“The God Du Jour” – FBC Morning Light (8/16/2024)

Well good Friday morning to you. I hope your week has gone well and as you look forward to the weekend that you are anticipating joining together with God's people on the

Lord's Day. I hope that the Sunday gatherings with God's people is something that you look forward to all week long.

It's just a highlight of your week. I hope that's the case in your situation. Well today in our

Bible reading we're reading in Jeremiah chapters 30 and 31 and then in Daniel chapter 3.

I want to focus on Daniel 3, well -known story. It's the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the burning fiery furnace.

So if you've been in church all your life you heard this story from the time you were knee -high to a hymn book

I guess. And so it's a well -known story. But a couple things

I want to point out in the story. One is that there is a there is a God du jour.

What do I mean by that? Well you know if you go to a restaurant they may have a soup du jour, a soup of the day.

Well here in Daniel 3 there's a God du jour. It's a God that wasn't a

God yesterday but is a God today kind of a thing. And I'm talking about this this image of gold that Nebuchadnezzar set up.

It was supposed to be a representation of himself. And I mean it's...

yesterday the the image wasn't ready. It took some time certainly to craft the thing.

But you know until it was crafted and until it was set up there wasn't any worshiping of it.

There was no there was no worship related to this golden image. It's like the God did not exist prior to that.

Well made the image, set the thing up, and now the decree goes is issued forth that everybody when when they hear the the sound of all this these instruments of music, everybody has to bow down to the

God du jour, which is a representative representation of Nebuchadnezzar.

It's supposed to reflect him and you know his grandeur and his reign and so forth.

So there's the God du jour. And then the instruments are sounded and everybody complies to the pressure of the big government mandate that got a bow down to the

God du jour. Everybody except for Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They won't do it.

They're brought in before the king. The king is livid with them because they won't do it. He gives them one last chance.

If you will bow down, then I'll let you go. But if you won't, it's into the furnace.

And they said, you know what? You can do this all day long, but we're not gonna bow down to your image. We're not gonna do it.

You can throw us in the fiery furnace if you want to, and that's fine. Our God will protect us and even if he doesn't, we're still not gonna bow down to your image.

We won't even be around to do so. And so they don't. They don't bow down. You know the rest of the story.

The king gets furious. He stokes the fire up seven times, makes it hotter, throws these guys in, and nothing happens to them.

Well, the ropes get burned off their hands, but nothing else happens to them. They're not burned up. Clothes aren't burned up, and the king is stunned.

And the testimony to God is intact, and at the end of the story,

Nebuchadnezzar can't do anything other than acknowledge this great

God. He says at the end of the chapter, Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who sent his angel and delivered his servants who trusted in him.

Now, why do I bring this up? Why do I want to focus on this? I mean, it's a well -known story. Because here's the thing.

We're living in a society and a culture that has its God's du jour, and I mean, you remember, maybe you don't,

I remember as a kid that the God du jour that became erected at the time was

Mother Earth and ecology, and everybody needed to bow down to the

God of ecology, and if you didn't, then you were a bad person.

Now, that God hasn't gone away, but there have been a lot of other gods that have been erected ever since then, that you and I are expected to bow down and worship.

I suppose most recently there's the God of diversity and inclusivity and, you know, the

DEI thing. You're expected to bow down to that, and if you don't, then you're to be ostracized.

You're to bow down to the God of a woman's right to choose what to do with the child in her womb.

You're expected to bow down to the goddess of abortion, and on and on we can go with the

God's du jour. What if you don't? What if you don't? I would suggest to you that to do so would be a slap in the face of the

God whom you profess to worship, and I would also encourage you with the truth that you see here in Daniel 3, that by our faithfulness to the one true

God, trusting him to take care of us regardless of what the culture, even big government, does to us, that that has in the long run a far better impact, makes

Christians kind of think this way. If we think, well, you know, we'll go along to get along, and by doing that we'll show the love of Jesus, and all the rest of that kind of thing.

No, no, no. What you do is you show a love of the world, and not a love for Jesus.

No, we remain faithful to him. We bow down to him and alone, and we don't have to be mean and ugly and vicious in our refusal to bow down to the

God du jour. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego weren't. They were respectful, but they were firm, and I think we need to have the same kind of response when we're pressured with the sounds of all the instruments of music to bow down to God du jour.

Don't bow down, just be faithful. Remain standing, be gracious, be respectful, but be firm.

I'm going to worship the Lord God and him alone. I encourage you to do that.

Father in heaven, help us to be faithful to you, regardless of what comes in this world, in these challenging times, in these days where it seems that there are all kinds of different gods that are being set up, that we're expected to bow down to them.

May we be found faithful, we pray in Jesus' name and for his sake, amen. All right, listen, again, have a wonderful weekend.

Get with God's people on Sunday, worship the Lord together, be encouraged in your walk with Christ.