The Comfortable Cage
Book of Daniel Series
CCCAG February 2, 2025
Scripture: Daniel 3:1-7, Isaiah 9:9-10, Romans 1:28-32, Revelation 13
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Introduction: luxury cage (God’s Not Dead video- unbelieving son versus believing mother)
The video we just watched highlights the subject of today’s sermon.
Keep it in the front of your mind because it really illustrates the main point of today’s message.
Last week we looked at Daniel Chapter 2.
God gave Nebuchadnezzar a dream, but Nebuchadnezzar didn’t understand or remember parts of the dream and it was driving him crazy.
As we remember, the dream was showing him a statue that had four parts.
The head of the statue was made of pure gold and represented Nebuchadnezzar and his Kingdom of Babylon.
This dream had a divine purpose.
God gave this dream to Nebuchadnezzar to make him stop and evaluate where he was spiritually heading. Nebuchadnezzar was running at full speed toward a very dangerous place, and since he is now king over God’s people Israel, he will drag them down with him.
The video we watched exposed one of the devils sneakiest tricks. Satan isn’t always trying to physically to harm a person, take away their health, life, or comforts to draw you away from God.
In fact, his sneakiest trick to give a person success, riches, and fame.
That way a person never feels like they need anything outside of what life has already given them.
That’s the trap Nebuchadnezzar is falling into here in Daniel 3.
It’s the trap that Jesus warned the church at Laodicea about. Jesus told them
Revelation 3:17- For you say, ‘I’m rich; I have become wealthy and need nothing,’ and you don’t realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind, and naked.
That is what we will see in the mindset of Nebuchadnezzar as we read this bible passage.
Let’s read the passage this morning-
Dan 3:1-7 King Nebuchadnezzar made a gold statue, ninety feet high and nine feet wide. He set it up on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon. (2) King Nebuchadnezzar sent word to assemble the satraps, prefects, governors, advisers, treasurers, judges, magistrates, and all the rulers of the provinces to attend the dedication of the statue King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. (3) So the satraps, prefects, governors, advisers, treasurers, judges, magistrates, and all the rulers of the provinces assembled for the dedication of the statue the king had set up. Then they stood before the statue Nebuchadnezzar had set up. (4) A herald loudly proclaimed, “People of every nation and language, you are commanded: (5) When you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, drum, and every kind of music, you are to fall facedown and worship the gold statue that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up. (6) But whoever does not fall down and worship will immediately be thrown into a furnace of blazing fire.”
Prayer
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One of the hardest things that I find in my job as a nurse is trying to convince a person who has an addiction to something like drugs or alcohol that their addiction is harmful and will someday kill them.
However, as pernicious as drugs and alcohol can be to a person, there is an even greater addiction. This addiction damages people spiritually, and it infests every corner of their soul.
That addiction is pride.
When I was in bible school one of the requirements was that you had to go out and street evangelize, talking to at least 50 people about the Gospel. There was an older guy in my church who did this all of the time, and he agreed to take me out with him for a few weeks.
The first place he took me was what most would call “The Hood”. The ghetto, or economically depressed area of Kenosha. It’s where the gangs were, the drugs, the street walkers. We had a great time, and almost everyone we ran into wanted to hear about Jesus.
We did that for a few weeks and then decided to go to a festival in the nice part of town.
Any guesses on how we were received?
Open, and even violent hostility. People cursing at us, spitting toward us, giving us rude gestures, and jumping up in our faces screaming all kinds of vile junk. The police came and asked us to leave as we were causing a disturbance.
Looking back on that memory, it illustrates the dangers of a comfortable cage, and the more affluent people who rejected us were just like that man in the video we watched?
While many of the people in the poor areas were anxious to hear about someone who could help them, many of these people in the wealthy area were so into their successful lifestyle and physical comforts that they couldn’t tolerate anything that would threaten that existence.
They preferred a comfortable cage whose bars were built with the pride of those inside of it.
This is what is happening to Nebuchadnezzar, and it is happening to many in our world today.
The enemy has tricked much of our population into that same cage. Whether you are on the political right or the political left, we have our own unique ways of talking ourselves into our own spiritual cages.
The pride that builds the bars of that cage is alive and well today.
We are supposed to have pride in everything, and most of what our culture calls us to be prideful about is actually blatant rebellion against God and the bible.
As it is now, it was 2500 years ago.
This is what God is trying to warn Nebuchadnezzar to change.
Nebuchadnezzar doesn't get the message.
At this point in history, Babylon has been around for over 1000 years. It has reached the height of its power and its glory while he has been king.
It's inconceivable for him to think that anyone will come after him that will be able to conquer this mighty nation.
So when Daniel explains to Nebuchadnezzar the dream that he received from God that that some small nation called Medio-Persia will someday soon wipe out Babylon and his rule,
Nebuchadnezzar rejects the message and instead doubles down.
Remember, he was represented in the dream as being the head of a statue, and that head was made of pure gold.
In his pride, Nebuchadnezzar takes that image of a head of gold that represented him and his kingdom, and then creates an entire statue made of gold to represent what he thinks of this vision.
He is saying- there is no way that Babylon will ever fail or fall.
He is so blinded by his pride that not only does he make it into a statue, but he forces people to have to worship it.
That national pride and concern about his own glory becomes the cause of Nebuchadnezzar’s downfall.
But before we think- well, Nebuchadnezzar was just some dumb ancient king who didn't understand the power or sovereignty of God.
Let's make this very personal to many of us, and this might be difficult for us to accept.
American’s are guilty of the same kind of thing.
I believe in every part of my spirit that the attacks of September 11th, 2001, was a warning from God.
Prior to that, America's culture had at least a passive adherence to Christianity and righteousness- meaning that you didn’t want to be known as a person who wantonly violated God’s standards or moral law.
You wanted to be known as a “good and decent person” so you at least conformed in public to a Judeo Christian ethic.
However prior to 2001 that had begun to change. In the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s we saw our culture rapidly beginning to drift away from Christianity.
This is why God allowed 9-11 to shake us as a nation and help us come back to faith.
The terrorists hit the two biggest idols that we as Americans take pride in-
#1. Our economy in hitting the World Trade Center
#2, Our military in hitting the Pentagon.
But we missed the message.
The response to the attack was seen in one of our leaders giving a rousing speech on the steps of the capital, and quoted Isaiah 9:10
Isa 9:10 “The bricks have fallen, but we will rebuild with cut stones; the sycamores have been cut down, but we will replace them with cedars.”
Sounds good right? We all said, “merica!”
However, whoever wrote this speech forget to include the preceding verse which gives the context of what the bible actually says-
Isa 9:9b-10 (Samaria and Ephraim being judged by God) They will say with pride and arrogance, (10) “The bricks have fallen, but we will rebuild with cut stones; the sycamores have been cut down, but we will replace them with cedars.”
Unfortunately, we missed the message- and now we are reaping the moral and cultural collapse that we have witnessed over the past two decades.
24 years later, we are now a culture embraces and celebrates the worse of debauchery
We are at the point now of not only wanting to mutilate children in the name of trans-sexual ideology but I saw this week on mainstream news-
There are people are trying to get the American Psychiatric Association to change the DSM. The DSM is the Diagnostic Statistical Manual which lists the criteria a person has to meet to be diagnosed with a mental illness. They are insisting that it be changed to say that a person who is “minor attracted” (think about what that means for a moment) is not a criminal pedophile, but expressing normal sexual desire.
This is the danger of ignoring God’s prophetic warnings.
The enemy deadens our spiritual senses to allow our pride to add more bars to the cage he wants to trap us inside of.
It’s not just on a national level.
It starts in our personal lives, and it starts out very subtly. A small compromise here, leads to a large secret sin there, and the Holy Spirit begins to have less and less influence in our lives.
There is a picture of that in Ezekiel.
In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit is generally described as “The Glory of the LORD”. Ezekiel begins to describe the Glory leaving the temple because of the people’s unrepentant sin and rebellion against The LORD.
In Ezekiel 10:4 that glory lifts up from the Ark of the Covenant in the Holiest of Holies in the Temple. It goes from that room, to the threshold of the temple.
God withdraws, and He does this to encourage the people to see HIS presence is leaving and to get them to repent.
In this case, they either refuse or more tragically, don’t even notice HE is gone, so the Glory goes to the Eastern Gate of the temple mount in verse 19.
Seeing no change in the people, at the end of this chapter, God’s presence completely leaves Jerusalem.
What this shows us is that the Holy Spirit does not just up and leave, but does so incrementally
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What does this mean for us?
Remember, we are now the temple of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit’s light within us can dim so slowly that we never realize it.
Then one day we find ourselves in situations, and in lifestyles we never thought were possible.
And the final condition of a person from whom the HOLY SPIRIT has left is seen in Romans 1:28-32
Starting in verse 18 of Romans 1, you see the moral/spiritual progression of a people who turn their backs on God. Now we see the final condition of those people.
Rom 1:28-32 And because they did not think it worthwhile to acknowledge God, God delivered them over to a corrupt mind so that they do what is not right. (29) They are filled with all unrighteousness, evil, greed, and wickedness. They are full of envy, murder, quarrels, deceit, and malice. They are gossips, (30) slanderers, God-haters, arrogant, proud, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, (31) senseless, untrustworthy, unloving, and unmerciful. (32) Although they know God’s just sentence?—?that those who practice such things deserve to die?—?they not only do them, but even applaud others who practice them.
Sadly, this is where much of our culture, and even many denominations and their leaders have ended up.
They used to be Christian, but have exchanged the truth of God for a lie.
We saw that in the National Prayer Service where a so-called female bishop scolded the president for not supporting the evil that she supports.
That’s the tragedy of allowing ourselves to be trapped inside that comfortable cage of pride and compromise.
In Nebuchadnezzar’s case, in Daniel 4 we see him lose his mind, and his kingdom for a period of 7 years, which give his enemies time to grow, plan, and eventually conquer his kingdom.
Just as God foretold him in that dream
Nebuchadnezzar is following progression we see over and over again in scripture-
Small compromises lead to larger compromises as people wander away from God.
Refuse to return, and then double down on their rebellion.
They not only double down, but then become advocates of spiritual rebellion- spreading it toward others in forcing them to think as they do.
Sound familiar?
In other words- worship this image of gold or die.
It’s so ironic that Nebuchadnezzar essentially threatens people with hell on earth-
Daniel 3:6 But whoever does not fall down and worship will immediately be thrown into a furnace of blazing fire.”
It’s so ironic- it’s telling those listening to this king that in order to avoid hell for eternity, you have to endure hell on earth.
You can hear satan cackles in the background as he is moving in Nebuchadnezzar’s spirit here- mocking the one true God and putting himself in HIS place.
See the deception?
Isn’t this what we have today?
Refuse to bow to lifestyles that are not biblical?
You’re fired.
Criticize the science during COVID?
We will lock you up. We will take your job, and we will remove your professional license from you.
Stand in the way of transitioning your child, and we will remove them from your home and place them somewhere else.
It’s the same tactics that we see Nebuchadnezzar using- we will put you through hell on earth to get you to bend.
It’s lightening up a little under the new administration, but don’t be fooled- it will come again.
Let’s look at Revelation 13 for something that will happen in our future-
Rev 13:14-15 It (false prophet of the antichrist) deceives those who live on the earth because of the signs that it is permitted to perform in the presence of the beast, telling those who live on the earth to make an image of the beast who was wounded by the sword and yet lived. (15) It was permitted to give breath to the image of the beast, so that the image of the beast could both speak and cause whoever would not worship the image of the beast to be killed.
Different time, different people. Same devil at work.
Don’t allow the enemy to build you a cage so comfortable, that you don’t see the bars.
Application:
• What are the "golden statues" of pride, comfort, or idolatry that are in your life right now?
• Have you begun to bend to cultural pressures that demand allegiance to ideas contrary to God’s will.
It’s very subtle, and it happens. Let this morning be a wake up call for you.
• Call for humility: Don’t defy God’s warnings, encourage a posture of repentance and submission to His sovereignty.
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As heavy as this subject is-I want to leave you with some good news.
Repentance is the key to bringing God back into our lives and into our nation.
Remember in Ezekiel when the Holy Spirit left the temple, showing how spiritually dead the nation had become? He did it in stages? Going, going, going, gone?
Ezekiel 37- Valley of Dry Bones. (explain)
After the dry bones,
• But there is good news, and we see that in Ezekiel 43 that while the Holy Spirit might leave in stages
• Repentance brings him like a mighty rushing wind, and HE will fill the temple God has created.
YOU ARE THAT TEMPLE!
Our God brings life where there was once death
He brings joy where there is sorrow
WE will shatter the prison bars, rip off the cage doors, and lead us into the true freedom that is found in Christ Jesus.
All rise-
Conclusion
• Beware the comfortable cage
• Close with a prayer for humility and discernment, asking God to reveal areas of pride and guide the church to remain faithful in a culture of idolatry.
