Three Boys in a Furnace - Daniel - Part 3

Daniel 3 is probably one of the best known and best loved stories in all the Bible. Almost everybody knows the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego going into the fire. But there's much more here than a simple children's story. I believe there is a powerful message in this chapter for every believer in every age when it comes to the issue of taking a stand of Christ. So let's look at it together. Daniel chapter 3 verse 1. King Nebuchadnezzar made an image of gold 90 feet high and 9 feet wide, and he set it on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon.

Let's stop there for a moment. The time at which the events of chapter 3 take place is not really stated. Most commentators feel that chapters 2, 3, and 4 are in chronological order, and I agree. Chapter 2 verse 1 says that it occurred in the second year of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar or 603 B.C. Chapter 4 doesn't actually say the day in which it happened, but it does say in chapter 4 verse 30, if you'll look there. Chapter 4 verse 30, the king looked out and said, Is this not the great Babylon that I have built as my royal residence by my power and for the glory of my majesty? We know from Babylonian records that Nebuchadnezzar was a great builder.

We're going to talk more about that next week. But we know that most of his building projects were completed at the end of his reign. He spent the beginning of his reign subjecting all the kingdoms of the ancient Near East to him, and in the end of his reign returned home and spent his time building the city. So it's very likely that chapter 4 occurred at the very end of his reign when he was able to stand on the top of his palace and look out over his great project now coming to completion, and therefore probably happened close to his death.

He died in 562 B.C. Now chapter 3 is somewhere in the middle of those two, and it's commonly thought that chapter 3 occurred after the fall of Jerusalem, after the conquering of Tyre and Egypt, since it is at that point that the events of chapter 3 make the most sense. You see, chapter 3 makes sense if you understand that Nebuchadnezzar had a very widely spread out, far flung empire, composed of many kingdoms with differing languages, differing cultures, differing religions, and that he felt that now something was necessary to pull them all together, keep them all unified, keep them all marching to the beat of the same drummer, and what that was was a state religion with its center in Babylon and around King Nebuchadnezzar. And so in chapter 3 the purpose of this image is to set up a central state religion to which people from all over the empire would be drawn with loyalty, they would come to Babylon to worship, and it would knit his empire together.

Assuming that that's right, we're probably looking at a date here sometime after the fall of Jerusalem, and that's important because it figures into the story in just a moment. So Nebuchadnezzar decides to build a huge statue to himself, 90 feet high, 9 feet wide, made of gold. Whether it was made of solid gold or not, we don't know. It's very likely it was wood overlaid with gold, but that's still a lot of gold even if you're just overlaying it over wood. And the reason he probably made it a gold statue is because of Daniel's interpretation of the dream in chapter 2 when Daniel said to him, you, O king, are the head of gold. And he probably took from that, well, gee, if I'm the head of gold, I'll make a whole statue of myself out of gold.

So we did. And he sets it up in the plain of Durov, outside the city of Babylon, a large level plain, obviously because he expected people to be coming from all over the empire and gathering here, and he knew they couldn't fit inside the city, so he put them outside in the plain. He expected this place to kind of be like a Babylonian Mecca, you know what I'm saying? People from everywhere would come, so he put it in the plain.

Now let's go on and see what happened. Verse 2. And he summoned all of his governors, and I'm not going to read all the words for them, y'all can read that, and he said, I want you to come to the dedication of the image I've set up. So the satraps and the prefects and the governors and all those guys came. Verse 4. And the herald loudly proclaimed, this is what you're commanded to do, O people, as soon as you hear the sound of the horn and the flute and the zither and the lyre and the pipes and the da da da da. By the way, it's kind of interesting, when we did this book in graduate study, these words might sound like they don't make any difference to you, but we had to memorize all these dumb words for all these flutes and horns and pipes and all this stuff. And I still remember that.

Well, anyway, forget it. But anyway, you have to fall down when you hear the music from the band, and what you have to do is you have to worship the image of gold that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up. Whoever does not fall down and worship will immediately be thrown into the blazing furnace. Therefore, as soon as they heard the sound of the horn, the flute, the zither, the lyre, the harp, and all this other stuff, they all fell down and worshiped the image of gold Nebuchadnezzar had set up. Nebuchadnezzar calls people from all over his empire to come, the leaders of the empire, not just the people, because he knew if he could convince the leaders, they would go home and convince the people. And this worship would feed down through the rest of the empire. And he told them, he said, this is a command performance for everybody who's in authority in my empire.

You better be here. And when I blow the horns, everybody gets on their knees and we worship. And a little wrinkle appears here, and that is this furnace. He didn't tell them the furnace was there when he invited them. But he had also built a furnace outside near the statue. And he apparently anticipated, maybe not everybody might be excited about bowing down. So he built this little furnace and he had it heated up.

It was nice and hot on the day they gathered there. And he said, by the way, it's either worship or fry. That's it. Worship or we'll cook you like a scrambled egg.

It's up to you. Well, no wonder verse 7 says, therefore, in light of that choice, when they blew the horns, everybody got down. Verse 8, now at that time, some astrologers came forward and told and denounced the Jews. And they said to King Nebuchadnezzar, King, you've issued a decree that everyone who hears the sound of the horn and the flute and the zither and the line of heart, they got to fall down and worship the image of Golan. Whoever does not worship will be thrown in the furnace. But there are some Jews whom you have set over the affairs of the province of Babylon, some of the leaders of your very home city. And they don't pay any attention to you, King. They won't serve your gods and they won't worship the image of gold you set up. Now, reading between the lines a little bit, I get the feeling these guys were a little jealous.

You get that feeling? And so they become tattletales. They knew Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego hadn't shown up. They were looking for them to see what they were going to do.

And when they didn't show up, they ran to the king and they said, King, King, King, they didn't come. They didn't bow down. Because, of course, you know how it works in political circles.

Everybody above you, you can bump off and one more position opens for you. And so that's, we live in Washington, don't we? We understand that. And that's the way it was. Now, you might ask, where was Daniel? Well, we don't know where Daniel was. The Bible doesn't say where he was. Some people have theorized Daniel was out of town on some mission of state because he was a very high official and maybe he was out of town. But we know if he had been in town, we know he wouldn't have bowed down. But he wasn't here. But Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were here and they didn't even come.

They skipped the command performance. They didn't show up. Well, the king, to put it mildly, went ballistic. Look at verse 13. Furious with rage. And Nebuchadnezzar is not the guy you want to make man.

Furious with rage. Nebuchadnezzar summoned in Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And they came in before the king.

And Nebuchadnezzar said to them, is it true, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that you don't serve my gods or worship the image of gold that I set up? Don't you understand how this is, don't you understand what the rules were here? Maybe you didn't get it. Maybe the word didn't get to you.

Maybe, since you are foreigners, you don't understand. So let me explain this to you one more time. When I read this, I got to thinking, many of you have seen the movie on television, Cool Hand Luke. And do you remember where the fellow stands up and says, what we have here is a failure to communicate.

And that's what I thought of when I read this. Nebuchadnezzar says, folks, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, what we have here is a failure to communicate. Let me tell it to you one more time, guys. Watch. He says, when you hear the sound, verse 15, of the horn and the flute, the zither and the lyre, and the harps and the pipes, if you're ready to fall down and worship the image, that's great.

But if you don't, I'm going to throw you into the blazing furnace. But God is there who's going to be able to deliver you from my hand. Eyeball to eyeball, Nebuchadnezzar repeats to them what he's looking for. And that represented a real challenge to these men. Remember, they were kingdom officials. Nebuchadnezzar had been very kind and very generous to these men. They had comfortable positions of ease. They had positions of power.

They were eating good food. They were living high on the hog. They knew that God had chosen Nebuchadnezzar to be the ruler of the Near East at that time. If you go back in Daniel 2, verse 37 and 38, you'll hear Daniel himself say that God made Nebuchadnezzar the king and put all kingdoms under his control. And they knew they were under obligation from God to obey this ruler that God had put in control. But they also knew God's word. And they also knew that one of the Ten Commandments said, commandment number two, you shall have no other gods before me, you shall not make for yourselves any carved image, nor shall you bow down to them, nor shall you serve them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God.

They knew that too. This always had been one of God's most fundamental commandments. So what Nebuchadnezzar was asking them to do was in direct violation of one of the most sacred laws of the word of God. And as a result, they decided that, as Peter said 600 years later, we must obey God rather than men. And they said, we're not going to bow down, verse 16. They said, King, you can do whatever you want to do. And we don't even care if you throw us in the fire. But we are not bowing down.

That's it, period. Now, for an aside for a minute, it might be asked how in the world Nebuchadnezzar could make a statement like, what God is there, verse 15, who can deliver you out of my hands? I mean, if you go back to Daniel chapter two, in the end of the chapter, you'll see that the same Nebuchadnezzar said in verse 47, he said, surely your God is the God of God and the Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries. Now, how could the guy who said that about Jehovah God turn around and say a chapter later, what God is there who could possibly deliver you?

It doesn't seem like it could come from the same man. But listen, remember I said that the date of chapter three helps us understand why he did this? Chapter three, if we've dated it correctly, takes place after Nebuchadnezzar had captured and burned Jerusalem to the ground.

Nebuchadnezzar destroyed the city, he looted it and he destroyed the temple. Now, in the ancient Near East, it was believed that when one nation defeated another nation in battle, it was because the gods of the victorious nation were greater than the gods of the defeated nation. That's how they explained battlefield victory. That's how they explained the political movements of warfare, that when we beat you, our gods are greater than your gods. You remember when Elisha kept telling the king of Israel where the Syrians were and they would go out and ambush them and they'd beat them in the hill country and the Syrians would say, well, it's because the gods of the hill country are greater than our gods, we'll go down and fight them in the plain and then they'd beat them in the plain and they'd say, well, the gods of the plain must be greater than our gods, we'll take them somewhere else.

This is how they fought. So listen, Nebuchadnezzar has beaten Jerusalem. He has burned God's temple and so as far as he's concerned, that's proved positive, his gods and he must be greater than the god of Israel or otherwise how could it have happened? The idea that the god of Israel was disciplining his people and using Nebuchadnezzar as the tool of that discipline and was in control the whole time, that never occurred to Nebuchadnezzar. So Nebuchadnezzar, I believe, meant what he said in Daniel chapter 2, but many years later, he obviously has reevaluated his position on the god of Israel and concluded that Daniel 2 was a fluke and that the god of Israel really was inferior to his gods and so God decides it's time to give all Nebuchadnezzar a refresher course in who God is. That's how I understand it. Now, let's see what happened.

Well, I think we know the end of the story, but let's look at it. Verse 19, And so Nebuchadnezzar was furious with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and his whole countenance changed toward him. And you can just see him getting red in the face and just trembling.

He's so mad, he just doesn't know what to do. And he ordered the furnace to be heated up seven times hotter than usual. He said, you turn that furnace to broil past 550 and that's what they did. And then he said, now you tie these men up and he gave it to his strongest soldiers and he said, you take Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego out there and you throw them in that furnace.

And so they did. And it says the furnace was so hot, verse 22, that the flames killed the men who took Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to throw them in. When they got close enough to actually throw them in, it was so hot that those men died and into the furnace when Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Well, verse 24, King Nebuchadnezzar leaped to his feet to see what was going to happen and he said, didn't we throw three men in the fire? You know, one, two, three, three guys, Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego. They said, oh yes, King, you're right about that, you can count, absolutely, one, two, three. And he said, well look, I see four men walking around, unbound, no ropes on them.

Remember, they tied Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego up. He said, they got no ropes on them, unharmed, and the fourth one looks like a son of the gods. Now, some people have argued whether this was Jesus Himself, because some translations will say, looks like the Son of God. I'm not really sure that Nebuchadnezzar would have known what the Son of God looked like, frankly. But the correct translation is the way the NIV does it. He looks like a son of the gods, meaning some kind of angelic being, probably an angel sent by God to protect these three men, and obviously we are dealing with nothing short of a miracle here.

There's no other way to explain it, no other way to define it. God was in absolute control of where that fire went and what it did. Would you notice the fire burned the ropes off the men's hands and feet, but didn't touch the men. Didn't burn their clothes. Didn't He make them smell like fire?

When I mess with the fireplace, I'll come away and my wife will go, mmm, smell like you knew near that fire. I wasn't even in it. I was just near it. These guys were in it. Nothing.

Amazing. So God protected His servants because they stood up firmly for Him and His truth, and God has done that for people in every age. He did it for Mordecai when Haman was after him, didn't He? Mordecai said, I will not bow down to you, Haman.

I don't care what you do. And Haman came after him with everything he had. Who did God protect?

Mordecai. And remember Moses and Pharaoh? God protected Moses. And remember when Joseph stood up to Potiphar's wife and said, I'm not going to do this thing?

Potiphar's wife lied on him and got him in all kinds of trouble. Who did God prosper with Joseph? And when Martin Luther stood up and opposed the Catholic Church and said, No, you don't get saved by buying indulgences. You don't go to heaven by trusting the Pope.

You go to heaven by trusting Christ. You know, for a while, his life was actually in danger. King Frederick of Prussia had to hide him in the castle, under the castle, because they would have killed him if they could have found him. But who did God protect and honor? Martin Luther.

And even today we see it with Randall Terry in Operation Rescue. God protects the people who stand for Him. And God's promise is as good for us as it was for Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. In fact, Isaiah wrote, Thus says the Lord, When you pass through deep waters, I will be with you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned, nor shall the flame kindle upon you. Isaiah 43 2. Since that had been written some 200 years before the events of Daniel 3, I can't prove it, but I like to cherish the notion that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego may very well have known those verses and been reciting them to themselves when they got thrown in that furnace and said, Lord, we're trusting you.

You said the fire wouldn't hurt us, and we're going to see if you're true to your promise. And God was. Now, the story's not quite over.

God saved the best part for last. Look at verse 28. Then Nebuchadnezzar said, Praise be to the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who sent his angel and rescued his servants. They trusted in God, and they defied the king's command, were willing to give up their lives, rather than serve or worship any other god except their own. Therefore, I decree, this is the king now, that the people of any nation or language who say anything against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, or Abednego will be cut into pieces, their houses turned into piles of rubble. This is kind of a macho type guy we're dealing with here.

You get that impression? For no other god can save in this way. I don't think he'd make it in the present-day management system. But anyway, he was running the kingdom in those days. And then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the province of Babylon. And rather, therefore, than going down, they went up because they stood for Christ. Here's what I want you to see in these verses, and that is the final result of these three men standing for Christ was not simply that God rewarded them personally.

He did. But far more important than that is what God did to Nebuchadnezzar. Do you notice that these three boys, they're standing on their feet for Christ, brought Nebuchadnezzar to his knees for Christ.

Do you see what happened? The real aim of this miracle, I believe, was to convert Nebuchadnezzar, and to produce the kind of royal decree that went out all over the empire, bringing glory and honor to the God of Israel. And it all happened because three boys, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, agreed to stand up for Christ. By standing firm for Christ, these three boys gave God a platform upon which he could bring glory to himself, a platform he would never have had if they had just gone along with the tide and refused to stand for the word of God. And this is the deeper reason why God did this miracle. Dear friends, God did not do this miracle just to save three boys.

God did this miracle far more so to bring honor and glory to his name throughout the Babylonian empire. Now, that brings us to the important question for us today, and that is, thank you. So what?

And here's what I'd like to suggest to you. I said at the beginning we needed to answer the question, why should we stand up for Christ when we're faced with the opportunity? Why should we take the consequences that always come?

Here's the answer. We see it right here, because by doing so, we give God a platform upon which he can glorify himself. We give him a platform when we take a stand for Christ and God honors us, as he always does. God gives us a platform to share Christ with unbelievers. God gives us a platform where he can demonstrate his power to deliver.

God gives us a platform upon which we can stand and share Christ with others whenever we take a stand for Christ, humbly, righteously, in a nice way. And our motive is to give God a chance to honor himself. We never have to fear God's not going to come through, because God's highest agenda in the universe is not to take care of you. God's highest agenda in the universe is not to bless you. God's highest agenda in the universe is to bring glory to himself. You give him those kind of platforms, you never have to worry about God letting you down.

God won't let you down. What you are doing is creating a way for God to carry out the greatest agenda he has in the universe, and he'll bless you for giving him the chance to do what he most wants to do in this world. And it doesn't always have to be in mega crises either. There are lots of ways in everyday circumstances in life that we can stand for Christ and give him these kind of chances. It doesn't have to be in these great crises.

It can be in everyday things. My family and I were laughing this past week as we reminisced about just such a challenge that I faced as a Little League coach a few years ago. The team that I was coaching was a T-ball team. We were undefeated. It mattered. You say, it mattered you were undefeated in T-ball? Yes, this was McLean. It matters in McLean.

It doesn't matter anywhere else in the real world, but in McLean, brother, it's competition all the way and everything matters. So we were undefeated. And we were towards the end of the season and we were in a game where we were kind of fighting for our lives. The other team wasn't supposed to be that tough, frankly, but coming into the last inning, we were four runs behind.

Well, we came up, we did a little batting, we cut the lead down to two runs, we had the bases loaded, we had two outs. This really happened. I'm not making this up. And a kid came up to bat whose name was Rory. I'll never forget it. Rory was the precious kid. He was such a precious kid. I don't know about this big, but he was a precious kid.

Sweetest spirit you've ever seen. Now, he's a little heavyset. He's a lot heavyset. Rory wasn't too fast on his feet. I don't think he had more than a single all year. His batting average wasn't the greatest.

But what a sweet kid he was. And he came up to bat. Anyway, I put him right up there to bat and he hit the ball farther, drove it into the outfield. I've never seen a kid hit that ball that far in practice anywhere. Drove the thing in the outfield, cleared the bases. Rory even got the second. He got the second. That's how far he hit the ball, friends.

Unbelievable. And so we won the game. Everybody was jumping up and down and cheering and all the stands and the parents and the coaches. Well, the other coach came up to me and he said, wait a minute, we weren't ready. He said, you quick batted him. We weren't ready. I was out there trying to get my team ready and we weren't ready. You cheated. And my assistant coaches all went crazy. They said, oh, wait a minute, don't tell us that. Hey, buddy, get real. What's your problem?

You're just a bad loser. And they were yelling at him and ragging on him. And he just kept looking to me as the head coach and saying, so you're going to accept the win by cheating? I kept going, well, listen to them.

Listen to my coaches over there. Don't you hear what they're saying? Don't you hear what they're saying?

He kept looking at me and going, so you're going to accept a win by cheating? Suddenly everybody got quiet. Everybody was looking at me.

And by the way, everybody knew I was a preacher. Talk about a challenge. I mean, we're talking undefeated season on the line here, friends. If you've never coached Little League, you're not relating to this story at all.

But if you have, you know what I'm talking about. We're talking undefeated season. We're talking first place in the league on the line. And I said to my coaches, we can't win like this. I don't want to win like this. I said, if God wants us to win, I talked to my coaches like that.

They didn't know Christ. But I said to them anyway, I said, if God wants us to win, Rory will hit another one just like that. That's all. Let's take the playoffs. And they said, you're crazy.

No, I don't want to win like this. So everybody went back to their places. Rory returned to the plate. And I went up to talk to him and I got down right in his face, got down on my knees. I looked him right in the face and I said, Rory, here you are again, son. I said, now I want you to hit that ball. He looked at me right in the face. I'll never forget it. And he said, coach, he said, I don't think I can hit another one like that.

And I said to him, Rory, I don't want to hear you say that, son. You hit that last one, didn't you? Now you hit another one. You saw what you did last time. Now don't you tell me you can't hit another ball like that. You get it right up there and you hit that ball, son.

If you did it once, you can do it again. OK, coach. And I walked away and I looked up to the Lord and I said, Lord, I'm not sure he can hit another one like that either. I'm honestly not. Lord, help that kid, please.

Because I didn't know if he could either. Well, friends, sometimes there is joy in Mudville. You know what I'm saying? Sometimes it happens.

And wouldn't you know it? That kid hit the second ball farther than he hit the first ball. I couldn't believe it. I stood there and just looked up in heaven and said, oh, Jesus, aren't you good? Thank you, God.

God bless you. I could not believe it. He still only got a double, but he did clear the bases. And we won the game. And we went undefeated. And at our post-season victory bash that we had at one of the parent's house, when I was called upon by the parents to say a few words, you know, as the coach gets to come up and say a few words, I was able to recall to their mind that event. I said, hey, you know, we wouldn't be undefeated.

You all remember when? And I went through the story. And I got the tremendous opportunity to say to them, you know what?

You know why I did that? I know you all didn't agree with me, but I did that because I know there's a living God. And I knew if we did what was right, God would honor us. And then I went on to share a little bit about my testimony and challenge these children and their parents to trust Christ. And the neat thing is, because I had done what was right, because I had taken the high road, so to speak, man, you talk about a platform, you talk about a platform, you talk about some credibility to share Christ. I would never have had that kind of platform if I'd opted for the cheap way, the easy way. Yeah, God honored and the result was the same. We were still undefeated.

But you know what? Even if we'd have lost the game, I'd have still had a platform. And really, isn't having a platform more important than whether you win the game? I would have had a platform.

I never would have gotten any other way. And friends, what I'm trying to say to you is it doesn't have to be in major world crises that we talk about taking a stand for Christ. We can take a stand for Christ even in the little things of life when we refuse to do things that we know just are displeasing to God. And the highest reason to take a stand for Christ is not simply because God will bless you. That's not the highest reason.

God will. But the highest reason is because it gives God a chance to create a platform on which we can bring honor to Christ and share Christ, just like these boys did with Nebuchadnezzar, just like I was able to do with that Little League team, just like you're able to do with the students in your school and the people in your office and the neighbors in your neighborhood and the relatives in your family. Well, when you take a stand, you create a platform. That's why God sometimes leads us into these challenges, because He wants us to have the joy of creating platforms so we can share Christ, and He always blesses. The next time you're faced with this kind of challenge, like our friends Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were, the challenge of standing up for Christ, do it.

Don't worry about the cost. Do it. Remember, God's trying to give you a platform, and if you'll take it, God won't let anything happen to you. He'll protect you. Remember, it's better to be in the furnace with Jesus than it is to be in the palace with Nebuchadnezzar, if the only way you could get there was to not stand up for Christ. Go in the furnace. Jesus will be with you.

You don't have anything to fear. Be willing to go in the furnace, and God will honor you, and God will use you, and God will give glory for Himself, which is really the most important thing. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your Word tonight.

Thank you for challenging our hearts with the lives of Shadrach and Meshach and Abednego. Lord Jesus, remind us that the reason you give us these opportunities to take a stand is not just so you can bless us, or not so you can embarrass us, Lord, or not so you can try our faith, although all those things happen. But the first and foremost reason is because you're trying to give us that blessed opportunity to create a platform of credibility where the living God can be seen through the stands for Christ that we take. Lord, help us take our stands lovingly, not obnoxiously. Help us take our stands tenderly, not offensively. But help us take our stand on those things where we know you don't want us to give ground. Lord Jesus, help us remember your Word that when we pass through the waters, they won't overflow us. When we go through the fire, it won't burn us, because you'll be there to hold our hand like you were for Shadrach and Meshach and Abednego. This week, dear Lord, every single one of us is going to have at least one chance to stand up to you.

Help us be sensitive to it, help us take it, and help us take it for the right reason. And that is so we're creating an opportunity for you to get glory for yourself. Use us this week, Lord, as a result to bring honor to your name. We pray in Jesus' name. And all God's people said, amen. Amen.