Daniel 3 - Babylon & Beyond

Welcome to the Willington Church podcast. At Willington Church, we exist to follow Jesus Christ personally and carry on his ministry. You're listening to our Sunday sermon podcast. You can watch our full services over on YouTube. We have arrived in Daniel chapter 3, Shadrach, Me, Shack, a Bendigo in the fiery furnace. Daniel 3 is one of those stories that you might think you already know. But I think the real questions here are much bigger than how three guys survive a fiery furnace, and so that's what we're going to be looking at today. Here's how I want to look at it. Let's talk about the demand for allegiance, the freedom of faith, and third, finding God in the fire. Here's our outline for the timer together in God's word today. Demand for allegiance, the freedom of faith and finding God in the fire. I want you to look back at verse 1 of the text with me. It says, "King Nebuchadnezzar made an image of gold whose height was 60 cubits and its breadth six cubits, and he set it up on the plane of Dura in the province of Babylon." In Daniel chapter 2, it's revealed that it is God who sets up kings and removes kings, and it is God who is one day going to set up an eternal kingdom that will never be destroyed. That language of set up. Daniel chapter 2, here in Daniel chapter 3, it says Nebuchadnezzar sets up an image, and the contrast and the repetition is making a point. Notice this in the text as we keep reading. We want to notice these things in the text as scripture, verse 2. Then King Nebuchadnezzar sent to gather the sat traps, the prefects, the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the justices, the magistrates, and all the officials of the provinces to come to the dedication of the image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. Then the sat traps, the prefects, the governors, the counselors, the treasurers. I want to apologize right now to the translation team. I want to apologize at the speed with which I want to read this text. I will slow down. Then the sat traps, the prefects, the governors, the counselors, treasurers, the justices, the magistrates, and all the officials of the provinces gathered for the dedication of the image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. And they stood before the image that Nebuchadnezzar had set up. And the herald proclaimed aloud, "You are commanded O people's nations and languages that when you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, bagpipe, and every kind of music, you are to fall down and worship the golden image that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up." And whoever does not fall down and worship shall immediately be cast into a burning fiery furnace. Therefore, as soon as all the peoples heard the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, bagpipe, and every kind of music, all the peoples, nations, and languages fell down and worshiped the golden image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. There are some scholars who think there is some humor in this passage. That the repetition is a bit satirical, that they're making fun of Nebuchadnezzar a little bit. All I know is that six times in seven verses that he has set up the image. And it's used three more times here in chapter three. Okay, the repetition is meant to highlight the theological irony that Nebuchadnezzar is trying to do for himself what Daniel has just told him in chapter two, only God can ultimately do. In Daniel two, Nebuchadnezzar is told the kingdom is only temporary, and here in Daniel three, he is acting like his kingdom is absolute. And that's the point of this 30 meter tall golden image. It symbolizes the unity and the strength of his empire, which is why everyone present, representing everyone in the vast Babylonian empire, it's supposed to bow down and pay homage. Nebuchadnezzar is looking for unquestioned loyalty and devotion. He is demanding here total allegiance to his empire. His plan in setting up this image was to produce some kind of political unity by imposing here this a sacred ideology of the state. It's like a national religion made up by the king that everyone has to follow. Christopher Wright is a commentator on the book of Daniel. He said one king, one empire, one official faith, all symbolized in that massive golden statue. So do you see what King Nebuchadnezzar is doing? He gathers all the people from all the places and all the languages of this vast empire. Notice what he's not doing. He is not telling them that they have to stop worshiping their other gods. He says, "I don't really care about that, but whatever else you worship, you will bow here too." He didn't care who else you worshipped as long as you were willing to pay allegiance to his empire by bowing to the golden image. So when you hear the music fall down and worship the mighty empire or burn your choice. Now Nebuchadnezzar was not the first leader to take a national ideology and sort of stamp it with a divine approval and make people worship his empire. And he certainly is not the last leader who has done this, for instance, in the 1930s. There was a guy in Germany named Baldur von Schirack. He was the guy in charge of the Nazi indoctrination of a generation of children and youth. The so-called Hitler youth were encouraged to worship Hitler. He was presented as a supreme father, an idol, even a god. And that's part of World War II history that you haven't heard before. Just go spend an hour online and it'll blow your mind. A few years before World War II began, Schirack did an interview with a newspaper in London. This is what he said. He said, "One cannot be a good German and at the same time deny God, but an arousal of faith in the eternal German is at the same time an arousal of faith in the eternal God. If we act as true Germans, we act according to the laws of God. Whoever serves Adolf Hitler, the furor serves Germany and whoever serves Germany serves God." Yeah, that's before the war. Nebuchadnezzar was not the last emperor to employ the use of religious language in the service of the empire. See, God is not acknowledged because he is God in what Schirack is saying. God is acknowledged because it helps undergird the goals and the vision of the empire. Religion then is co-opted for the advancement of a state-sponsored agenda. Okay? This is the world Shadrach, me Shack in a Bendigo, are living in. Look at verse 8. "Therefore at that time certain caldienns came forward and maliciously accused the Jews. They declared to King Nebuchadnezzar, 'Oh, King lived forever. You, O King, have made a decree that every man who hears the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, bagpipe, and every kind of music shall fall down in worship the golden image. And whoever does not fall down in worship shall be cast into a burning fiery furnace. There are certain Jews whom you have appointed over the affairs of the province of Babylon, Shadrach, Me Shack, and a Bendigo. These men, O King, pay no attention to you. They do not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up." Now remember, Shadrach, Me Shack, and a Bendigo are as fully engaged serving the one true God in Babylon as they possibly can be while still remaining totally faithful to the one true God. They received the Babylonian education. They got the Babylonian haircut. They got their Babylonian names. They worked in the Babylonian government on Babylonian affairs in the place where God had sent them into exile. We see it in Jeremiah chapter 29 where the prophet Jeremiah is speaking to the people in exile and he tells them to put down roots in the city where God has sent them into exile and to seek the welfare of the city where they have been sent into exile. This is the way that Shadrach, Me Shack, and a Bendigo are seeking to live, engaged but faithful to God. But they would not give to Nebuchadnezzar their ultimate loyalty and the allegiance that they could give to God and God alone. Again, Christopher Wright says they would serve the state under God but they would not serve the state as if it were God. So despite the accusations toward them, they are not being hostile to Babylon. They are being faithful to God. I think that's an important distinction. And maybe some of you who live in our Our world today would agree. They were not being hostile to Babylon, they were being faithful to God. They were saying we will serve Babylon, but we will not worship Babylon. And that's the pressure of the dilemma that they are in. They can conform with the crowd or they can be incinerated in the furnace. The choice in front of them is bow or burn, verse 13. And Nebuchadnezzar, in a furious rage, commanded that Shadrach, me, Shach, and Abednego be brought. So they brought these men before the king. Nebuchadnezzar answered and said to them, is it true, oh, Shadrach, me, Shach, and Abednego, that you do not serve my gods or worship the golden image that I have set up? Now, if you are ready, when you hear the sound of the hornpipe, lyre, trigon, harp, bagpipe, and every kind of music to fall down and worship the image that I've made, well and good. But if you do not worship, you shall immediately be cast into a burning fiery furnace. And who is the god who will deliver you out of my hands? He calls them on the carpet before him. And he says, this is what's going on. Who's going to help you? Who's going to deliver you out of my hands? Nebuchadnezzar sets up the image of gold. Nebuchadnezzar demands the allegiance of all the people. And now we begin to see what sits underneath it all, the foundation of it. See, Nebuchadnezzar wants them to believe that he determines their future, and he wants them to believe that their life is in his hands. They can bow down and live, or they can refuse, and burn. From Nebuchadnezzar's perspective, this is an easy decision. He assumes that once the furnace gets hot enough, the threat of losing everything is going to settle the question. But it doesn't. Because these three young men are free in a way that Nebuchadnezzar can't possibly understand. We've talked about the demand for allegiance, but number two, the freedom of faith. The freedom of faith, number two. So there's a king. He's frothing at the mouth in anger, verse 13 says, he's in a furious rage. He's saying, verse 15, "If you are ready to fall down and worship the image that I've made well and good, but if you do not worship, you shall immediately be cast into a burning fiery furnace, and who is the God who will deliver you out of my hands?" What do the three young men say to him? We have no need to answer you in this matter. Could you imagine? The most powerful guy in the empire comes in and he goes, "Hey, if you don't worship, you shall immediately be cast into the burning fiery furnace, and who is the God who will deliver you out of my hands?" Then they go, "We don't need to answer you in this." I think that's crazy, except for their faith. See, it would be more cinematic if they had blue paint on their face like William Wallace in Braveheart, right? Shadrach, Meshach, and Abendigo got painted up and then they're riding horseback in front of the troops, trying to rile them all up and they're going, "Oh, they can take our life, but they could never take our freedom." It'd be more cinematic. I haven't seen the Daniel film, I'm not sure how they do this, but we don't need a battle cry. Church, followers of Jesus, we don't need a battle cry. This is the quiet confidence of faith. This is what the freedom of faith looks like, we have no need to answer you in this matter. Verse 16, "Shadrach, Meshach, and Abendigo answered and said to the king, "Oh, Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter." Here's what they say, "If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O King. But if not, be it known to you, O King, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up." It's their answer. God is able, they don't doubt the power of God to deliver them. They go, "God can do it." They also know that God's ability to deliver them does not obligate him to deliver them. Then they say, "So if not, no matter what's going to come, we're not going to bow." That's why I call this the freedom of faith. Their obedience was settled before the trial came, and their obedience was settled before the outcome was known, and that's what makes them free. Their answer is, "God could save us," and he might, but if not, we'll worship him anyway. How can you take from a person who believes that? That's freedom. They decided, "Do you see this?" They decided how to handle this trial back in chapter 1 when they said to the King, "We're not going to eat your food." They already decided they were going to be faithful. They're like one day there's going to be some kind of trial that comes, maybe didn't see a fiery furnace coming, but hey, and our faithfulness is going to be tested. Let's just coven it together, brothers. We're going to be faithful when that day comes. They decided way before this occurrence, way before these circumstances, they decided they would be faithful, so Nebuchadnezzar in the story he thinks he's got them, right? How and live or refuse and die, but they choose a third way that he could never have understand it. Their pathway forward is obey God and trust him with the consequences and the outcome. The freedom of genuine faith is to know that God is able to deliver, but if he doesn't, but he's still worthy of your faithful worship and obedience, church, that's good theology right here in Daniel from Shadrach, Meshach, in a bendigo. He's able, but if he doesn't, I'm going to worship him in many ways. Now, here's where we need to be really careful about how we read this. And we read this story. When we read this story, when you hear it read this morning, who do you identify within this story? All right, Shadrach, Meshach, in a bendigo, right? Of course, all of us do, I think. They're the faithful ones, Babylon is the scary empire, right, compromised culture, Nebuchadnezzar's bad guy, Shadrach, Meshach, in a bendigo, they're the faithful ones. That's who we are in the story. Everybody else bows down, they stand up, and that's how most of us see ourselves, and that's not necessarily bad, and I'm going to get there in this sermon, but I think that might be the wrong instinct for us to start there. There's a guy named John Golden Gay. He wrote a really fantastic commentary on Daniel, and he said something in that commentary that's just messed up my whole week, so I'm going to mess your week up. He says, "When we read this story, we need to maybe not be so quick to identify ourselves with Shadrach, Meshach, in a bendigo, but realize that maybe there's a little more Nebuchadnezzar in us than we like to admit." I read that, and I thought, "Let's close the book." I don't want to read anymore, because he's right. Nebuchadnezzar basically says, "I'm in control, I'm the one in power, I've made plans, I have set up the future, everyone and everything needs to realign to accommodate the way that I want things to go, and if you don't do what I want, the way that I want, and you're going to become a problem, the solution is, I'll cut you off." Nebuchadnezzar has set up a physical idol that represents all of that, all of that thinking and heart posture. He demands now that everybody else bows down and worships, and when he doesn't get what he wants, he flies into a rage and puts people to death. Now, every, you have to see this, every physical idol is the manifestation or externalization of an inner idol of the heart. See, before Nebuchadnezzar built a 90-foot tall, 30-meter tall golden image, before he did that, that was in his heart. I'm going to build something to make everyone bow down to it, okay? Every bit of that kind of idol is a manifestation and externalization of an inner idol that we have in our hearts, okay? Elise Fitzpatrick says it like this, "Itals aren't just stone statues, no, idols are the loves, thoughts, desires, longings, and expectations that we worship in the place of the true God. they are the. the things that we invest our identity in. They are what we trust. Idols cause us to disregard our heavenly Father in search of what we think we need. Our idols are our loves gone wrong. All those things we love more than we love Him. The things we trust for our righteousness or okness. So Nebuchadnezzar has decided what he needs for this world, what he wants this world to do and be, he's decided what he needs to be ok in the world. And he's set it up and now everybody else needs to bow down. And sometimes that's what we do. We have a form of an externalization in our life of something that we are highly committed to and when nobody else aligns themselves with us on that or tolerates the thing that we think is the most important thing in the world. We then say functionally you need to bow down to this thing that I've set up. It's an externalization of my inner heart, posture and idol and you need and they go no then we go well then you're done. So sometimes that's what we do. Other times we're not like Nebuchadnezzar. Other times we're like the crowd. Right? The music starts and everyone around us bows down in conformity to the demands that have been decreed and we do too. And then we say why? Well in the moment we counted the cost and we decided that faithfulness might cost us something that in the moment we just weren't willing to lose. And those are basically two sides of the same coin. What one says I will make everyone else bow down to the future that I want. The other says I will bow down to secure and preserve the future that I want. Control will get me the future that I want or compromise will get me the future that I want. To use Elise Fitzpatrick's language when we begin to demand a certain kind of compliance to our plans what we're saying is I will be okay when blank okay and we got to fill in that blank. I will be okay when I get the promotion and until I get the promotion we're all going to bow down to that and my career trajectory will become the functional thing and all of my relationships that everybody else is just going to have to bow down to. I will be okay when I get the date. It's a good thing just don't make it a god thing. I will be okay when I get the house. I will be okay when I have enough. I will be okay when I am in control of my future. We all have different ways we fill in the blank. Now on the other side of the coin if we're willing to compromise to secure a certain kind of future what we're saying is is I can't afford to lose blank. I can't afford to lose the promotion. I can't afford to lose the relationship. I can't afford to lose the opportunity therefore I will compromise myself and what I believe because I can't afford to lose this. I can't afford to lose my comfort. I can't afford to lose my security. So I will do whatever it takes to keep it. See whatever we put in the blank of those sentences has a massive amount of power over us because once you have decided that you have to have something or that you can't live without something then you have you'll do almost anything to get it and you'll do almost anything to keep it. See sometimes we're tempted to act like little Nebuchadnezzars just with a less powerful army, right? Everyone's going to bow down to the future that I've envisioned and I want. We just don't have people who throw people in the fire, right? We can do this and sometimes we're tempted to act like the crowd, right? We just I'm going to go along to get along. Okay now that's why we need more than an example of faithfulness. We need somebody who has been faithful for us. Okay I want us to be like Shadrach Meshak in a bend ago but we can only do that when we first see that their faithfulness is pointing forward to Jesus' faithfulness. Nebuchadnezzar told them to bow down and worship the image that he made. 600 years later in the temptation of Christ and the wilderness Satan came and said bow down and worship me and I'll give you the kingdoms of this world. In a sense Satan was trying to tell Jesus that he could have the crown without going through the cross if he would just bow down and give his allegiance to him and Jesus did not. Later on the night before Jesus is crucified Jesus is in the garden of Gethsemane. He's praying, do you know how he prays? Mark's Gospel chapter 14 verse 36 and he said, "Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me, yet not what I will but what you will." Do you notice the similarity? Just like Shadrach and Meshak in a bend ago Jesus knows that God is able to deliver but even if he doesn't that he is still worthy of obedience. Shadrach, Meshak and a bend ago are willing to die rather than bow down and be unfaithful to God. Guess what? Jesus wasn't willing to bow down and be unfaithful to God but he was still willing to die. Faithful. Jesus is the faithful one who never bowed to anyone but God who died for us who have been unfaithful. Every single human being has been unfaithful to God. The scripture calls it sin and we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. See we're going to talk about finding God in the fire of your trials and circumstances and I want us to get there but before you are able to find God in the fire with you you have to see that God went through the fire for you. See Daniel 3 is not just an encouragement for unfaithful people to be more faithful in their own strength. In the same way as Jesus didn't just come to show us what faithfulness looks like. He didn't just come to show us what faithfulness looks like. He came to stand in the place of all of us who have been unfaithful. He takes the place of all of us who have set up idols and he takes the place of all of us who bow down to idols and he takes the cup that we deserve, the cup of the judgment of God for our sin and he drinks it all down. On the cross Jesus experienced the just punishment of what our idolatry deserves so that everyone whoever comes to him by grace through faith that they will never themselves experience that punishment. He stands where we bow. He obeys where we compromise. He takes the judgment we deserve and then he gifts us a new righteousness that we could never on our own have earned. See before you are able to fully find Jesus in the fire of your circumstances with you you have to see that he went through the fire of judgment for you. The demand for allegiance second the freedom of faith and third finding God in the fire. Look back the text with me in verse 19. Then Nebuchadnezzar was filled with fury and the expression of his face was changed against Shadrach, Meshach and Abennego. He ordered the furnace heated seven times more than it was usually heated and he ordered some of the mighty men of his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach and Abennego and to cast them into the burning fiery furnace and these men were bound in their cloaks, their tunics, their hats and their other garments and they were thrown into the fiery furnace because the king's order was urgent and the furnace overheated the flame of the fire killed those men who took up Shadrach, Meshach and Abennego and these three men Shadrach, Meshach and Abennego fell bound into the burning fiery furnace. Then King Nebuchadnezzar was astonished and rose up in haste. He declared to his counselors, "Did we not cast three men bound into the fire?" They answered and said to the king, "True, okay?" He answered and said, "But I see four men unbound walking in the midst of the fire and they are not hurt and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods." To the degree that you understand that Jesus went through the fire of judgment for you, then you will live with a different kind of confidence, understanding that he is currently in the fire with you. We might not have a king like Nebuchadnezzar demanding our allegiance and threatening our lives in the exact same way as Shadrach, Meshach and Abennego, but this kind of pressure to conform to an ideological empire has never. never gone away. Remember, he didn't care. Nebuchadnezzar didn't care who they worshipped as long as they also bowed down in worship to the golden image that he set up that was intended to unite all of the people in his empire. This pattern, you gotta know this, this pattern did not end in Babylon. Hundreds of years later, after the life and the death and the resurrection of Jesus, Christians faced the same kind of pressure under the rule of the Roman Empire. We see this in the book of Revelation. We see this in the church in a city called Smyrna. Jesus said to that church in Revelation chapter two, verse nine, he said, "I know your tribulation." See the confession of the Christian church in the first century. The confession they had was Jesus is Lord. The problem was Rome had its own Lord in cities like Smyrna. And the confession of the Roman citizens in those cities was Caesar is Lord. And the worship of Caesar had been woven into all of public life and it was connected to things like buying and selling in the marketplace. So if you wanted to do business in a city like Smyrna in the Roman Empire, you had to go to the altar and you had to bring with you a pinch of incense that you would then burn on the altar, you would offer a pinch of incense to Caesar and you would confess that Caesar is Lord. Then and only then were you given permission to do business and trade in the marketplace. If you did not burn a pinch of incense to Caesar, you were forbidden from buying, selling, and trading in the marketplace. Jesus says, "I know your tribulation." Tribulation in Revelation 2 verse 9 means something like affliction or really properly crushing pressure. It was a pressure to conform to the patterns of this world and Jesus commanded that church in their faithfulness. See, for the most part, just like in Babylon, people in the Roman Empire didn't care if you worship Jesus as long as you didn't exclusively worship Jesus. That was the thing that made you weird in Babylon and in the Roman Empire. And in care who you worshiped, I didn't care if you worship Jesus as long as you didn't exclusively worship Jesus. So in the Babylonian Empire, you could worship God as long as you still bow down to the golden image that was set up by an Ebuchadnezzar. In the Roman Empire, you could worship Jesus as long as you still burned a little pinch of incense to Caesar. Willington, you gotta hear me. For the most part, our culture today is fine with you worshiping Jesus as long as it's Jesus plus whatever else they demand. Jesus plus bowing down to the golden image in Babylon. Jesus plus burning a pinch of incense to Caesar and Jesus plus affirming a gender ideology that denies biological sex. Jesus plus affirming LGBTQ agendas by attending a parade and wearing a pin in your workplace. Jesus plus participating in maid or abortion so that you don't lose your medical license. Jesus plus affirming or denying whatever the current government says is ideological dogma in order to keep your job in the civil service, which is exactly what happened to Shadrachni Shacken a Bendigo. Now, this is exactly where the gospel empowers us to stand firm. See, if my righteousness is in Christ, then I don't need the approval of others to know that I am okay. And if my future is already secure in the new life that I have in Christ, then I don't need anything more. And I'm not afraid of what I might lose. So medical professionals and teachers and professors and lawyers and artists and psychologists and social workers, all of you who are governed by authorities who declare whether or not you are able to participate in your profession. How you doing? Students, how about you? How about what you feel like you've got a suppress in your coursework so that you can get the internship you want? Bankers and salespeople and tradespeople who are working for corporations who've got different social values and agendas than you. Where are you being asked to burn a pinch of incense to the gods of the age? See church, if you're gonna make it, you need to find God in the fire. You need to see that He's with you. How do we do this? How do we remain faithful? Well, when Jesus was crucified, the disciples went to the tomb on the third day and the stone had been rolled away and Jesus was not there. The disciples were terrified and yet Jesus showed up. Look at John's Gospel, chapter 20, verse 19. On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, "Peace be with you." He came and stood among them. They're afraid, locked doors, Jesus is standing among them. Jesus who has died and been buried and is raised is now standing among them. And when Jesus' church was suffering under the pressure of the Roman Empire, 50 years, 60 years later, it says at the beginning of the book of Revelation in chapter 1, verse 12, that Jesus showed up. It says, "Then I turned to see the voice that was speaking to me and on turning I saw seven golden lampstands and in the midst of the lampstands, one like a son of man." The lampstands are representative of the churches. Smyrna was one of those churches. Jesus is standing there in the midst of the lampstands. The Greek word translated stood among them in John chapter 20, and the Greek word translated in their midst in Revelation 1 is the same word. Now I want to show you something. The Old Testament was translated into Greek before the time of Jesus. And it's what the writers of the New Testament are often quoting. Look at this in Daniel chapter 3, verse 25. He answered and said, "But I see four men unbound, walking in the midst of the fire, and they are not hurt, and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods." It says he's in the midst of the fire with them. It's the same word. He was there in the midst of the fire. He was there in the locked room when they were afraid, and he was there in the midst of the persecution, and the pressure to conform. And church, he's with you now. When you go out from here today into whatever you go into this week, you know he's with you. Maybe especially when it's difficult. How do we do this? He's always with us. He went through the fire of our judgment, and he stands with us in the fire of our circumstances, and he has promised that he will never leave us nor forsake us. Amen. Amen. Let me pray. Father, I thank you for the encouragement and the assurance of your presence and power with us, no matter what we're going through. And God, we ask you that you would help us to be aware of your presence and power with us. And so I ask Holy Spirit, would you come now and minister to every heart, minister to every need, minister to every issue that we brought in here today? And Lord God, I pray that we would not leave bearing those burdens alone, but that together in the power of your Spirit, we would carry those with one another, among one another, and God that you would be glorified through the way that we serve you. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Thanks for listening. We encourage you to check out the reflection questions in the show notes and spend some time in prayer. We have in-person services on Sundays at 8.30 a.m., 10.00 a.m., and 11.45 a.m. And we'd love to see you in person. If you'd like to learn more about what goes on here, follow us on Instagram at Willingden or visit our website at Willingden.org.