Daniel 3

Well, good morning, everyone. Bert, would you open us up with a word of prayer, please?

Daniel chapter 3, and I'm just going to pick up at verse 13 and read to the end of the chapter, and then we'll walk through it.

Then Nebuchadnezzar, in rage and anger, gave orders to bring Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and then these men were brought before the king.

Nebuchadnezzar responded and said to them, Is it true, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that you do not serve my gods or worship the golden image that I have set up?

Now if you are ready, at the moment you hear the sound of the horn, the flute, the lyre, the trigon, the psaltery, the bagpipe, and all kinds of music to fall down and worship the image

I have made very well. But if you do not worship, you will immediately be cast into the midst of the furnace of blazing fire, and what god is there who can deliver you out of my hands?

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego replied to the king, Oh, Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to give you an answer concerning this.

If it be so, our God, whom we serve, is able to deliver us from the fiery of furnace blazing, and he will deliver us out of your hand,

O king. But if he does not, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.

Then Nebuchadnezzar was filled with wrath. His facial expression was altered toward Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

He answered by giving orders to heat the furnace seven times more than it usually heated.

He commanded certain valiant warriors who were in his army to tie up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in order to cast them into the furnace of blazing fire, and then these men were tied up in their trousers, their coats, their caps, their other clothes, and were cast into the midst of the furnace of blazing fire.

For this reason, because the king's command was urgent, the furnace had been made extremely hot.

The flame of the fire slew those men who carried up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

But these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell into the midst of the furnace of blazing fire still tied up.

Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was astounded, and he stood up in haste, and he said to his high officials,

Was it not three men we cast bound into the midst of the fire? They replied to the king,

Oh, certainly, O king. He said, Look, I see the fourth man loosed, and he's walking about in the midst of the fire without harm, and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods.

Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the door of the furnace of blazing fire. He responded and said,

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, come out, you servants of the most high God, and come up here.

Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came out of the midst of the fire. The satraps, the prefects, the governors, and the king's high officials gathered around and saw in regard of these men that the fire had no effect on the bodies of these men, nor was the hair of their head even singed, nor were their trousers damaged, nor had the smell of fire even come upon them.

Nebuchadnezzar responded, and he said, Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent his angel and delivered his servants who put their trust in him, violating the king's order, and yielded up their bodies so as to not serve or worship any other god except their own

God. Therefore, I make a decree that any people, nation, tongue, that speaks anything offensive against the

God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego shall be torn from limb to limb, their houses reduced to a rubbish heap, insomuch as there is no other god who is able to deliver in this way.

Then the king caused Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to prosper into the providence of Babylon.

So last week, we saw that it took some time that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were part of the high officials' guild.

They were sent out for the inauguration of this bowing down to what

I believe was an image of Nebuchadnezzar. Anytime the word image is used, it's not meaning a nine -foot by ninety -foot pole of gold.

It was an image created, and what we do know is that it backing up to the previous chapter that it was most likely him because who was the head of gold in the dream?

It was Nebuchadnezzar. So what did he do to defy this very thing that God had given him a dream about that was interpreted by Daniel and told him what the dream was?

He goes out with an attempt to make this whole colossal statue of gold.

He had a fiery furnace out there, and we go, okay, the furnace had two purposes. One, to fire the bricks that probably held up on this pedestal, which held up this image.

And on top of that, it was to melt the gold that would be poured and overlaid over top of it. But the main purpose, once that was done, what was the purpose of the fiery furnace?

It was to kill those who didn't do what he told them. That was the point. So that brought us to last week to the end of,

I think it was verse 17, where they told the king, look, it doesn't matter what you tell us to do.

Our God is able to save us from your hand. And we talked about that being a very great act of faith.

And they weren't putting faith in faith. They were putting in faith in God that he was able to do that.

But what was their if not clause to say? Anybody remember? If not, they were still going to serve him.

Was that a sign of disbelief? Was that being double minded?

Well, I agree with you, so explain. It was just showing their commitment to God.

There was never a doubt that he would save them. But at the same time, they were okay if he did not.

If he chose to let them perish, they were okay with that. Sure. And we, some scholars believe this took,

I think I said this last week, about nine years after all of them going into captivity. This is roughly around nine years is what some believe.

Between the time it took them for the three years being in Babylonian University, and then the time it took, roughly nine years, not willing to die on that hill.

So these men had already been tested with their faith by trusting in Daniel right at the beginning to do nothing but the veggie diet.

Remember? And God proved himself to be true to them for how long then? Not just ten days, three years.

They were only going to check them after ten days, and then after that ten days, if they were fatter, remember they were fatter and prettier and all of that.

So for three years they trusted God. Then Nebuchadnezzar had this crazy dream, and he's going to kill everybody because nobody can tell him, and then what did they do?

They immediately prayed to God, and God once again did what to them? He delivered them miraculously.

So their faith in God has been tested, and they have found that God is faithful.

So now it comes to this time, and they say, look, we don't need to pray about this.

We don't need to seek any other counsel on whether we should bow to this golden image, or bow down to your gods.

We have been clear commands in the Mosaic law that there will be no other gods before God, and we are not to bow down to a graven image, and they made a bold statement.

Whatever you want to do with us, we will not bow. And because of that, it says in verse 19, that Nebuchadnezzar was filled with wrath.

His facial expression was altered towards Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

There's one thing that despotic tyrants do not want, and that's disobedience.

You're going to do what he says do, no matter what, or you'll die. I mean, that's even despots today.

Nothing's changed over history. Anytime a person has absolute power over absolutely everything, he can do what he wants.

And Nebuchadnezzar at this point, I personally have an opinion why he was not only filled with wrath, but very angry.

He had already taken these Jewish boys and elevated them to a position.

I mean, it would be like you doing something good for someone and then them spurning your, quote, mercy. You would be very angry.

Look, I've given you good clothes, good house, good food, all these things, and now you're going to disrespect me in this way?

He would have said, hey, they didn't even have to mean it. Just when they play again, just bow down.

That's all you've got to do. And this will all be over, and we can go our way. And they told Nebuchadnezzar, kind of smart -mouthed, we don't even need to answer you.

So that infuriated Nebuchadnezzar, and it says that he answered by giving orders to heat the furnace seven times more than it was usually heated.

Now, there wasn't, going over to the fiery furnace, this knob that they could twist and turn up the heat.

This took a little time. That means whatever they were using, whether it was more wood, most likely back then, from my understanding of Babylonian kilns, which used charcoal to get it up to a thousand degrees, that they would take some time, and they just kept heating it up, heating it up.

Now, they didn't have that dial to say, hey, it's now at seven times. It meant, we're going to heat this up as hot as it can possibly get.

And at that point, once it was heated, it said that he, in verse 20, he commanded certain valiant warriors who were in his army to tie up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in order to cast them into the furnace of blazing fire.

I've always wondered, why did he send valiant warriors? I mean, come on, did these Jewish boys, young men, did they look like a threat?

Probably not. More intimidation. Maybe if I send these men over there, maybe they'll say, whoa, whoa, whoa, hold on.

Give us another shot. But they did not. It says at that point that they tied them up in order to cast them into that furnace of blazing fire.

Then these men were tied up, and I like how the scripture has given us all these things.

Their trousers, their coats, their caps, their other clothes, and were cast into the midst of the fiery blazing furnace.

For this reason, because the king's command was so urgent, the furnace had been made extremely hot.

The flame of the fire slew those men who carried up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

This flame was so hot, coming either out of the front, or the side, or however they want to dump them down in it, that if we understand how flames work,

I don't think it consumed their body, I think it, I don't know if you know about fire, it sucks the oxygen out of a human being.

Even when they burned people at the stake, the intent was never to consume the body while they were alive.

It was to suck the oxygen out of them, and then consume the body because they were heretics under the

Middle Eastern, I mean the Middle Ages. So, most likely, these guys didn't get too close to that fire, that blaze.

It sucked the oxygen out of them, basically deflating them and taking their life. And interesting that the very ones that were obeying the command of the king, what happens to them?

They die. And the ones that are disobeying are at least alive at this point, right?

And they're thrown in. It says then in verse 23, but these three men,

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego fell into the midst of the furnace of blazing fire still tied up.

Now, we can look all through church history and think about men that were burned at the stake, taken to the guillotine, taken to drawn and quartered.

Sawn asunder. Isaiah is believed to be put into a hollow cedar tree and then sawed in two by King Manasseh.

And we never see this happen. This is a miracle. These men are thrown into this fire and they're not consumed.

Now, we have instances in history where these fires didn't want to kindle themselves and then people wound up coming up to them and stabbing them.

Even in the Middle Ages when they would burn these men at the stake, there were some when it got to some point that I don't remember where in the

Middle Ages but they began to put gunpowder around their neck so that those flames come up.

If it didn't torch them and pull the air out of them like it was intended to do, it would explode.

And you had other men where they were literally burned alive.

Me and Sybil went to Oxford and we went to the very place where Nicholas Ridley, Hugh Latimer were burned alive.

Thomas Cranmer. We actually stood in the place where Thomas Cranmer looked into the street in Oxford because there's a window there and there's a plaque where they were burned alive where this man was waiting to be executed.

Watch these two men. One was extinguished pretty quick but Nicholas Ridley, it would not light, it would not pull the air out of him and he actually burned alive and that's when

Thomas Cranmer said, I recant. He recanted. I don't know if y 'all know he was the Archbishop of Canterbury.

But then later, he did come back along and he recant his recantation and he actually said,

Hey, y 'all remember what hand it was that I offended the Lord? And the guy pointed to his hand.

He stuck it in the flame and burned it before they took him to the stake.

He says, If this is the hand that defended my Lord by recanting him, I will burn it myself.

And that's what he did. And then they hauled Thomas Cranmer off and he was burned at the stake as well. So we don't see these miracles happen.

I wish that we did. I think I said last week, man, it would be awesome to see ISIS or the

Islamic people come up and go to chop off a Christian's head and the blade break. That would be awesome.

But God doesn't operate that way anymore. He does not. It says in verse 24,

The Nebuchadnezzar, the king, was astounded. He stood up in haste. He said to his high officials,

Was it not three men we cast bound into the midst of the fire? And what did the yes men say?

Oh yes, king, certainly. He said, Look, I see four men and they're loosed and they're walking about in the midst of the fire and they're without harm.

And the appearance of the fourth is like that of the Son of God, the Son of the Gods. Now, I know there are probably a handful of translations that says one that is the

Son of God. That was a translator's decision to try to point to this being a

Christophany. That actually in the Hebrew is not what's conveyed.

What's conveyed is the plural form, noun form of Elohim, Son of the

Gods. So, at this point, you would have to say if Nebuchadnezzar would have said, Oh, that looks like the

Son of God, that he had some type of idea that this was a Christophany. And that's not.

It actually is the Sons of the God. So, we can, and we did this in the academy last week, we have what's called a

Theophany. Anybody know what a

Theophany is? Anyone? Go ahead,

Pastor. Theophany is a manifestation of the presence of God as opposed to a

Christophany, which we would say is a representation of Christ. Correct, and that's what I was fixing to do. There is a difference.

Is it one of body form? Yeah, and most of your Theophany is smoke, fire, wind.

There's something that is tangible to the senses of a human being, but more times than not, never a physical manifestation.

Understand? So, let's take, for instance, when Abraham at the

Oaks of Mamre, and he come and the three men came, two were angels, one, he bows down and worships.

So, we would say that person was a Christophany because it was a physical manifestation.

Remember, they ate with him. It was a physical manifestation. They could have touched and put their hands on that man.

We say that would be a Christophany. But in other times, we have where, like on the top of Mount Sinai, we saw smoke and lightning and thunder.

That would be the presence of God, but not in physical form. Now, in this case, we have to say, who is this?

I don't know about y 'all, but I ask the question, who's this fourth man? Who is the fourth man?

Jesus. Okay. I might disagree. I might disagree.

Yes, I would say the angel of the Lord, or an angel of the

Lord. Hey, if you believe that this is Jesus Christ, the pre -incarnate standing in that,

I am fine with that. But to keep it in the context of the book, twice in the book, in chapter 10 and chapter 11 and 12,

Michael the archangel is told to be the one that is the keeper of God's people.

That's the only reason I'm going to make the suggestion that this could be

Michael the archangel. Because twice, God dispatches Michael to go keep charge over his people.

You can read it. We'll get to it. We get to chapter 12. He keeps them to keep charge over my people, protect my people.

He actually dispatches an angel to go and protect King Cyrus. That's pretty interesting.

A Christophany, physical manifestation, a Theophany is the elements that are not physical, smoke, wind, and fire.

Now, regardless of what position we come to, whether you believe it's Jesus Christ in his free incarnate form or whether you believe it's just the angel of the

Lord, I want you to understand this. This is the physical revelation of the presence of God for the preservation of his people.

We can all agree on that. That person, that being that was in the fire was there to do what?

To protect God's people. Notice how God didn't protect them from going to the fire.

He protected them in the fire. In the fire, in the very thing that was supposed to consume them.

God protected them in that very moment. Now, we see at this point that Nebuchadnezzar is amazed.

He's astonished. He sees the miraculous. Does anybody in verse 24, does anybody else say anything other than astounded?

It says, Nebuchadnezzar the king was astounded. Astonished. Anything else? Anybody seen anything like that?

He was impressed. He was impressed with the miraculous. And in seeing so, he asked his men and they say, yep, there's four walking around.

And he says, one being like the sons of God. And it says that he, then

Nebuchadnezzar in verse 26, came near to the door of the furnace. So we understand there was a way for him to at least look down in there.

And it's interesting, just in a total change of demeanor, in attitude, in action, hey,

Shadrach, Meshach, and Bendigo, like they're buddies now. Hey, you servants of the most high, come on up out of there.

That seems odd. This guy here just, when we say moments, literally moments before was filled with anger.

And he pushed them, dropped them out, however that works. He says, come up here. So I would take it to be that they were somewhat pushed in.

And he says, get them out. He says, come up out of there. Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Bendigo came up out of the midst of the fire.

I got it. Like I said, I read these narratives and I am in the story.

You don't think about what Shadrach, Meshach, and Bendigo were thinking about? They're just walking around with this guy.

Flames everywhere. And then Nebuchadnezzar's like, hey, come on up.

Y 'all come out of there. What if they were like, no, good, dude. We're cool. This is pretty neat.

We're here with the presence of God walking around in this fire and nothing's happening.

They could have ate a hot dog. They could have said, man, it's not really that hot in here.

After all, these clothes are kind of tough. These Babylonian clothes have really made it through it.

And then they come up out and the satraps, the prefects, the governors, the king's high officials gather around them and saw and regarded these men that the fire had no effect on their bodies.

These men on these men's bodies and their hair was not singed nor were their trousers damaged.

That's why we go back and it says exactly what they were thrown in with. Their trousers weren't damaged and they didn't even smell like fire.

Me and Sybil went to the Japanese steakhouse on Friday night.

Man, we smelled like the grill when we got home. Like, man, we got to get these clothes off.

We smelled like Japanese steakhouse. These guys got thrown in the middle of a furnace that had been heated up to the highest it could possibly go and they didn't even smell like smoke.

That is amazing. That's amazing. And it'd be at this time that Nebuchadnezzar would raise his hand, he'd come forward, he'd pray the prayer and he'd sign the card.

You think that's what happened? No. Remember, we said back with the dream, you got strike one.

This is strike two. God has dealt specifically this is the, like, direct, even it was indirectly with the food in the beginning.

Now there's been direct revelation to Nebuchadnezzar about the

God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He is the revealer of all mysteries. He is the one that raises up kingdoms and drops kingdoms.

He's the one that has put Nebuchadnezzar in his place, okay? And he will be the one that will pull him down.

And in this case, now he has then, knowing that there is a sovereign God over him, did not care, suppressed that truth and unrighteousness, made an idol to be worshiped of himself and of his gods.

Then these Hebrew young boys that actually prayed that this dream that he had would be revealed to him, he's had special revelation from God.

Once again, special revelation from God that there is no God like the gods of Babylon.

There is only one God that can preserve and save like this. Nebuchadnezzar knows this and Nebuchadnezzar still does not repent.

But Nebuchadnezzar does do this. He says that Nebuchadnezzar responded and he said,

Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego who has sent an angel.

He has delivered his servants and put their trust in him. They violated the king's command and yielded up their bodies so as to not serve or worship any god except their own.

Therefore, I will make a decree that any people, nation, and tongue that speaks against an offensiveness against the

God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego shall be torn from limb to limb and reduced to rubbish insomuch as no other god is able to deliver in this way.

He's not converted at this moment. He just says, Hey, I'm just going to tell you we can't have anybody talking bad about basically a no blasphemy law.

That's what he does. Nebuchadnezzar's not converted. Some believe that he was at this point converted.

Some commentators. If he was, what would have happened to the statue? He'd have torn it down.

I would even go so much as to say when we get into the next chapter, people think he was converted then as well.

We have no indication after that that Nebuchadnezzar changed the course of Babylonian idolatry.

If a person's converted, what do they do? They flee idolatry. What's that? Yeah, they flee idolatry.

They flee idolatry. Even Cyrus. When we get to that point with Cyrus, Cyrus was a man.

Actually, he was called the anointed one that God uses to dispatch Belshazzar, brings in the

Medo -Persian empire, which would send back the people of God back to rebuild the foundation, the temple, the wall, and all of that.

But we don't see and actually Cyrus knows this is what God has done because he says

God has told me to build for him a house in Jerusalem and to send his people back.

So he had divine revelation of what he was supposed to do. But we know what Cyrus did not do?

He did not stop his polytheism. He did not. So for people to say they were converted, hey, just adding

Yahweh to these pantheon of gods is not conversion. It's departing from idolatry and turning to Yahweh, under the

Old Testament, turning to Yahweh and worshiping him and him exclusively. That's not what

Nebuchadnezzar's done. Nebuchadnezzar has been enamored, he has been shocked, and he has been amazed at a miracle.

Do miracles save? No. What are the purposes of miracles?

To point to, in this case, it would point to God. But yes, if we look in the Old Testament and the New Testament, it's to point to Christ.

Think about when Jesus fed the 5 ,000 in John 6.

That is a very, very long chapter. We often people teach they focus on the fact that Jesus fed these people, but they were happy with the miracle that Jesus had done.

And Jesus went over and it says they wanted to make him king. Why did they want to make him king? Because he made the best bread ever.

Yeah. He made the best bread ever. If they had this guy as king, would they ever go hungry?

So they missed the point of the miracle for that of the physical. Same thing here with Nebuchadnezzar.

Nebuchadnezzar was supposed to see this, that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob had the ability to save from fire.

Therefore, he was to bow his knee. And he did not. Just like those who were in the wilderness and they ate the bread and the fish.

And Jesus went on and they said, well, where did he go? They woke up the next morning. You know what they were? They were hungry.

And what did they want? They wanted more bread. And then what did they do? Hey, it looks like he's over there.

How did he get over there? Well, it doesn't matter. Let's get in boats and go over there and find him. And they get over there and what did, you may remember what

Jesus told them or asked them? Got any food? That's what they asked him. What did he tell them?

How come you, you don't seek me? You seek what I made for you.

You're not seeking me. You're seeking the bread that I gave you. He said that was supposed to point to me, which is

I am the bread of life. And they were, they didn't care about that. They just wanted more bread.

Every time miracles happen like that, people were not converted. You could even go on into chapter 12 where it says that Jesus did many signs and miracles in their eyes.

And then the John points back to Isaiah 6, which we'll read this morning actually, and the service points back to Isaiah 6, that he did all these miracles and signs in their faith and they still would not believe.

They still would not believe. Still. Why is that?

Because, what's that? Certainly. Yeah. Faith was not accompanied with those miracles.

Hey, look. Just miraculous acts don't have the effect of regeneration.

But it's supposed to show and point you to that there is a God in heaven that can and does regenerate.

If a person cries out to Christ, what's going to happen? He is not going to reject them.

He is not going to reject them. But they have to be willing to hate mother, father, sister, brother, hate even their own life in order to be their disciple.

I'll even say this. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they hated their own life even to death.

Would we agree? Yes. Yeah. So Nebuchadnezzar responds to them.

He gives a no blasphemy law. And he gives the penalty for those that speak against it, torn from limb to limb, made of rubbish heap.

And then it says in verse 30, Then the king caused Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to prosper in the providence of Babylon.

This, to me, is funny. Here it is. These people that hated them.

You remember last week we saw in the beginning of this narrative that it was a certain of those satraps and governors and administrators came to them and pointed out there are certain

Jews and they gave them by name. It could have been more. We don't know. We know this.

There was men that did not like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego because of their

Jewish culture. They had been elevated to another position, higher than them. They wanted them extinguished.

It has not worked. I mean, those guys probably standing there going, yup, haha, this is great.

Wait a minute. Those guys aren't burning. They're not even smoking in there.

Oh wow, they're walking around. These guys' plan has been deflated.

We're going to see a same diabolical plan that will happen with Daniel when he is in his early to mid -eighties where men who hated the lovers of God are going to try to throw him into a lion's den to be eaten by lions.

But God protects Daniel the same way He protects them. He sends the angel of the

Lord to protect them. So Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego then they don't get demoted.

What happens? They get higher positions in the province of Babylon. And I want them to use their power and their authority and their savviness of their

God for my benefit. Now there is a part of that that as Christian business owners,

Christian politicians if they're even real or any

Christian that's in a place of authority, the people above you should want you where you're at.

Because one, all your dealings are going to be right. You're going to hold yourself to a higher standard than the average

Joe. And certainly, he's like, hey, these guys can do this. No doubt in my mind he remembered, hey, these guys have insight to this

God who answered my dream. I want them in a higher and better place for me.

No doubt. But we never, this is it. This is the last time we hear about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

It's because he couldn't promote them any higher after the next miracle. Remember, they got promoted the last go around.

Yeah, it's like, where can they go from here? They hit the glass ceiling. What's that? They hit the glass ceiling. Yeah, so this is it.

I tried to find out if there were any extra biblical writings that were relevant to say, hey, were there any?

Nothing. This is it. This is the last thing we hear about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

And it's interesting that it's in chapter 3, will be the last time we hear about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And the next chapter is the last time we hear about Nebuchadnezzar.

That's it. That's it. Another great confession by Nebuchadnezzar about this

God that has the power to raise up and to throw down. This God that has the power to save through the fire and not.

The power to do whatever He wants. And then, that's the last we hear.

It's just interesting that the narrative or the examples that we have with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego is to be faithful even unto death.

Even unto death. As I read this multiple times in my life and even read it again every day as you're teaching through it, you go, what would

I have done? Do y 'all ask yourself that? Or is it just me? Okay.

What would we have done? I don't know. And I lean on what the

Lord says. Jesus says, I will give you what you need at that time. Do I think that we're going, anybody in this room, that we're going to be thrown into a fiery furnace?

Probably not. Let's just be honest. Maybe not anybody in this room in our lifetime.

Maybe. But, are we asked to vacillate on other things?

Yeah, we are. And if we vacillate on those smaller things, when it does come time to be, to love our life not even, don't love our life even unto death, what are we going to do?

If you vacillate in the small things, what are you going to do in the big things? Think about it.

I mean, seriously. Where was it we saw yesterday?

I was on Jeopardy. Zim, Zers, and Zimself. I was like, what?

That's what we've come to. Yeah. Yeah. It was the ex -pronouns is what it was.

I'm like, this is retarded. This is retarded.

But whether it's young person or old person, if you're not faithful in the little, you will not be faithful in the big.

You will not. And look, the progression of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and we see the whole life of Daniel though.

Um, their faithfulness did not begin in the giant, huge thing.

Daniel and his three friends hauled off into captivity, away from their mother and father.

Hey, they could have indulged, would we say, in anything that they wanted. Mom and dad not there to help them.

Mom and dad not there to rebuke them. Mom and dad not to tell them, hey, you're violating the Mosaic law by which

God gave our forefathers. They weren't there. But what did they do? They remained faithful.

They remained faithful. They remained faithful first and foremost by God giving them the strength, but they had a strong leader,

Daniel. Daniel. Hey, look, who was it that said, hey, we're not going to eat? Was it

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego? Oh, it was Daniel. It was Daniel. It was

Daniel that said, hey, tell the king, Ariath, that I'll give him an answer of his crazy dream.

And then what did he do? He went back to his buddies and said, we've got to pray. So they had one that was faithful, a faithful leader, faithful man of God that they could look to that had walked through these very difficult times with them as an example of a man of faith and say, hey,

Daniel has been our guy, therefore we shall follow the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

We got five minutes or so for questions, clarities. So, I've been looking at,

I was looking at verse 21 and thinking that through that these men were bound in their coats, their hosing, their hats, and their other garments and were cast in the midst of the burning fiery furnace.

And I thought, why did he put basically, I'm going to put all your clothes on you and put you in this fiery furnace.

And I thought, well, to me the reason he did that was to erase any memory of these people.

And, you know, so I'm just going to do away with you completely. I'm burning everything you had.

Yeah, and I can't remember what commentator it was, but they believed that the other clothes, they don't know this for sure, okay, was probably their official coatings.

So they had their regular clothes that you would wear and then these were their, you know, to show that, hey, we're officials so it would be, and yeah, like you said, when he said,

I'm putting them in this furnace with those on too with them, I want them consumed because I don't want nothing to do with them anymore.

I want their official capacity to be... But instead of erasing them, as you see at the end,

God elevated them. Yeah, God elevated his men. Now, when we said earlier on,

God does not always work in this way. God does not.

Matter of fact, 99 .9 % of the time does he operate this way? I don't know that.

Yeah. Who died and died and died and died and died and died and died, yeah. That's why it's a miracle.

And that's why we should when we see this, we should be as Nebuchadnezzar astonished, certainly.

This is shocking. I mean, hey, would you guys not have been shocked to see these men thrown into the fire and they're walking around and then this other guy appears walking around with them?

I mean, it's interesting. I don't know, did this angel or Jesus, did he come in there and just untie their ropes off their hand?

I mean, this is what I was thinking. Did the ropes get consumed as soon as they got in? You know, what were they bound with?

I mean, it's like, man, and how long were they in there? And what happened to the image of the other man?

Yeah, well, yeah, as maybe he helped them up. Alright, guys,

I'll see you on the other side. Don't know. But he certainly wasn't in there once that, was there any need for that angel to be in that furnace after God's men were out?

No, because the purpose for him to be there was to preserve his people and show the manifestation of God being with them.

So, anything else? A couple minutes. In 250, around 250, they had something called, which was the issue of people who were being commanded to renounce their faith, and if you didn't, you would be killed.

Domitian? Yeah. And there were those to save their necks, and then the church had to decide whether they would receive, and that's why it's called the lapse, it comes from the word lapse, which means to fall back.

Yeah, the lapse in their faith. And so, from the side of church leadership, you know, because receive them back as brothers?

Are we going to see them as apostates? How are we going to treat them? And the church was divided over that, over whether to receive them back or not if they had failed in that moment of torture or death.

And I realize it's not the same context specifically, but as you were mentioning earlier, what would we do?

Right? But we also have to consider how the church has handled this has been difficult. Yeah, and there are times where men, when

I say men that were converted and women that were converted under extreme circumstances have, in your case when

I call it lapse, had, I mean, look at Thomas Cranmer. I mean, he failed. I mean, it would be very difficult to see my closest friend burned at the stake from here to Mike Ward, and to see the screams and pain and the melting flesh and go, that's my demise right after him.

And then him saying, okay. And I do believe that was the intent. The intent of him watching through that window or that little block hole, watching him as he was imprisoned, waiting to be executed, was to get him to do that.

That was the purpose. I mean, I would hope that I would not denounce my

Lord who has been so good and faithful to save my soul, but do I absolutely know without a shadow of a doubt that in that moment

I know what I'm going to do? I'd be a liar to say that I would know. We don't know what it's like to have our wives hauled off into slavery or raped before your eyes and your kids' heads cut off.

We don't know. I mean, that happens every day in the Sudan by militant Muslims.

Happens every day. Understand for the last 200 years in America, we've been insulated from all of that.

The rest of the world's not like this. It's not like this. And people are told to bow down to images all the time, whether it be for Rocket Man over there in North Korea, or whether it be

Xi Jinping, who now wants a picture of the emperor of his face in every house. You can have be registered with the state, with your church, your

Christian church, but you've got to bow down to my face too. And we have

Christians that have to make that decision every day. And to some of them, it will be to being hauled off, never seeing their family again, and even some of those, but to death.

And for that, we should pray for them. Mike, you'll close us? Father God, I thank you for this time.

Understand that you are a God of miracles, that you are a God that can save. I pray now that as we go to this time of worship, that you be with us, that you open our hearts and minds.

I pray that if we're ever put under that type of persecution, that we can all just trust in you to provide for us at that time.