But If Not

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I want to invite you to take out your Bibles and turn with me to Daniel chapter 3.
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And when you arrive at Daniel 3, find your place at verse 16 and let us stand for the reading of God's word.
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Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter.
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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.
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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.
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Father in heaven, I thank you for your word.
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May it now be the light to our feet and the lamp to our path.
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May you keep me from error as I preach and give me boldness and fill me with the spirit.
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And Lord, open the hearts and ears of your people to hear it.
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And Lord, especially that there be those among us, and there certainly are, who do not know the Lord.
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May today be the day of salvation, in Christ's name, amen.
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Every year on the Sunday prior to New Year's Day, it has been my tradition to preach a message looking back on the previous year and looking forward to the year to come.
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That has been my tradition now for several years, and I decided to maintain that tradition this year.
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And as I was thinking about that particular tradition, I thought, what a year to look back upon.
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Some have said that 2020 is the worst year in human history, but that is nowhere near the truth.
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In fact, it's not even close, scientifically speaking, to the truth.
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There is a medieval scholar named Michael McCormick, who took it upon himself to, through his historical studies, determine what year was worst to be alive as a human.
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And he determined it was the year 536.
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In the year 536, beginning in that year, there was a dense, mysterious fog that rolled over the entire northern hemisphere, covering parts of Europe, Middle East countries, and Asia.
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It blocked out the sun, it caused temperatures to drop, crops to fail, many people died of starvation, and that fog lasted 18 months.
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Come to find out, it was the result of a volcanic eruption in the Arctic.
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Took all that dust and created this, basically, overcast, and created a fog mist.
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18 months, crops died, people froze to death, people couldn't eat, and that was pretty bad.
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Certainly, we could look at other years as being bad.
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1349, the Black Death killed half of Europe, that's pretty bad.
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1520, smallpox ravaged the Americas, killed between 60% and 90% of the continent's original inhabitants, that's pretty bad.
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1918, 100 years ago, the Spanish Flu killed 50 million people.
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That's pretty bad.
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We have had to sit and watch Netflix.
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So, I think, I mean, as bad as it's been, we've had a lot of deaths, and we've had a lot of things happen, but it's certainly not to be compared to some of what has happened in years past.
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But at the same time, there have been some difficulties this year.
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Changes which no one could have anticipated.
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Last year, when I preached this annual message, looking forward to 2020, looking back on 2019, I had no idea the battles that we would face this year, both outside the church and within.
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We've seen things happen outside that we couldn't have imagined, and we've seen things happen inside that were hard to stomach.
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And I believe this year has set in motion many changes which are going to have long-lasting, if not permanent, effects on our world.
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No doubt these changes will inevitably find their way to the doorstep of the church.
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They already have in many ways.
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Do you realize there are still churches that are not meeting publicly? I was talking to Nate this morning.
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We mentioned a church that he knows about that's still not meeting publicly and personally.
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There are states today which are forbidding not only public worship but also gathering in homes, and they're encouraging neighbors to call on the authorities if they see their neighbors meeting in groups.
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What was supposed to be two weeks to stop the spread has given way to an entirely new way of life, and it doesn't seem to be going anywhere anytime soon, even with the promise of a rapidly produced vaccine.
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And all of this is compounded by the reality that we're about to have a dramatic change in our government leadership.
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Those coming into power seem to be heartily opposed to the many values that we hold dear as Christians.
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They unashamedly support abortion, sexual perversion, the suppression of free speech, and their opposition to the things of God only seems to be intensifying, and therefore it's even more likely that we'll face the challenges which we have with ever more fervency.
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Many of the predictions that we've had as a church will probably go away, or at least begin to wane, and we may find ourselves having to stand in defiance of a world that is at war with God.
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So with that in mind, not to bring us down, but I have decided to preach on what is considered to be one of the most famous stands in history against a ruler who is trying to force people into idolatry.
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Because understand this, there's only two things that we can worship, God or anything else.
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And the goal of the world is to get us to worship anything else but God.
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Whether it's to worship the phone in your pocket, or worship the television on your mantle, or worship the political system that you are a part of, the desire of the world is always to provide you with an idol.
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As John Calvin said, the human mind is a factory of idols, and it's constantly producing new things to take us away from God.
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And so I want us to ask the question today, are we prepared as a body to continue to trust God regardless of the consequences? I want to tell you something.
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Do you all know who Warren Wearsby is? Not even sure I'm saying his last name right.
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Warren Wearsby has been around forever.
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I mean, he was preaching for decades, and many of you have heard his name, many of you have seen his books.
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I've not listened to him or read a bunch of his works, but I did hear a message from him this week.
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And he said something that was very encouraging.
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He said, faith is not believing in spite of evidence.
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Faith is obeying in spite of consequence.
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And that really encouraged me.
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He said, it's not that we believe in spite of evidence.
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We have all the evidence in the world to believe in Christ, to believe in God, to believe the truth of the word of God.
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But when we believe, we have to obey in spite of the consequences.
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That's real faith.
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When we look at the consequences for believing, and we say, we're still going to believe no matter what the world says.
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We're still going to believe no matter what the threat is.
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We're still going to stand no matter what the danger is posed upon us.
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We're still going to stand.
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That's faith.
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Not believing in spite of evidence.
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It's obeying in spite of consequence.
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So with that being said, I want us to now turn our attention to the third chapter of Daniel.
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Daniel sits within our Bible as the last of what is known as the minor prophets.
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And that is not an indication of importance.
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I'm sorry, last of the major prophets.
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Excuse me, right before the minor prophets.
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And this doesn't indicate importance, but rather it indicates length.
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We note that Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations, which is also written by Jeremiah, and Ezekiel and Daniel tend to be longer than the minor prophets.
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And they have been placed in our Bibles in the position of what is known as the major prophets.
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And Daniel was part of the exile to Babylon, which took place under King Nebuchadnezzar.
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If you look at Daniel chapter 1, if you just turn your attention there for just a second, you'll notice in the very first chapter, the very first verse, it tells us the context of the entire book.
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It says, So that is the context of the book.
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Nebuchadnezzar comes to Judah.
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He besieges Jerusalem.
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And he takes for himself not only material spoils, but he also takes for himself human capital, human spoils.
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He takes the young, strapping men of Israel, the ones who he thinks he can convert to his religion and convert to his lifestyle, that he can build up his armies and build up his kingdom with the men of Judea, the men of Jerusalem.
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And the book of Daniel provides for us one of the most compelling and inspiring narratives about living a life of faith in the midst of a faithless generation.
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And it provides for us what it looks like to live that life of faith in the midst of an ungodly culture.
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In the beginning of Daniel's book, four names become prominent.
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The first is the name Daniel.
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And then we have the names Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.
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Now, most people have never heard of Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.
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And if I went to most churches and I said, Today we're going to study the life of Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, the church would probably give me a dead stare.
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Never heard of those three persons.
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But if I went and I said, Today we're going to learn about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, everybody would say, Oh, well, we know those guys.
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We've heard that story.
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We've heard the Sunday school.
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We've been in Sunday school.
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We've studied.
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Well, understand that that's the same three guys.
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And I prefer to call them Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah because those were their real names.
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And all of those names reference the God of Israel.
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That's an important reality.
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The name Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah are all Jewish names, and they all reference their Jewish heritage.
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They all reference their fidelity to Yahweh or Jehovah.
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But as soon as they are brought into the Chaldean culture, the Chaldean culture was the religion of the Babylonians, and as soon as they're brought into the Chaldean culture, they are given immediately new names.
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You'll see this if you look at verse 7, back to chapter 1 and verse 7.
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It says, and the chief of the eunuchs, that would be one of the king's officials, the chief of the eunuchs gave them names.
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Daniel he called Belteshazzar.
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Hananiah he called Shadrach.
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Mishael he called Meshach.
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And Azariah he called Abednego.
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Now, you say, why change their names? Well, this is one of the desires of the Chaldean religion, is to try to separate them from their heritage, to try to separate them from their background, to try to separate them from their fidelity.
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Their fidelity was to Israel.
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Their fidelity was to Jerusalem.
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Their fidelity was to the God of Israel, and their names indicated it.
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So instead of calling them Daniel, Hananiah, Azariah, Mishael, they called them Belteshazzar, which is a reference to one of the Chaldean gods.
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They called them Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, all of those references to the Chaldean gods.
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In fact, Abednego means servant of Nago.
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Nago is one of the Chaldean gods.
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So they get these names because they're separating them out from their culture.
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And you'll notice if you continue to study chapter 1, and if you haven't read the book of Daniel in a while, read it.
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It's a great book.
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Especially the first half of the book, which is dealing with the life of Daniel, Hananiah, Azariah, Mishael, tells their stories, but the second half of the book is all prophecy.
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It's a little more difficult to understand, but I encourage you to read the whole thing.
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But when you're reading the first chapter, you'll notice they not only changed their name, but they changed their diet.
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They tried to get them to eat of the king's feasts so as to have allegiance to the feast.
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You want to have allegiance to the person who's feeding you, and the person who's feeding you well, they choose not to eat that.
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They eat only vegetables.
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And so there's this entire situation where they're in trouble because they're not eating the king's food, but they get permission to eat only vegetables.
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And through a series of events, it shows that they were actually more healthy, more fatty is what they say.
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They look healthier because God was with them, and God was blessing them.
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So the book of Daniel begins with the Jews being taken to Babylon, but there's four people who are mentioned who are of utmost importance.
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Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.
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Throughout the book, Daniel maintains his name, which is interesting.
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Very seldom is he called Belteshazzar.
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Most normally, he's just Daniel.
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But from here on out, they will be called Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
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This is how they were known.
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This is how most of us know them.
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So I'll forgo calling them by their Hebrew names, and I'll just start calling them by their names because we're going to read the chapter in chapter 3, and it uses their Chaldean names.
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But I wanted to give you that history because it's important to understand why they have these names, who they are.
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These are not only exiles, by the way.
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These are slaves.
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These are people who have been taken out of their homeland, been forced into a new country, a new culture.
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They're being forced into this new idea of living.
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But what's interesting is they all rise to prominence.
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If you read chapter 1 and 2, you'll see Daniel rises to prominence because of God's gifting to him.
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And when you get to chapter 3, the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, you'll notice that they also are in positions of prominence.
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God has blessed them even in the midst of their slavery.
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God has blessed them even in the midst of their difficulty.
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They are in positions of authority even as exiles and slaves, which is an interesting reality.
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And I want to go through this chapter with you.
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If you'll pull up the outline, I have seven parts to this story.
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I promise we'll go through them briskly.
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We won't hang on each one for an hour.
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Yeah, trust me, as he says.
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But I do want to mention this.
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Some of you probably right now have already checked out.
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You say, I already know this.
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I've been reading about Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego since I was knee-high to my grandfather, and I know this story.
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But let me encourage you to never take that attitude with the Word of God.
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Because it's like Alistair Begg.
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I listened to him this week, too.
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And one thing he said, he said, the goal of preaching is not necessarily to tell you things that you don't know, but to remind you of things you shouldn't forget.
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So if I don't tell you anything you don't know today, hopefully I'll at least remind you of something that you shouldn't forget.
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And the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego reminds us of some things we ought never forget.
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So let's look at beginning at verse 1.
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And we're going to give special attention to verse 18, the phrase, but if not.
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But we're going to start at verse 1 just to get the idea of what's happening.
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And this is the idolatrous demand.
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It begins at verse 1.
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King Nebuchadnezzar made an image of gold whose height was 60 cubits.
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A cubit was about 18 inches, so that makes it about 90 feet tall.
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Its breadth was 6 cubits.
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That would have been about 9 feet wide.
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And he set it up on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon.
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Then King Nebuchadnezzar sent to gather the Satraps, the prefects, the governors, the councillors, 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.
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Then the Satraps, the prefects, the governors, the councillors, the 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.
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And they stood before the image that Nebuchadnezzar had set up.
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And the herald proclaimed, You are commanded, O peoples, 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.
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And whoever does not fall down and worship immediately shall be cast into a burning, fiery furnace.
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Therefore, as soon as all the peoples heard the sound of the horn, the pipe, the lyre, the trigon, the harp, the bagpipe, and every kind of music, all the peoples, nations, and languages fell down and worshipped the golden image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up.
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It's interesting.
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If you think of the picture here.
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Last year we saw a lot of political rallies.
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We saw a lot of, well, we saw some because of COVID kept it down.
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But we saw people gathered around this one figure who is supposed to be the one who's going to solve all the problems.
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You know, whether it was on one side or the other side, it was very focused on this one individual who's either going to make everything great or make everything worse.
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And people gathered around and people were so excited.
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Well, imagine, if you will, 2600 years ago.
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That's about when all this took place.
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Around 5, between 586, that was when the fall of Jerusalem happened.
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But this was actually a little bit before that.
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So we're looking at about 2600 years ago.
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You have this king who essentially says, everyone's going to worship me.
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But they're going to worship me via this image that I'm going to set up.
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And we don't know what the image looked like.
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It says it was an image that he had made.
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We assume maybe it looked like him.
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But he made this image 90 feet tall.
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That's pretty tall.
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Nine feet wide.
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That's a pretty big image.
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It's a pretty big idol.
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But again, why would he make it so big? He wants to instill in the heart of the people that he is the king.
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But he's not just the king.
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He is the divine king.
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In the ancient world, kings saw themselves not only as rulers of men, but as gods among men.
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They saw themselves as not only the ones who were in authority over their kingdom, but they were in authority over the whole world.
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Nebuchadnezzar saw himself as a god.
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And what do you do with a god? You worship that god.
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You bow down to that god.
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Notice the use of music.
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Notice that Nebuchadnezzar said, when this happens, we're going to play music.
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That is, interestingly enough, a way of mimicking the worship of the true god.
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How do we worship God? One of the ways we worship God is through song.
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And so oftentimes, idols and idolaters will use music in the accompaniment of the worshiping of their false gods because it appeals to the emotion.
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It appeals to the senses and causes people to get involved.
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Have you ever had a song that moves you? It's not wrong to be moved by music.
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I'm often moved by music.
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I'm often moved by the music that we sing in worship.
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I'm encouraged when I'm able to experience a song emotionally as well as intellectually.
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And I like that.
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But that's what we see here.
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The king has set up his idol, and he says, when the music plays, bow and see me as king.
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This isn't something that went away in the ancient world.
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There are still people today who see themselves as divine.
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Did you know in North Korea, it is illegal to worship any other divinity than the Kim family? Kim Jong-il, Kim Jong-un are the Kim family.
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I forget which one's the father and which one's the son, but the one that we have now, or the one they have now, is considered to be the only divine being worthy of worship.
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And if you worship any other god in North Korea, you are breaking the law.
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So we might think of something like this as the ancient world.
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It's not.
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It's in the modern world.
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It's just not in our modern world.
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Nobody's setting up a golden statue down in Jacksonville Square and saying, let's all go down and worship the golden statue.
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So we don't see how this applies to us.
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Well, it does apply to the North Koreans.
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And by God's grace, I know there are people in North Korea who don't bow down and they give their lives.
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So this narrative for them is real life.
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But understand, there may come a day when we are told to bow and we won't be able to.
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There may come a day when it won't be a golden idol, but it will be some giving up of the gospel.
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They say, okay, you can still have your church, but you can't preach justification by faith alone in Christ alone.
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You can still have your church, but you can't preach that homosexuality is a sin.
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You can still have your church, but you can't preach that marriage is only between one man and one woman.
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You can still have your church, but you can't say in any way, shape or form, that a person should ever not obey the government.
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You have to be an arm of the law.
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You have to be an arm of the authority.
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During the time of Hitler's regime, there were Hitler's ministers.
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They were the men who were willing to continue being preachers under the Third Reich.
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And they pointed people to Hitler and said, he is good, he is right, he is wholesome.
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Those men were not of God.
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But you see, they did what they thought they had to do to keep their churches open.
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They did what they thought they had to do to keep their ministries going.
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You see, that's the wrong attitude.
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You say, well, how can you condemn? You haven't been put in their spot.
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No, I haven't been put in their spot, but I hope I would never bow to such a thing.
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Because that's the danger, right? Well, we got to keep the church open, so we got to be careful what we say.
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Let me tell you something, if that's the attitude we ever take, we've stopped being a church.
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If we ever take the attitude that we can't say it because the government won't like it, then we've stopped being Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.
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And we've started being all the other Jews who were there.
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By the way, the only three who stood up were them.
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But they weren't the only three Jews there.
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I'm going to point that out later.
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The only three that stood up that we know of, and you say, well, where was Daniel? I don't know.
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I don't think he was there.
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I think that maybe he was away on some work, because he was a major player in Nebuchadnezzar's court.
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Either he was exempt from having to bow, or he was away.
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But he weren't there, because later he's going to be told, you can't pray.
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And he goes out and prays publicly.
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This is under a later king, under a different administration.
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But he goes out and prays, and he's willing to face what? The lion's den for his faith.
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I don't think he bowed to Nebuchadnezzar's statue and then went to the lion's den later.
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That doesn't compute.
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So I don't know why Daniel isn't mentioned, but I have a pretty good idea he probably wasn't there.
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But there were others.
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Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were not the only Jews who were taken from Jerusalem.
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But they're the only ones who stood up.
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There will be many who bow and encourage you to bow.
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There will be many who take a knee when times get tough.
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And they will tell you to take a knee.
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Because it's expedient.
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Because it's easier.
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Because it's safe.
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But not because it's right.
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Nebuchadnezzar, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego stood because it was right.
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Not because it was safe.
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And not because it was expedient.
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But because it was right.
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And I've kind of gotten ahead of myself.
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Because we haven't even gotten there yet.
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But verse 8 says this.
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We've seen the idolatrous demand.
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Worship the idol.
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Now we see the hateful accusation.
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Verses 8 to 12.
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It says, Therefore, at that time, certain Chaldeans came forward and maliciously accused the Jews.
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They declared to King Nebuchadnezzar, O King, live forever.
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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 and worship the golden image.
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And whoever does not fall down and worship shall be cast into a burning, fiery furnace.
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There are certain Jews whom you have appointed over the affairs of the providence of Babylon, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
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These men, O King, pay no attention to you.
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They do not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.
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I call this the hateful accusation.
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I was trying to figure out a nice way to say snitch.
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But I couldn't come up with one.
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So I just came with hateful accusation.
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But that's what these guys were, snitches, right? They didn't like what was going on because the three Hebrew...
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And by the way, you often heard this, three Hebrew boys.
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I don't think they were little boys.
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I think they were young men, but I don't think they were children.
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I think that picture is often maligned in our mind a little.
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These three young men are not willing to do what the king has commanded.
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And so the Chaldean religious people get upset about it.
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And so they go and tell the king.
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It says that they maliciously accused the Jews.
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That word maliciously means to tear to pieces.
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They went in to tear them to pieces.
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So Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
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This tells us in this text they were all in positions of authority.
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And as I was praying about it, thinking about it, thinking about this part of the narrative, I got to thinking, this might be the reason why they're being called out by the Chaldeans.
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It's because they, even though they were enslaved, had arisen to positions of authority.
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And therefore there may be a situation of jealousy.
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You know, we're the Chaldeans and we got these other guys who've been put in positions over us.
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We're the truly Babylonians and you've put these men over us.
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And so they become jealous and angry.
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That's one, again, one way of looking at it.
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But ultimately, we know what happens.
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They tell the king, there are men who won't kneel to you.
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And I got to think, idolaters demand that people worship their idols too.
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And think of it like this.
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You ever try to have a conversation with somebody who worships? Well, let me say it this way.
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You ever try to have a conversation about abortion with somebody who just worships the idea that they should be able to murder their children in the womb? Now, they won't say it that way.
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But they get so offended when you have that conversation.
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Why? Because their God is their freedom.
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Their God is that word choice.
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Their God is that liberty that they have to say who and who does not get to live.
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And when you won't worship their God, they will attack you.
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You're unloving.
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You aren't acting like a Christian because you're telling somebody that they have to have a baby they don't want.
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I cannot help but think about people who would call authorities on their neighbors for having a Bible study.
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Why would they do that? One, because they hate the God of Scripture.
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That's one.
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But two, they have given their allegiance to another God.
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Whether it's the government or the CDC or whatever, they have decided to place their hope and faith in a different authority.
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And you have gone against their authority.
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You've gone against what they believe.
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And because you've decided to go against what they believe, you deserve to be punished.
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Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego would not kneel when the music came on.
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So, the snitches come, they tell on them.
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And you have to be thinking, I don't know this happened, and forgive me for using sanctified imagination, but I have to imagine there were some Jewish people who went to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and said, guys, don't make waves.
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What are you doing? We've got a good thing going here.
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They're feeding us.
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They're taking care of us.
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You guys are in positions of high authority.
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If you just shut up and take a knee, you've only got to do it once.
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And it doesn't have to mean anything.
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If you would just shut up and put your knee on the ground, this will all go away.
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If you just give in, it doesn't have to be real.
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It just has to look good.
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Who cares? They care.
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I don't have time to get into it now, but in the first couple centuries of the church, there was a huge debate over whether or not people who had given in to persecution and renounced their faith should be allowed back into the church.
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There was a huge controversy because the first 200 years of church history was major persecution.
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It wasn't until the 300s that Christianity became, well, it was religio elicita until the 4th century.
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Religio elicita, Latin for illegal religion.
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It was illegal until the 4th century.
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It wasn't until after Constantine had his conversion, and I always do that because I don't know if he really was converted, but he claims to be converted, and after that, it becomes legal to be Christian.
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But before that, it was not legal to be Christian.
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And so the Christians had to fight battles and hide, and oftentimes, they would be threatened with death, and some of them would give up their faith to protect their skin.
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Now, you may think, oh, what terrible people.
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You haven't been there.
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You haven't been faced with that.
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So just understand, we have to be careful how we just automatically assume we do better.
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But it happened, and so the church had to begin to ask the question, do we accept them back? Because a lot of them would renounce.
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A lot of them would renounce, but then they would come back and would say, I didn't really mean it, or I was under the threat of death, or I was scared.
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Let me back in.
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And there were some who thought you should take them back in.
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There were some who thought you shouldn't, and that actually created a division in the church as to whether or not you should accept people back who had renounced the faith under the threat of persecution.
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And the only reason why I bring that up is because going back to the time of Daniel, don't you think there were some Jews who were around Daniel and Meshach, or Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who were on their knees, who were whispering to each other, later on we'll recant.
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Later on we'll go back.
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We'll just do this now to keep ourselves safe.
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But Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they didn't do that.
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They took the stand when it was hard.
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And so we get to verse 13, and there is what I call the aggravated ultimatum.
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Then Nebuchadnezzar, in furious rage, commanded that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego be brought.
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So they brought these men before the king.
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Nebuchadnezzar answered and said to them, Is it true, O 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, when you hear the sound of the horn, the pipe, the lyre, the trigon, the harp, the bagpipe, and every kind of music, to fall down and worship the image that I have made well and good.
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But if you do not worship, you shall immediately be cast into the burning, fiery furnace.
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And who is the God who will deliver you out of my hands? Listen to that.
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Who is the God who will deliver you out of my hands? Notice the pure guile of Nebuchadnezzar.
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The pure pride and arrogance of the man.
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And he says simply, He says, You're going to do this or you're going to die.
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You're going to...
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Was it the door? No, it's hitting my beard.
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That's what it is.
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Pardon me.
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It was the microphone.
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I was like, I know I'm hearing something in my ear.
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I'm making sure I'm not, you know, receiving signals.
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Okay.
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Not that kind of church.
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Be careful.
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All right.
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So Nebuchadnezzar says to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to serve him.
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And he even gives them the opportunity to recant.
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He goes, Play the music.
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Play the music.
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Give them the opportunity to get down on their knees and understand this.
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Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
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When this music plays, this is your last opportunity.
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You have the opportunity to save your skin.
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You have the opportunity to save your flesh.
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By the way, the same opportunity was given to Jan Hus.
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The same opportunity was given to William Tyndale.
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Two other men who were burned for their faith.
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Jan Hus was burned in the 14th century.
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William Tyndale was burned in the 16th century.
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Both of them had the opportunity to recant what they had taught.
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Recant what you have said and you will go free.
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Think of the temptation that is.
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The temptation, you're going to burn and you're going to leave your family behind.
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You're going to burn and you're going to leave all your responsibilities behind.
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You're going to burn and your memory is going to be the only thing that anybody is going to remember of you that you were burned.
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Or you can give up.
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Are you ready to give up? And we see the fateful reaction, verse 16.
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Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, We have no need to answer you in this matter.
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Stop right there.
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Can you imagine looking at the king who has your life in his hands? He's got the man standing there with the torch ready to light the fiery furnace.
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Ready to quench its flames with your flesh.
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And saying, I don't have to answer you.
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I have no need to answer you in this matter.
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Look at it again.
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It says, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter.
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We have no need to answer you.
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Why did they have no need to answer? Because they had already answered.
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We ain't doing it.
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You gave us one more opportunity to do it.
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We've already said we ain't doing it.
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And you're giving us one more opportunity.
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We have no more need to say anything.
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We have made our statement.
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It's done.
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We are not kneeling.
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We are not worshipping your false image.
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We are not worshipping your false God.
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And notice what verse 17 says.
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If this be so, meaning if you're going to put us in the furnace, 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.
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But if not, I just have to stop there.
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Those three words, this whole week, those three words have been burned into my soul.
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But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will neither serve your gods nor worship the golden image that you have set up.
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We live in a world that is inundated with bad theology.
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Our motto here at Sovereign Grace is simple.
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Theology matters.
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That's it.
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Theology matters.
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And one of the worst theological falsehoods that has been brought into the church and continues to be taught in the church, and honestly, by churches all around us, is the false teaching of prosperity theology.
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Because prosperity theology always teaches that you will, as long as you have enough faith, you will always be healthy.
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As long as you have enough faith, you will always have the money that you need and more, and you will prosper.
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And if you have enough faith, you will always have everything happen good for you.
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I remember one time, this was 20 years ago, my wife and I were going for a car loan, and we were young, and we didn't have established much credit at that point, so we didn't have a whole lot, and we didn't have much money to put down.
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And we sit down with the lady across from the desk, and we said we'd like to get a loan for a car, whatever, whatever.
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And the lady, we start talking, and she says, well, tell me about yourself.
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And I said, well, we're believers in Christ.
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We are Christians.
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We go to Forest Christian Church, which is what this church used to be called.
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And she goes, oh, well, you're a Christian.
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Well, you got favor.
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You're a Christian.
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You have favor.
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There's not going to be any problems for you.
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We didn't get the loan, but we had favor.
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You see, that is bad theology.
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The bad theology, the prosperity.
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See, here's the reason why prosperity theology is so bad.
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They don't have room for the phrase, but if not.
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They do not have room for the phrase, but if not.
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They don't have room for the phrase, thy will be done, either.
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Because they'll tell you, if you pray a prayer, and you say, God, nevertheless, not my will, but thy will be done.
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I've been told by prosperity preachers, don't pray that way.
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Because that's praying in doubt.
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Don't pray that way.
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I say Jesus prayed that way.
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He was the one who said, nevertheless, not my will, but thy will be done.
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Who's the fool who won't pray like Jesus? And the phrase, but if not, indicates this.
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I know what God can do, but I don't know what God will do.
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Therefore, I can say to anyone, God can deliver me from this situation.
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But if not, I will still trust in Him.
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Because He is God, and I am not.
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Therefore, wherever I am, and whatever I face, I must have a theology that includes the phrase, but if not.
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God, I am sick and dying, and I pray that you will save me.
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But if not, I will trust in you.
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God, I am suffering, and I am hurting, and I need relief.
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But if not, I will trust in you.
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God, the enemy is at my door, and the hinges are bending under their weight.
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And I need you to save me.
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But if not, I will trust in you.
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That phrase, but if not, is the key to understanding all this.
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Because Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did not know there was going to be a fourth man in the fire yet.
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They did not know there was going to be Christ with them in that flame.
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And I know there is debate about whether or not it was Christ, and whether or not it was an angel, or a Theophany, or a Christophany.
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I like to think it was Christ in there with them.
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The text is a little unclear.
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The King James is clear, it says Son of God.
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It even has capital S.
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But later translations say a Son of the Gods.
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And it is likely that King Nebuchadnezzar probably did say a Son of the Gods because he would not have had the same robust theology.
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Certainly not a New Testament theology, it was 600 years prior to that.
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But, I like to believe that it was Christ with them.
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Because, let's read on.
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But just understand, this is where the story is going.
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They said, no, we will not, and God will save us.
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But if he doesn't, we will not bow.
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And then we see in verse 19.
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Then Nebuchadnezzar was filled with fury, and the expression of his face was changed against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
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He ordered the furnace heated seven times, more than it was usually heated.
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And he ordered some of the mighty men of his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and to cast them into the fiery furnace.
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These men were bound in their cloaks, their tunics, their hats, and their outer garments.
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And they were thrown into the burning fiery furnace.
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They tied them up with their garments on to make it more painful, I'm sure, and to include, because normally they wouldn't do that, but it was so that they would burn.
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And verse 22, it says, 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 Abednego.
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And these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell bound into the burning fiery furnace.
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The guys who took them to the furnace died.
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A lot of people missed that part of the narrative.
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The guys who brought them to the furnace to drop them in, the heat was so hot coming out of it that the men who put them in died from the heat.
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A few years ago, I saw on the Discovery Channel, they were trying to explain how this miracle happened naturally.
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They always do, right? It's sort of like every time, you know, people talk about Moses and the parting of the Red Sea, people, oh, it was a meteor that hit, or, oh, it was a dry season, or all these crazy.
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They try to come up with some answer to God's miracles.
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And I heard one time they talked about how these furnaces, and Babylon was known for its furnaces.
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They were known for brickmaking, and this was part of how they made the bricks, and so they were known for having these very articulate furnaces that they had designed to do the brickmaking with.
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And they had a smaller portion at the bottom with a window that you could see in, do the brickmaking and all that, and they had the top portion.
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And that would have been where Nebuchadnezzar looked in and saw the four walking around, was through that bottom window.
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Well, the scientists who were on this Discovery Channel program made the argument that, well, there's a small area in the bottom of the furnace that doesn't get as hot as the rest of the furnace.
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And what happened was, it wasn't a miracle, it was just a coincidence that they fell into that one spot of the furnace that doesn't get as hot as the rest of the furnace.
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And there's a Greek word for that.
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What is it? Baloney.
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That's my favorite Greek word.
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It's baloney, because the men who dropped them in died.
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That's how hot it was.
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At the entrance of the furnace, the heat was so intense that it killed the men around it.
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And so the idea that they fell into this furnace, and they fell into the one spot that wasn't hot enough, just don't jive.
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That ain't right.
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But it also goes on to tell us that's not what happened.
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Because read on in the text with me.
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We see in verse 24, the astonished observation says, Then King Nebuchadnezzar was astonished, and he rose up in haste.
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And he declared to his counselors, Did we not cast three men bound into the fire? They answered and said, True, O king.
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He answered and said, But I see four men, unbound, walking in the midst of the fire, and they are not hurt.
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And the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods, or as King James says, the son of God.
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I see not three.
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And they're not standing huddled in a corner in the one not hot part of the furnace.
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They're walking around in the midst of the fire, fully clothed, but not bound, not burned.
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And there's not three of them.
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There are four of them.
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And the fourth is a divine being.
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In verse 26, Then Nebuchadnezzar came near the door of the burning, fiery furnace, and he declared, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out and come here.
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Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came out from the fire, and the satraps, the prefects, the governors, and the king's counselors gathered together and saw that the fire had not any power over the bodies of these men.
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The hair of their heads was not singed, their cloaks were not harmed, and no smell of fire had come upon them.
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They didn't smell like...
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Now I only mention that because if you think about when God parted the Red Sea, it says they walked through on dry ground.
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Remember that? They didn't walk through with their feet...
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You know, we just moved out to Callahan, and we got soft dirt.
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And the other day, my daughter tried to walk across the backyard after it had rained, and she got ankle deep, and she started losing her shoes as she was getting out there because it was so dirt, so muddy.
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They didn't walk across on mud.
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They walked across on dry ground.
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Now you say, why are you bringing this up? Because these are the little details that God uses to remind us that this is a miracle, this is not natural.
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Because had those men fallen into a not hot part of the furnace, they would have still smelled like the smoke and the fire around them.
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But when they came out, they didn't have one hair on their head that was singed, and they didn't have one inkling of the smell of the smoke on their bodies.
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God had divinely protected them the whole time.
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Not even the stench of the flame was born upon them.
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And it goes on to say, and we'll finish the chapter, it says, Nebuchadnezzar, verse 28, Nebuchadnezzar answered and said, Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent the angel to deliver his servants, who has trusted him and set aside the king's command, and yielded up the bodies, rather than serve and worship any god except their own god.
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Therefore I make a decree, Any people, nation, and language that speaks anything against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego shall be torn limb from limb, and their houses laid in ruins, for there is no other god who is able to rescue in this way.
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Then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the province of Babylon.
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Now the Bible never tells us Nebuchadnezzar got saved.
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But I want to show you one last thing about this, what I call the other side of the story.
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Go to chapter 6, I'm sorry, chapter 4.
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Go over to chapter 4.
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Nebuchadnezzar is quoted speaking about the God of Scripture.
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And in chapter 4 he says this, beginning at verse 34.
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This is after God struck him with insanity, sent him out to live as an animal out in the field, and he ate grass like an ox, and he had his hair like bird feathers, and fingernails like claws.
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All this had happened, and after God gave him his sense back, this is what he says about the God of Scripture.
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He says, At the end of days I, Nebuchadnezzar, This is Nebuchadnezzar's own words in Scripture for us.
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It says, At the end of days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted up my eyes to heaven, my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High, and praised and honored him who lives forever.
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For his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation.
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All the inhabitants of the earth are counted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the hosts of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth.
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And none can stay his hand or say to him, What have you done? That is the words of a pagan king about our God.
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And you might say, Well, we shouldn't listen to the words of the pagan king.
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No, they're inscribed in Scripture for us as truth.
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Even coming out of the mouth of the pagan king.
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And what do they teach us? They teach us that God does what he pleases in heaven and on earth.
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And therefore, whether or not Nebuchadnezzar was saved at the end of his life, We know this, he knew who God was.
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He knew what God could do.
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He had seen it in the life of Daniel.
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He had seen it in the life of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
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And he saw it in his own life.
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And this story, this story about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego has stood for both Christians and Jews for centuries as an example.
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And it still continues to stand as an example for us of standing for our faith in the midst of a corrupt and idolatrous world.
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It is my sincere hope that we understand this is not just a good story.
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But rather it is a reminder of what it means to be faithful even when it hurts.
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To be faithful even when we are afraid.
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To be faithful even when times are difficult.
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Many churches today have become places where people are more interested in comfort than they are with truth.
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They are more interested in having their ears tickled than they are for standing on the word of God.
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And fewer and fewer Christians are interested in being uncomfortable or even inconvenienced for the sake of the gospel.
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I hear some people say all the time, oh I would die for my faith.
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I say, you would die for your faith? You won't even go to church.
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Say, I would die for Christ.
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You won't even come and worship Him.
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And if you want to make an application of today's message, might I add this thought.
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And I am going to close.
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I know I have been preaching for a while.
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If you want to make an application of the narrative, here it is.
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America is not Israel.
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America is Babylon.
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The church is Israel.
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I will say it again.
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America is not Israel.
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America is Babylon.
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And I don't care if you are a dispensationalist on this, you are wrong.
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The church is Israel.
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And Israel is the church.
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And so, who is it that stands against Babylon? Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.
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The true Israelites.
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The true church.
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So what are we to do? We stand when it is hard.
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What are we to do? We stand when it is difficult.
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What are we to do? We stand when the assaults come and we say, God is able to save us.
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But if not, we still stand.
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Alistair Begg in his sermon on this, he talked about how he would read this text to his young children.
01:00:00
And if you have never heard Alistair Begg, he has got that wonderful Scottish accent.
01:00:05
And he says that his children would say to him, Papa, could this happen to you? Could it be that one day you are told to bow to an idol? Could it be that one day you are told you can't pray? Could it be that one day you are faced with the ultimatum, give in or die? There are believers all around the world today who face that very thing right now.
01:00:40
Give in or die.
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Who are we to think that it can't come upon us? Who are we to think that it shouldn't come upon us? It is time to wake up from the spiritual slumber and take a stand.
01:01:01
And continue to stand.
01:01:06
For those of us who know Christ, the time ahead may be difficult.
01:01:12
We must stand.
01:01:15
And for those of you who do not know Christ, let me say this.
01:01:20
I can tell you now that trusting in Christ won't be like it was when I was a kid.
01:01:27
When I was a kid, growing up in a small town, you believe in Jesus, everybody applauded.
01:01:35
It is a good thing.
01:01:37
It is not going to be that way for the next generation.
01:01:42
And maybe we will be better for it.
01:01:45
Because maybe finally we will understand what it means to stand against a world that hates our God.
01:01:56
But understand this.
01:01:57
Even if the world hates our God.
01:02:01
And even if we can't overcome and we have to fight back.
01:02:08
And we lose.
01:02:10
But if not, God is still in control.
01:02:14
Because He won't lose.
01:02:16
We just keep standing.
01:02:18
And as Brother Andy loves to say.
01:02:20
And I meant to say this earlier, but I am going to say it now.
01:02:23
Every year I like to give a little theme.
01:02:25
Like next year's theme is going to be this.
01:02:28
Press on.
01:02:29
Next year.
01:02:31
So when we face trials.
01:02:32
And we have money problems.
01:02:34
Press on.
01:02:34
When we face trials.
01:02:35
We have medical problems.
01:02:37
We press on.
01:02:37
We face trials.
01:02:38
We have political problems.
01:02:39
We press on.
01:02:40
We face trials.
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And they tell us to bend our knee.
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We say no.
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We stand up and we press on.
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By God's grace.
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And for His glory.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank you for your word.
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Only you can give us the ability to press on.
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Only you can give us the ability to stand firm.
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Only you can put in the hearts of those three Hebrew men.
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To stand for the truth and not give in.
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And I pray that you would give us the same boldness.
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And remind us that when we walk through the fire.
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Christ walks with us.
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And it's in His name we pray.
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Amen.
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Let's stand and sing.