have gained personally in the way we confront the world. Do we put God first? Do we put His Word first?

Do we do what we do based entirely upon internal principle or do we vacillate and compromise and act on external pressure? Now, the story unfolds with eight key features. The flow of the text is a narrative text and it flows from the ceremony to the command to the conspiracy to the coercion to the courage, the consequences, the companion, and the commendation.

First of all, the ceremony. Look back at verses 1 to 3. We've already discussed them, but just to remind you, Nebuchadnezzar the king, he's the king of Babylon where these young men, Hebrew young men, have been taken captive along with all that was left of the nation of Judah. And Nebuchadnezzar the king made an image of gold whose height was three score cubits and the breadth of it six cubits, that's 90 feet high and nine feet wide.

He set it up in the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon. And then Nebuchadnezzar the king sent to gather together the princes, the governors, the captains, the judges, the treasurers, the counselors, the sheriffs, and all the rulers of the provinces to come to the dedication of the image which Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up. And 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. And they stood before the image that Nebuchadnezzar had set up. And what you have here is Nebuchadnezzar making an image, a massive statue to himself, identifying himself if you will as a god, and demanding that all of the highest ranking people in the Babylonian empire fall down and worship him. And as I told you before, the gold that represented Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel's vision of the four world empires captivated his thinking, no doubt, and so he decided to make a massive statue all of gold to his own glory. And it sort of symbolizes the monarch and his empire embodied into one great reality and he wanted everyone to bow down and worship him. Nebuchadnezzar was simply doing what all men tend to do who don't know God, that is they worship themselves. They invent gods of their own thinking to fit their own mind and their own attitude. And having established this great idol and demanded that everybody worship it, this brought these three Hebrew young men into a very chilling decision.

Because they knew the law of God regarding idolatry and they knew what it was to set up graven images and how heinous it was to the mind of God, they knew that it was unacceptable and they knew they faced the reality of making a decision. Now, we move from the ceremony to the command in verse 4. Then an herald cried aloud, to you it is commanded, O people, nations and languages.

Now let me just give a footnote there. People, nations and languages is just a common form of address to speak of a conglomerate of people. It is used again in the same chapter in verse 7. It is used again, I think it's over in verse 29. Yes, people, nation and languages, it's used in chapter 4.

People, nation, languages in verse 1. It's used again, I think it's in chapter 6. It's just a way of sort of a common way of addressing any conglomerate assembly of people. And so he calls together all of this conglomerate and he gives them a command.

And what is it? It's in verse 5. That at that time, and that means at that precise moment, he wants absolute submission in absolute precision at a very exacting moment. At that moment that you hear the sound of the horn, the pipe, the lyre, the sackbut, the psaltery, the dulcimer, and all kinds of music, ye fall down and worship the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king hath set up. Now apparently this guy had a royal orchestra with all of this stuff playing together, some no doubt sensual music to try to draw everybody's attention to the image and cause them to bow down. It is kind of interesting to note that you have both wind and string instruments here. There is the horn and there is the pipe and that means a flute. And then, by the way, the horn had a lower sound and the flute had a higher sound. And then you have a lyre, L-Y-R-E, which is a harp and this was a smaller harp with high sounds.

And then there is the sackbut which is very difficult to ascertain. And then there is a psaltery and that is a harp with a sounding board. A lyre was a high sounding harp and a psaltery was a low sounding harp. And then there was a dulcimer and believe it or not that is basically a bagpipe. And then all kinds of music with all these instruments was the cue.

When the music started everybody was instantly to fall down and worship the image. Now frankly people, this guy's really got an incredible ego. He's got the whole nation gathered together, all of the leading dignitaries. He's called out the royal orchestra. They're all ready to go and when they hit their cue everybody is supposed to bow down to his massive image. All right, then the consequences come in verse 6, and whoever falleth not down and worshipeth shall the same hour be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace.

Now I don't know what it could be except a burning fiery furnace if it was a fiery furnace, so we assume that the burning is set there for the intensification. So you'll understand that it's a superlative approach that he makes. Anybody who refuses to bow down constitutes a treasonous act and will be thrown into the fiery furnace. If you're standing in opposition to the greatness of Nebuchadnezzar, that's all for you. Well, most people respond to external circumstances and external pressure. They conform to whatever is required of them rather than internal principle.

So verse 7 says, Therefore at that time, that precise moment, when all the people heard the sound of the horn, the pipe, the lyre, the sack, but the soldery and all kinds of music, all the people, the nations and the languages, there they are again, fell down and worshiped the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up. Now you want to meet a pile of non-thinking, intimidated people, that's them. Typical approach to life. You do whatever you need to do to get whatever you need to get.

Living on the lowest level, compromising internal principle based on external pressure. Men invariably bow to the system. They bow to the powers that be. They do whatever they have to do.

Afraid to lose their position, and so they compromise. But it doesn't tell us, but we know that in the white spaces here, something else was going on. Everybody was down except three guys, and boy would they ever stick out.

They didn't go down. And so we moved from the ceremony to the command to the conspiracy in verse 8. The conspiracy.

Now watch this. Wherefore, at that time, certain Chaldeans came near and accused the Jews. There were probably as many as 75 at least young men who were taken from the court of Judah to the court of Babylon to be trained to work in that court in the matter of Jewish affairs. But out of all of the 75, and that's just a kind of an educated guess, it could have been more or a few less, but out of all of these young men that were taken into captivity who were the sons of the royalty of Judah, only four of them ever are presented as uncompromising. Daniel and his three friends. And so we assume that the rest of them just hit the deck with everybody else.

They were going to buy the bag, accommodate themselves. They were moving up in the system, and they weren't about to give themselves problems, and so they just followed along. But apparently from the indication of verse 8, there were these three that did not. And may I hasten to add that they were probably about 20 years of age. They were very young.

Tremendous conviction for men so young. Now I want you to notice in verse 8 a very important word. Chaldeans. The Chaldeans had been kind of the mainstay of Babylonian culture and hierarchy. But when these three young men had shown such great character, and when Daniel had been able to interpret Nebuchadnezzar's dream, both Daniel and his three friends, remember, got elevated to very high places. And it's very likely that they were even set above the Chaldeans. Look back in chapter 2, verse 49. Daniel requested of the king, and he set Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego over the affairs of the province of Babylon, and Daniel sat in the gate of the king.

Daniel was given a place of, I think at this point we could call it the prime minister of Babylon, and the other three were placed in the leadership of the affairs of Babylon as the province of Babylon. So they had been elevated, and the Chaldeans resented this. They were angry about this. And so it says they accused the Jews. And that's a very interesting word. It means literally to eat the pieces of.

Okay? Hypocratically, they spoke to the king as if they were defending him. They accused the Jews as if to aid the king in finding out if everybody had obeyed. In verse 9, they spoke and said to the king, Nebuchadnezzar, O king, live forever.

Gave him all that flowery jazz that kings like to hear. We're really here, king, just to assure you of our commitment. They were envious of the high positions of these Jewish boys, and they wanted to do all they could to change that, but they came on hypocritically. Verse 10, Thou, O king, hast made a decree, and they go through the whole deal, that every man that shall hear the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, sack, butt, sultry, and dulcimer, and all kinds of music, shall fall down and worship the golden image. And whoever falleth not down and worshipeth, that he should be cast into the midst of a burning, fiery furnace.

And they got it pretty accurate. That's pretty well verbatim what the king said. They reiterated the standard, and then they revealed the real issue in verse 12. There are certain Jews whom thou hast set over the affairs of the province of Babylon, and that's what stuck in their craw.

Chapter 2, verse 49. That is what really aggravated them, that these captive Hebrews would be given such a high-ranking place. Those certain Jews, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, these men, O king, have not regarded thee. They serve not thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up. Slaves, imported hostages, foreigners, and you've made rulers out of them, and they rule over us.

That's what really eats at them. You get a little bit of an insight into the appalling sin of envy. God says, for example, in Proverbs 14, verse 30, A sound heart is the life of the flesh, but envy the rottenness of the bones. J. Allen Blair writes, Envy in the believer is as rotting bones in the sense that spiritual power and usefulness are curtailed. This was the case in the life of Saul. He had been a great king, anointed of God to be the Lord's witness. But because of the sin of envy, Saul's life degenerated into utter uselessness.

Saul heard people singing, Saul hath slain his thousands and David his ten thousands. This was only a song, but it awakened in his heart the wicked passion of envy. Song of Solomon 8, 6 says, jealousy is cruel as the grave. Jealousy and envy is like an acid. It literally corrodes the soul.

It destroys the beauty of the soul like a grave destroys the beauty of the body. And they were being consumed by the sin of envy. And so they bring this to the king.

Now notice that they accuse him of three things. Verse 12, one in the middle of the verse, O king, these men have not regarded thee. First of all, they haven't regarded you. They haven't given attention to you. They haven't responded to you. They haven't given you your due.

That's not true. They had faithfully fulfilled unwritten Scripture in Matthew 22, 21 where our Lord said, render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's and to God the things that are God's. They had unquestionably fulfilled their responsibility to the king insofar as it didn't violate their responsibility to God. They were good citizens. They had responded to the king. Go back to chapter 1. You find out that they had given the king his due.

The second two accusations were true. Verse 12, they serve not thy gods. That was true and they don't worship the image which you set up. Now what's amazing here is this. These three young men knew the price of disobedience. And you have to ask yourself, how could anybody put principle so high that they would literally stand there while the entire mass of people went down, they would stand there resolute, ready to walk into a burning fiery furnace.

Now that's character, people. That's functioning on internal principle, not external pressure. Now you just think about the pressure.

Just think about it. Nebuchadnezzar was their friend. Nebuchadnezzar was their benefactor. Their destiny was in his hands. Resisting Nebuchadnezzar would be utterly useless. They have no other resource. Future advancement in their careers in Babylon were absolutely dependent upon their allegiance. They could have said to themselves, an idol is nothing anyway, so why do we worry about it?

We'll just kneel down with everybody else only we'll pray to the true God. They could have said, everybody's doing it. If we're going to reach people, we've got to be part of them. They could have said, well, you know, the fire tends to be fatal. And if we're dead, we're not real useful to God.

And we're in such a strategic place, if we get burned up, it's just going to mess up the whole plan. And they also could have thought, well, if we don't bow down, we're going to play into the hands of these jealous Chaldeans. And they may have thought for a moment that death wasn't in their contract. There were lots of things that could have come to bear upon them as pressures. But in spite of all of this, they were resolute and absolutely uncompromising. It's amazing the situation they were in to take such a firm stand. You know, you have to kind of ask yourself the question, if you're in a Nebuchadnezzar situation, why bother about three guys, right?

You got everybody else down, what's the sweat? But have you ever noticed egomaniac can't stand one person that doesn't conform? One person is all it takes to make them literally livid, let alone three. And so Nebuchadnezzar was never satisfied with everybody but three.

Megalomaniacs are never satisfied with anything less than everybody, period. And so the conspiracy. From the conspiracy, we go to the fourth feature in this narrative, the coercion. And by coercion, here we find Nebuchadnezzar confronting the three and trying to coerce them into a response that is more fitting. But we find them to be unshakable.

Notice, we'll read 13 to 15, follow along. Then Nebuchadnezzar in his rage and fury. Now that shows you what kind of a guy he was. Those words are strong words. He is a raving maniac because these three Hebrews won't bow down. You'd have to figure to yourself, you know, all these thousands are down, I'm not going to worry about those three.

I got a pretty good majority going. But not if you're a man like Nebuchadnezzar. He is in an absolute fury and he commands to be brought to him Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And then they brought these men before the king. And Nebuchadnezzar spoke and said unto them, Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego? Do not ye serve my gods nor worship the golden image which I have set up? Notice he dropped the first accusation that they made in verse 12 that he doesn't regard...they don't regard the king because he knew that wasn't true.

So he just dropped that first one. But he said, Is it true that you don't worship and serve my gods and you won't bow down to the golden image? And then he goes through this whole routine again. Now, if you be ready that at that time you hear the sound of the hornpipe, lyre, sackbutt, psaltery, dulce...he must have memorized this speech. And all kinds of music fall down, worship the image which I have made. But if you worship not, you shall be cast in the same hour into the midst of a burning fiery furnace. And then he adds this stupid statement, And who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands? Boy, he's really getting carried away. Who is that God that will deliver you out of my hands? He's got a short memory, this guy. Has he forgotten the same God that was able to reveal dreams and visions? What a maniac. Is it true, he says.

Is this really true? Verse 14, that you won't do this. And in his favor, I guess he is a somewhat just man. He at least gives them a chance to speak for themselves before he throws them in the fiery furnace based on the accusation of the Chaldeans.

I'm sure he knew that they were a little upset about what was going on politically anyway. And his pomp makes him furious and he is white hot at this particular point. And he goes to the point of actually putting himself against God and pitting his power against the power of God. Who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands? Oh, the folly and the stupidity of that kind of pride. When you pit yourself against the eternal God, you have met your match. Had he forgotten that Daniel's God was greater than all the gods of Babylon, including his own gods who couldn't answer his dreams and help him in any way, shape or form? It seems as though the idolatrous fool in the midst of his ego mania had forgotten that. This is Grace to You with John MacArthur.

Thanks for being with us. John is a pastor, author and chancellor of the Masters University and Seminary. His current series from the book of Daniel is titled An Uncompromising Life.

John, today you encouraged listeners to identify any idols that they might have in their lives. And with that in mind, I'm wondering, how can someone know whether he's simply enjoying one of God's good gifts, such as a relationship or a job or a food or a sport? Or if he's turned that gift into an idol? I think the point at which you sacrifice, worship, prayer, study of the Word of God, Christian ministry, service to the Lord, to the church, for something else, is the point at which you've sort of crossed the line. Whether it's a relationship or a job or whether it's something you enjoy recreationally or whether it's a good meal or a game you like to play or a sport you like to watch, that all has a place in life until it begins to encroach upon the priorities. I really don't have time to study the Bible. I really don't have time to spend in prayer before the Lord. I really don't have time for ministry. You know, I really don't have time to go and be faithful every Sunday and teach a Sunday school class and come back on Sunday night to a service and offer maybe a few weeks in the summer for a mission. I'm just too busy.

I've got too many other things. That's when the line has been crossed, and I think we pretty much know that. The conscience of a Christian is God's warning system. If you're feeling guilty about those things, there's probably a reason. Your conscience is accusing you.

How much better to keep all the priorities where they need to be and have a clear conscience? Thanks, John. That's good and practical advice. And friend, with all that there is to learn from the book of Daniel about how to fight idolatry and keep a clean conscience, let me remind you John has written a study guide based on his current series. For personal study or to use in a group setting, pick up the Uncompromising Life Study Guide today.

Our number here, 855GRACE, and our website, gty.org. An Uncompromising Life takes a deep look at all that John is covering in this series, showing you how to stay faithful to God despite the world's constant pressure to tolerate sin. The study guide also includes a question and answer section in each chapter, and it's great material to go through with someone you're discipling or with your Bible study group. To pick up this helpful study guide called An Uncompromising Life, call us at 800-55-GRACE or go to our website, gty.org. And when you visit gty.org, make sure you take advantage of the thousands of free resources you will find there. That includes daily devotionals written by John and 3500 sermons that cover crucial topics like how to pray, the Lord's Supper, facing trials, and so many others.

Again, go to gty.org. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson reminding you that Grace to You Television airs this Sunday. Check your local listings for Channel and Times, and also be here tomorrow when John shows you an amazing and encouraging example of how God protects His children. It's another half hour of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time on Thursday's Grace to You.