INTRODUCTION
• We are in the 3rd part of a series on Daniel.
• We’ve been talking about pressure and culture and living out of core values and loving well.
• Daniel was taken captive and hauled off to Babylon when he was probably 15 or so years old.
• He’s tested and tested again
o Convictions that steer his journey,
o Integrity that lives out his convictions,
o Courage that causes him to pass the tests he faces,
o Prayer that is a lifeline to his Father’s heart,
o Prophecy that is born out of the Holy Spirit’s empowering him to serve.
• Last week we talked about chapter 2.
• The king ordered his magicians to tell him the dream he had and then interpret it. When they couldn’t he ordered all the counselors in the land killed, including Daniel and his three friends.
• But Daniel coolly asks for time. Then prays and God moves in him, with both the dream and the interpretation.
• Staggering prophetic dream that has come true. Four kingdoms: Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and finally Rome.
• Daniel carefully honored God when King Nebuchadnezzar gave him credit - 2:24-25
• Then Daniel prophecies that Jesus will come and set up the kingdom of God.
• Daniel 2:44-45, “In the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom which will never be destroyed, and that kingdom will not be left for another people; it will crush and put an end to all these kingdoms, but it will itself endure forever. 45Inasmuch as you saw that a stone was cut out of the mountain without hands and that it crushed the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold, the great God has made known to the king what will take place in the future; so the dream is true and its interpretation is trustworthy.”
• And he wins the king’s heart for a season.
I. TESTED BY FIRE
Daniel chapter 3 probably took place as long as 20 years after chapter 2, so time has passed.
• Chapters 3 and 6 cover two of the most famous stories in the Bible. The lion’s den and the fiery furnace.
• Like those in Exodus: Parting of the Red Sea, the plagues in Egypt, the giving of the Ten Commandments.
• We often skip teaching these stories because they are so dramatic and most of us are not going into a fiery furnace anytime soon or a lion’s den.
• But the principle here is so vital. You don’t end up with a confrontation like this if you don’t live out your convictions with courage.
• These kinds of tests check one thing. It is not your courage level.
• It is your fear level. Who do you fear most, people or God?
• What should we be afraid of? Waking up outside of God’s will.
• Fear being outside of God’s will more than you fear what others find out about you. God already knows and He still loves you.
• When your life is over what story do you want it to tell?
• Tell the story that God is with you, always.
• Fear of God is built alone with God in prayer and worship.
• In Daniel 2:18, you see Daniel and his friends doing that.
• In Chapter 3, you see them living out of that.
• Nebuchadnezzar planned to unify his kingdom by means of religion and fear.
• This was more than a political assembly; it was a worship service, complete with music, and it called for total commitment on the part of the worshippers.
• The word worship is used at least eleven times in the chapter.
• The great multitude of Babylonians, exiles, and representatives from the provinces simply conformed to the edict of the king and did what everybody else was doing.
• There were thousands of Jewish exiles in Babylon and these guys are the only ones to lead, but that is the nature of leadership.
• It takes courage and convictions.
• Daniel 3:1-7, “Nebuchadnezzar the king made an image of gold…he set it up on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon. 2Then Nebuchadnezzar the king sent word to assemble the satraps, the prefects and the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the judges, the magistrates and all the rulers of the provinces to come to the dedication of the image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up. …4Then the herald loudly proclaimed: “To you the command is given, O peoples, nations and men of every language, 5that at the moment you hear the sound of the horn, flute, lyre, trigon, psaltery, bagpipe and all kinds of music, you are to fall down and worship the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king has set up. 6 But whoever does not fall down and worship shall immediately be cast into the midst of a furnace of blazing fire…”
• The courage to say no.
“…12There are certain Jews whom you have appointed over the administration of the province of Babylon, namely Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego. These men, O king, have disregarded you; they do not serve your gods or worship the golden image which you have set up.” 13Then Nebuchadnezzar in rage and anger gave orders to bring Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego; then these men were brought before the king. 14 Nebuchadnezzar responded and said to them, “Is it true, Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego, that you do not serve my gods or worship the golden image that I have set up? 15Now if you are ready, at the moment you hear the sound of the horn, flute, lyre, trigon, psaltery and bagpipe and all kinds of music, to fall down and worship the image that I have made, very well. But if you do not worship, you will immediately be cast into the midst of a furnace of blazing fire; and what god is there who can deliver you out of my hands?”
II. WHAT DO YOU WORSHIP?
• Vs.15 - “Fall down and worship the image I made.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson - “A person will worship something, have no doubt about that. We may think our tribute is paid in secret in the dark recesses of our hearts, but it will come out. That which dominates our imaginations and our thoughts will determine our lives, and our character. Therefore, it behooves us to be careful what we worship, for what we are worshiping we are becoming.”
• Singing, shouting praying are all responses of what is going on in your heart.
• What matters most to me? Who is first?
• If we can answer honestly we will know what we worship.
• If God is not first, the Bible calls it idolatry. That is what this was in Babylon.
• Worshiping something other than God.
• When others push us to worship things other than God it doesn’t have to be “us vs. them”
• Jesus never let it go there and Daniel doesn’t either in chapter 6. He just does what he does. Worship God.
• The king used music, images, sound, a band to draw people in. Music has a powerful influence on most all of us.
Part of the reason is Lucifer, Satan was a musician - Ezekiel 28:12-15, and Isaiah 14 tell us that,
“Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyre, and say unto him, thus says the Lord God; you were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. 13You have been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was your covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of your timbrels and of your pipes was prepared in you in the day that you were created. 14You are the anointed cherub that covers; and I have set you so: you were upon the holy mountain of God; you have walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. 15You were perfect in your ways from the day that you were created, till iniquity was found in you.”
• We all love music just beware, so does Satan. Nebuchadnezzar knew that.
• But these three knew who they were and what they believed, what they embraced and what they would endure for it.
• Follow your trail of affection and you will know what you worship, your time, your money, your attention…
III. LIVING OUT YOUR FAITH
• Living out your faith always takes risk. Always.
• Only way the kingdom of God is built.
• Vs. 16-18 - The reflection of the conviction.
• Daniel 3:15b-18, “…if you do not worship, you will immediately be cast into the midst of a furnace of blazing fire and what god is there who can deliver you out of my hands?” 16Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar we do not need to give you an answer concerning this matter. “If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire: and He will deliver us out of your hand, O King. But even 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.”
• Wow! That is courage, to stand in the face of death.
• We know the outcome in this story but Christians are doing this today and they are not all being delivered from the fire.
• Rome and the catacombs thousands of martyrs were buried. They didn’t get a miracle, neither do hundreds of believers who die each year today.
They are dying in the fire but giving life to the Kingdom. In North Korea there are horrible stories of Christians being slain. Highly unusual case of Pastor Han Choong Yeol who was killed by a squad of four North Korean agents in the Chinese border town Chiangbai on April 30, 2016 may serve as an illustration. What was most shocking was not the fact of the killing, but that it was done so publicly. So if the authorities are not shy to kill a foreign Christian abroad, it may be easier to imagine how they act once they find a local Christian.
• If you read the stories of martyrs, it is clear there were people who recanted out of fear of being torn to pieces by a lion or leopard or a bear.
• But at the end of the day this is about courage and convictions and these three guys had both.
• “But even if He doesn’t” - this is so telling
CLOSE
The Bible is full of pictures of believers dying; from Stephan, to James, to John the Baptist, Andrew Peter’s brother, Peter, Paul.
The "victorious" Christians of Revelation chapters 2-3 (see especially 3:21, "to him who overcomes, I will give the right to sit with me on my throne, just as I overcame and sat down with my Father on His throne"). They are those who "follow the Lamb wherever He goes" (14:4), who are therefore "His called, chosen and faithful followers" (17:14).
• Do you have this kind of faith? Do you desire to have this kind of faith?
• Too many of us are ashamed of our faith. We are not called to boast about it but to humbly and lovingly live it out.
• Do you?
