When Your World Is Turned Upside Down
Facing the Fire
Daniel 3
(Read Daniel 3 first)
Sometimes, the best sermon that’s preached is the Scripture reading.
And I have a feeling that today is one of those days.
Obviously, this is one of the greatest stories of deliverance in the Bible. It rivals David and Goliath and Daniel in the Lion’s Den. It tells us our God is a living God, He can do anything, and that He sometimes, and if we think eternally, always, delivers His faithful servants from death.
It tells us you to honor God under the most severe circumstances, where honoring Him seemingly ensures your death, and God will honor you.
So this morning I’m going to let the Scripture reading be the centerpiece of our morning’s worship. Yes, I’m going to add a few comments, but hopefully, they’ll be brief, perhaps only brief for Jim Wallace.
But one of the first things we need to notice is that sometimes God lets you go through the fire. In this case, we’re speaking literally, but I’m speaking figuratively. God could have delivered these three young Jewish men from the fire (Nebuchadnezzar could have relented or something), but instead God chose to deliver them through the fire.
Whatever kind of fire or trial you face, sometimes God will not deliver you from the trial. He may deliver you through the trial.
In fact, there are times that He leads us into the trial.
This story reminds me of the disciples being directed by Jesus to row their boat across the Sea of Galilee as night falls. He stays behind. But in the middle of the night, a storm blows up, and they’re concerned they’re going to perish. That’s when Jesus shows up walking on the water and rescues them.
Reminds me also of Proverbs 17:3: “The refining pot is for silver and the furnace for gold,
But the LORD tests hearts.”
In other words, this experience of the three Hebrew young men here is often the way He deals with us. He uses trials, He uses hot fires, to refine us, to refine us like gold. The Lord is not about refining silver or gold, but He is all about refining the hearts of his people. He had already done so with these three Jewish young men, in Daniel 1 and Daniel 2. They had resolved not to defile their hearts with the King’s choice food, and God had blessed them. They prayed to the Lord that Daniel would receive both King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream and the interpretation, when their lives were on the line, and God came through. Their hearts had already been refined. They had already learned that when they honored God, they could trust that God would honor them. So when they encountered this incredible trial, when they faced the fire, literally a fiery furnace heated seven times beyond normal, their faith had been so strengthened that they did not hesitate to stand against the King’s command and for God’s command. They trusted God no matter what and obeyed no matter what.
And of course, it was a matter of obedience. If there’s any doubt in your mind, consider the Ten Commandment, vital, and central to the Law of the Jews and the Law of Moses. What are the first two of the Ten Commandments? Yes, “You shall have no other gods before me.” And you shall not worship any graven image as though of a god. These were the top two commandments. It was vital for them to observe them to worship their God in spirit and truth. They were not willing to compromise on this issue, as we should not be willing to compromise on our faith in Jesus as God and Savior today, and God came through for them.
Wow, what a God, what a Savior and what a deliverance!
Now is there a chance you will, we will, be tested in this way? I’d say yes! I don’t know what’s going to happen in our nation, but I do know what the Apostle Peter said about fiery trials. He told us not to be surprised when we encounter one in I Peter 4:12-13: “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you; 13 but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing, so that also at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exultation.”
I don’t know about you, but somehow, I so often am surprised. I find myself wondering, “How did I get here,” or “God, where are you?” or “How could you have let this happen?” However, I don’t see that kind of response from Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego here. It’s as though they had prepared for this very kind of thing to happen. They are incredibly bold and confident in their response to this pagan tyrant. “O King, we don’t have to answer you in this manner. But we will not bow down and worship your image. And yes, Our God is able to rescue us from your hands, but whether He does or not, we will not bow down to your image.”
Wow! They must have been prepared in advance for this very sort of thing. They must have said to themselves, I wouldn’t be surprised if this idolatrous king tries to make us worship his idols. And they must have resolved in their heart that no matter what happened, no matter how fiery the trial they were about to endure, they would not compromise.
How about you? Have you prepared for the fiery ordeal that Peter says we should not be surprised by? Do you know just how you would answer a demand to deny your faith in Jesus at the point of a sword? It’s important, for Jesus said this about how we should respond in any and every circumstance in relationship to Him. He said in Matthew 10:32-33: “Therefore everyone who confesses Me before men, I will also confess him before My Father who is in heaven. 33 But whoever denies Me before men, I will also deny him before My Father who is in heaven.” When you’re facing the fire, prepare in advance what you will say, and prepare to stand no matter the cost, because God may well make you go through the fire as these three did.
The second observation I want to make is this: Sometimes, oftentimes, God Himself shows up in the fire. If God makes you go through the fire, don’t be surprised if God Himself somehow shows up in ways you typically don’t see Him show up.
Of course, that’s exactly what happened in this situation. God, in the form of someone who looked like a son of the gods according to the polytheistic idolater, Nebuchadnezzar, actually did visibly show up. Of course, this was the Son of God, the pre-incarnate Christ. Theologians often call this a theophany—literally, an appearance of God in the Old Testament, as a man. And there are a number of occasions when God showed up in the Old Testament under the appearance as a man. He did so with Abraham just before Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed. He did so with Joshua as the Captain of the Lord’s Armies just before the battle of Jericho. And He did so here, literally in the furnace with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. And guess who else noticed him in there. Yes, Nebuchadnezzar. I suspect not only Nebuchadnezzar but all his high-ranking Babylonians officials who were there for this occasion noticed. Three men had been thrown into the fire. The strongest soldiers of the Babylonian army had thrown these three men into the fire, and the flames were so hot that they died doing so. And then, over their dead bodies, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego continued to live and walk around within the flames themselves, but there was the Son of God there with them in the fire! Wow!
If God makes you go through the fire, He will go through the fire with you. And sometimes, He will make His presence obvious; He may manifest Himself in supernatural ways that He does at no other time. Imagine how these three Jewish young men felt as they found themselves not consumed by the flames but walking around unharmed in the flames with the Son of God! How surreal! How incredible! Yes, God is their rock, their fortress, their deliverer, their God in whom they trust. Is there anything He cannot do?
Now this has on several occasions been my experience as I have gone through the proverbial fire. No, I didn’t see the Son of God. But I did experience His miracles, His astounding personal presence delivering me supernaturally in ways that were certainly beyond my faith and my expectation, often in answer to other people’s prayers uttered in faith. Now I’ve told the stories too often to bore some of you with a repetition of them. But God has delivered my ministry from certain doom at the moment of crisis, in the fire, showing up, healing me, giving me a fresh message and wisdom and an affirmation of my call to ministry—astounding me and confirming a faith I didn’t quite have, in a precise answer to prayer. He has healed me supernaturally when it appeared I might be on my deathbed and revealed a new direction to me. In short, He has shown up in the midst of the fire, when I did not expect Him to, on a number of occasions, and if He had not, I would not be here preaching to you right now. Yes, it is my experience that God shows up in the fire, sometimes when you think it’s too late, but it turns out it was just in time. He is a wonder-working faithful God who is the same yesterday, today and forever, and if you stand for Him as these Hebrew young men stood for Him, He will, in one way or another show up for you even as He showed up for them.
So don’t be surprised by a fiery ordeal, but neither be surprised, if you stand up for Jesus, and you go through the fire, if God shows up for you in some supernatural way in the same way he stood up for these three young men.
So we might ask, “Why didn’t God show up for them before they had to enter the fire?” Why didn’t He deliver them from the fire, rather than through the fire?
Well, let me ask you this, which is the better story—being delivered from the fire or through the fire? Either one would be a good story, but by far the best story, a story that would be told over and over again through the 2600 years that have followed, is the version we have here—when God delivered these 3 Jewish young men through the fire just as He did here. And when He does deliver you through the fire as He did here, it will be the best story as well.
Why does God do it this way? Well, sometimes God takes you through the fire for His greater glory and your greater good. Sometimes God takes you through the fire for His greater glory and your greater good. My greatest assurances of faith in Christ are when He did exactly that for me. When things got way out of control, when the clock hit midnight and beyond, when I was sure it was too late, when I thought all was lost, and then God showed up. Wow, what a miracle!
Look at what happened here. Nebuchadnezzar that tyrant who had so little regard for human life and suffering, gets up off his throne and approaches the fiery furnace because there are not three, but four men walking around in it! He’s never seen anything like it. Remember, he’s the person who just challenged the God of the Jews by making this statement to these Jewish young men—“And what God is there who can deliver you out of my hand.” What arrogance. You better believe, when someone says something like this, “Them’s fightin’ words” for our great God. When someone lays down such a challenge, when someone defies the living God, like Nebuchadnezzar had just done, our God has determined that His name will be exalted among the nations, among the Gentiles, and He is going to act for His glory. It’s the same thing He did for David, who was cursed by Goliath, and then made this statement, “Who is this uncircumcised Philistine to defy the armies of the Living God.” “Who was this uncircumcised King to defy the power of the living God in His children’s life?”
And so Nebuchadnezzar is just a little impressed. And he now calls on these three Jewish young men to come out of the fire. And the only thing that has been burned is the rope that bound them! All his highly placed governing pagan officials gather around these three young men in absolute wonder and amazement, and they see that not a hair of their heads has been singed, not a thread of their garments nor is there even the smell of the fire upon them! How could this be? It could not, unless their God is the God of Gods, and the Lord of Kings, and he has decided to use the faith and obedience of these three young men to exalt Himself in the sight of this arrogant King and all his officials. You’ve got to wonder how many of these pagans went home believers in the God of the Jews that day. More than that, though Nebuchadnezzar is not yet ready to make this God His God, it was a seed planted that would ultimately bear fruit in Nebuchadnezzar’s salvation as it comes about in the next chapter. And even more than that,
now Nebuchadnezzar issues a proclamation in all his world-conquering kingdom that exalts the God of the Jews. He orders a proclamation made to all these pagans who would hear round the world, “Therefore I make a decree that any people, nation or tongue that speaks anything offensive against the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego shall be torn limb from limb and their houses reduced to a rubbish heap, inasmuch as there is no other god who is able to deliver in this way.” And what do you want to bet that this story wasn’t circulated among thousands, even tens or hundreds of thousands of people in the Kingdom of Babylon, thus demonstrating the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to be the great God of all Gods, who delivers those who are dedicated to Him as no other God can!
You know what, “Sometimes God makes you go through the fire—but remember this—when He does—He’ll be with you in the fire, and you’ll be more greatly blessed and He will be far more greatly glorified because of it!
So, don’t be surprised at the fiery ordeal that may come upon you. But do be prepared to stand for the Lord no matter the potential consequence. Then stand back, and see the glory of God, one way or another.
Let’s pray.
