(Singing) “When through fiery trials thy pathway shall lie, His grace, all-sufficient, shall be thy supply. The flame shall not hurt thee, He only designs thy dross to consume and thy gold to refine.”
Whew! Does it seem hot in here to you? Does it feel as though the very fires of hell are about to burn you up? No? Maybe it’s just me. I have been all too close to a fire that you would not believe, a raging inferno seven times hotter than any normal fire. I have seen fire take lives, right before my eyes.
And, what is worse, I have seen what awesome fires burn in the hearts of vengeful men. I have seen what the pride that lies buried in the human heart will do. It will destroy; it will destroy utterly.
Whew! I can just feel the heat and can smell the sickly smell of flesh incinerated. May I tell you what has happened here in Babylon?
Thank you. First, may I introduce myself? My name is Daniel. At least that is what my parents in Judah named me - Daniel, which means “God is my judge”. But here in Babylon they know me as Belteshazzar. When I was brought here, they changed my name.
Maybe that’s the place to start telling you the story. Mmph. I can hardly breathe. But, you know, it’s not only the fire that makes it hard to breathe. It’s the smothering atmosphere. It’s the air of oppression, the stench of hatred. A man cannot breathe as God intended him to when the world is polluted by pride.
But I’m ahead of myself. As I have said, I am Daniel. Only a few years ago, when I was very young, the Babylonians conquered Judah, my homeland. Many of us, my family included, were taken into exile. There we hung up our harps and wept, because we did not know how we could possibly sing the Lord’s song in a strange land. My father and my mother constantly talked about Jerusalem and about its great Temple, all of it now in ruins. We, the people of Judah, thought that life had come to an end.
But one day word came that Nebuchadnezzar, the king, wanted some of the young men of Judah for his court. He wanted to train us for positions of responsibility. So three of my close friends went with me to see what this might be about - Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. With a mixture of excitement and fear we entered the king’s service and began our training.
We should have suspected something was strange when the first thing they did was to give us new names. What would have been wrong with letting us continue to be Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah? Proud names, these. Hebrew names. Names that speak of God. But we were told that no less than Nebuchadnezzar himself had decreed new names for us. Belteshazzar for me; Shadrach for Hananiah; Meshach for Mishael; and Abednego for Azariah. I say, we should have suspected something, for each of these names includes the names of Babylon’s gods – Bel and Aku and Nabo. We were most uncomfortable with our new names, but we accepted them. Life goes on, you know, and it seemed as though taking new names was the path to opportunity. No reason to draw a line there.
But they didn’t stop at that point. They took us to the mess hall. Mess is right! The fatty food, the liquor, the garbage they wanted to feed us! I decided that this is where I would draw the line. I would serve the king, and I would accept a new name, but I would not let my body go to ruin by eating and drinking away my health. So I refused, and so did my friends. We refused to participate in this defilement; after all, there are some things not worth your very life. If Babylon wanted strong young men to serve the king, well, we would show them how strong young men are made. They backed down; and we – Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, and I – we all ended our training in superb condition, and all of us got preferred places at Nebuchadnezzar’s court. You see, you must draw the line against the indulgent ways of the world, and you must draw it early, or else it will take you over.
One fateful night the king had a dream, a very bad dream, a vicious nightmare. It was a dream about a great image, a statue, made of various metals, but with feet of clay. That worried the king. Nebuchadnezzar had a vague feeling that something was wrong. He demanded that someone interpret his dream. None of the wise men of Babylon could tell him what the dream meant – or maybe it is that none of them would tell him. I rather suspect that they knew, all right, but they were afraid to say. Think about it. A great image, a statue, made of many metals, but with feet of clay? It was not that hard to know what the dream meant; and so I went to his majesty and I told him: the dream means that you are a mighty king, ruling over an empire made of many peoples, nations, and languages. But you have feet of clay; that is, you are not well founded. You do not stand on anything firm and certain. So the day of reckoning will come for Babylon as it has for every nation that ever was or ever will be. I just told Nebuchadnezzar that his kingdom was not infinite. That’s all.
The king’s reaction was astounding. On the one hand, he was elated to find out that the dream affirmed his work of nation-building. He was most gratified to know that all he had done for years in building Babylon was acknowledged by God as successful. The king, like most of us, needed to know, at his time of life, that he had not wasted his energies on a fly-by-night illusion. All of us want to know, do we not, that our time, our energies, our money, and our love have not been squandered on a lie? The king rejoiced to know that his work was real. So he gave both my friends and me more prominent places in the kingdom. We went well up in the hierarchy of Babylon, because of the way I read his dream.
And yet, as I have said, that was only one side of the story. Yes, he was elated to know that Babylon was a great empire, made of many nations, peoples, and languages. But on the other hand, Nebuchadnezzar was immensely threatened by the prediction that it would all come down. He could not stand the thought that his work of many years had feet of clay. Nor would he admit that because Babylon had saved up its wealth, hoarded it, instead of using it for mercy to the poor, it was vulnerable. So what did Nebuchadnezzar do?
Well, first, he had a fit. He went into royal overdrive. He decided to force his power on everyone. Instead of remedying the flaws; instead of cultivating the people’s loyalty, Nebuchadnezzar set up a great golden image, a likeness of himself, out in the plain of Dura, and commanded that everyone worship that image, or else. No other loyalties, no other gods, no other ideas, no other allegiances – either you worship Babylon, Babylon’s gods, and Babylon’s king, or you die. Either you buy into this nation’s love of wealth and power, or you are not welcome here. I believe in your time you called that denial. You just don’t want to hear the truth, so you make everybody tell you the lies you want to hear! That’s denial.
Now who will speak the truth to such a person as that? Who will say “No” to the powerful? Who will speak the truth in love to those who bluster and brag and brazenly make everything a matter of satisfying their own ego, a matter of self-congratulation?
My friends and I settled on our strategy. We decided that we could remain faithful, in the shadows. Shadrach suggested that we just do our jobs, and stay out of the way, and that if we did well, no one would really care that we did not worship at Dura. Meshach added that he thought we could quietly build friendships at the court, and that those alliances might protect us. Abednego mentioned the fact that there were many people of Judah in the Kingdom, that certainly they would not kill all of us. As for me, Daniel, my counsel was that we pray and pray and pray some more, that we trust God, should the day of trial come. In my experience, you see, God has not promised skies always blue and clouds without rain, but God has promised His love and His presence. He told Joshua of old, “I will not fail you nor forsake you.” Together my three friends and I agreed that we would be quiet, would be effective, would be connected, and would be faithful. We believed that, just as before, when we were in training and we were pushed to eat and drink things that we knew would harm us, and we drew the line, they would respect us.
Little did we know how threatened people react. Little did we understand that danger comes not so much from those who actually have power as it does from those who want power and will do anything to hold it. Little men who want to be big, but who know only one way to have what they want, and that is to tear others down.
A cabal of brazen Babylonians reported to their king that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego had not bowed down their knees to the image at Dura, but had continued to pray to the God of Israel. Somehow my name was not mentioned, but my friends were denounced, and before I could gather my wits to defend them, they were on trial. And let me tell you, trials in Babylon of those considered to be traitors are swift and sure. There is no court procedure to speak of, and there is no appeal of the king’s decision. The best I could do was to lean out of my window at the palace and look out over the courtyard while that so-called trial took place. A cold shudder ran through my heart as I heard this order from the king: “Heat up the furnace, heat it seven times its normal heat, and throw them in, these traitors. Throw them in, and do it now! I allow no one to defy me!” I was horrified, not only for the fate of my friends, but also because I saw just how evil the human heart can be. I saw that when we center the whole world on ourselves and on our fragile egos, we lash out and bring down others with us, in the name of justice. But it isn’t justice at all. It’s egomania. It’s pride. It’s idolatry. From the beginning, when Cain killed Abel, until now, it has always been the same. When power comes, power corrupts, it corrupts absolutely. Success - when people experience a little success, they idolize themselves and lash out against anybody who challenges them. Oh, good people, look at King Nebuchadnezzar and be warned. This could be your end. This could be you, in your capital city. Looking successful but spiritually empty. Building Babylon but buying bankruptcy. My heart shuddered.
But oh, my friends. My dear, dear friends. Still dressed in their official uniforms, with tunic and trousers and turban, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were bound tightly, and soldiers bundled them off toward the furnace. By that time the flames were leaping high out of the top of the oven – more than seventy feet into the air! I had never seen such a blaze! I wanted to scream, but by now the heat was so intense I could feel it all the way across the courtyard, at my window, and my throat was parched. I could not speak. But I could pray. Oh, how I did pray! I prayed for the God of Israel to see those faithful hearts. I prayed for my friends, that they might be spared, though I could not see any way, at this last moment. I even prayed, hard as it was to do, for Nebuchadnezzar, that, like Pharaoh of old, his hardened heart might be softened for just a little while. I prayed, because when there is nothing else you can do, you can pray. I prayed, because I ought to have been praying from the very beginning of this trial. I prayed because my call as a faithful man is to pray without ceasing, to pray in season and out of season, to pray in the Spirit at all times, to pray. Without prayer nothing of value will happen. With prayer there is an open line to our God, that He might hear and save. I prayed!
The soldiers and my friends neared the gaping mouth of the furnace. It was so hot that none of them dared approach it. But the king, in his rage, shouted all the more for blood. “Throw them in, throw them in now, I say.”
Do you know, it was so hot that when the soldiers obeyed Nebuchadnezzar’s order, they themselves were overcome by the heat and died! A whole contingent of soldiers died, trying to do their misguided duty! And Nebuchadnezzar? He just laughed. Just laughed at all of these soldiers dying! Life is cheap, you see, when you think you are the only one worth anything.
The blaze roared as my friends went into the flames. For a while I could not see anything, as the intensity of the fire made a light so bright my eyes were blinded. But when I was able to see, I saw the king peering into the flames. For the longest time he stared into the furnace. And then I discovered why. I saw what he saw. I saw four figures, walking in the midst of the flames. Four. Not three, but four.
How could anyone still be alive in that fire? And where did the fourth man come from? Who was he? Who could have entered the furnace with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, unknown to them or to the soldiers? Who would have done such a thing?
I cannot tell you, and yet I can. I cannot give his name, but I saw enough to know that this fourth person in the flames, was, in some way, God Himself. How He did it I cannot say. But I can say is that in a mysterious way very God Himself, the God of Israel, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of eternity stepped into those flames and bore in His own body the pain and the hurt that was meant for my friends, and He saved them. He saved them.
How can it be? How can it be that great God Himself, deserving no punishment, eternal in the heavens, should come down here, in human form, and enter the fiery furnace with the likes of us? How can that be? I know not. With all my wisdom, I know not.
And yet this I do know. I, Daniel, stand before you to testify to one great truth. You know, here in Babylon we have learned a new skill; it’s called mathematics. Here I have learned how to use numbers, to add and to multiply, to subtract and to divide. It is a wonderful skill. But I have learned one great truth that no Babylonian has in his copybooks, one great equation that no wise man has ever computed before – that three plus one equals – what? You say “four”? You would think so; three plus one equals four. But no, I have learned that with God, three plus one equals infinity! Three men plus one God equals infinity!
A people like my Judah, or a people like you, gathered here this morning – if you will pray and continually seek the presence and the will of God, are victors. Even though you may be strangers in an alien place, with God all things are possible. For with God in the equation, three plus one equals infinity.
I have also learned that faithfulness is its own reward. I have learned that this world will rage at you if you dare to be different. If you choose to indulge in luxury and self-gratification, this world will applaud you. They want believers to give themselves to the idols of money and comfort and rich food and strong drink. They want you to do that, because then they can point at you and say, “You are no different from the rest of us”. And they will be most upset if, instead of spending money on more things, you give it to God’s work. They will be very unhappy if, instead of hanging out at their happy hours, you pursue happiness in Bible study groups or ministry teams. They will say all sorts of unkind things about you; they are threatened. But I have learned that you do not need the world’s approval. You do not need to fit in to the world’s way of life. You have the approval of God Himself. You want to fit into the Kingdom way of life. For in the Kingdom, the mathematics favor you. No matter how many out in the world put you down, you are on the winning side, for three plus one equals infinity!
And finally, I have learned, and I have my three friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, as witnesses, that when you go through fiery trials, you are not alone. When temptation rages, and critics carp; when enemies attack, there is a flood of cooling water that will put out the most ardent fire. When you go through fiery trials, remember your baptism. Remember your baptism, for there God has made you His own. You are His, and nothing can pluck you out of His hand. Be of good courage, and He will strengthen your heart. He is Immanuel, He is God-with-us, He suffers right there alongside us, but He is unharmed, He is risen from the dead, He is mighty to save. Three plus one equals what, now? Infinity, eternity, alive forever with Him!
(Singing) Lord Jesus, I long to be perfectly whole; I want thee forever to ransom my soul; break down every idol, cast out every foe; now wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.”
