Tom Shrader examines Daniel 3, where Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refuse to bow to Nebuchadnezzar's golden statue. Their response demonstrates complete trust in God's sovereignty - He is able to deliver them, but even if He doesn't, they will not compromise their faith. Tom emphasizes how believers today face cultural pressures and must have the same resolved convictions, engaging the world around them while remaining faithful to God's commands.
“Our response to God is not based and determined by His actions toward us.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Faithful
Recorded: 2012
Duration: 59 min
Themes: faithfulness, courage, compromise, persecution, conviction, sovereignty, obedience, trust, facing cultural pressure, standing for beliefs, workplace challenges, young adult, new believer, mentor, parent, feeling pressured to compromise
Scripture: Daniel 3, Daniel 1:8, Daniel 2, Exodus 20:3-5, Hebrews 11:1, Hebrews 11:6, 1 Peter 4:12, James 1:2, 2 Chronicles 7:14, Romans 13
Theological Themes: providence, biblical authority, cultural engagement, sanctification, idolatry, spiritual warfare, divine sovereignty, biblical worldview
Full Transcript
Open your Bibles to the book of Daniel. If you don't have a Bible, raise your hand really high. The guys are coming down the aisle and will get a Bible to you. If you get a Bible from us, it's page 478. We're going to be looking at chapter 3 today.
As you see from the graphic, this series is called "Faithful" - part 2 of our study on Daniel. The faithful part of this isn't just Daniel's faithfulness, but the faithfulness of God as well.
Overview of the Book of Daniel
The book of Daniel divides simply into two parts. Part 1 is chapters 1 through 6, and part 2 is chapters 7 through 12. In our series, we're looking at the first six chapters of the book of Daniel. We're going to see the faithfulness of Daniel, and it's contagious because we're also going to see Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego as well. They are certainly chief characters in this study.
Nebuchadnezzar the king is a chief character, but the main character of the book of Daniel is God. That's true of all the stories that we look at, and it's true of all Scripture - God is the main character. In this case, we're reminded over and over again of the sovereignty of God.
Summary of Chapters 1-2
Let me do a little summary because it's summer and we know there are people traveling. In chapter 1, we're introduced to Nebuchadnezzar the king. He has gone to Jerusalem, as he did on three occasions, and captured the city. From the city, he deported people - the king, in the first instance, the king and his family, and all sorts of other people. I think as many as 70,000 people.
Of them, there were some young men. The king said, "Good help's hard to find. These guys are extraordinary." In chapter 1, he said, "Get me the ones that are best looking, the sharpest." Here's what he wanted to do: assimilate them into Babylonian culture. If this takes hold - it'll take about three years - they'll become key players and play roles for us. That's exactly what happened. They were assimilated into the culture.
We saw in Daniel chapter 1, verse 8 the key verse in that chapter. I'm convinced now that in a lot of ways, if it's not the key, it's one of the key verses in the book: "Daniel made up his mind." Part of the assimilation was that Daniel and the boys would be fed from the king's table. Daniel said, "No, I don't want that. Not going to do that."
The guy who's in charge of him said, "Listen, I don't care particularly, but if you start to slide in appearance or intellect or performance, I'm going to lose my head over this." Daniel said, "Let's test it for 10 days." At the end of the 10 days, Daniel and the boys were sharper than everyone else.
Verse 17 of chapter 1 says God had given them knowledge and intelligence in every branch of literature and wisdom. To Daniel, He gave the ability to understand visions and dreams. When the king finally came in to interview them - kind of their graduation interview - he found in verse 20 they were 10 times better than all the others.
Nebuchadnezzar's Dream
Last week, we saw that gift God had given Daniel to interpret dreams come front and center. The king has a dream. No one - look at chapter 2, verse 2 - the magicians, conjurers, sorcerers, Chaldeans (those are his go-to guys, his cabinet) could interpret the dream. He said, "Listen, you've got to tell me what the dream is because I forgot it. You've got to tell me what the dream is and interpret it. If you don't, I'm going to kill you."
This certainly would be one of those passages we'd come to again and again. They said in verse 10, "There's not a man on earth who can do this." Verse 11 says, "The thing that the king demands is difficult and there's no one else who can declare it to the king except the gods. Only the gods could do this." It said they don't dwell in places with mortal flesh. One of the paraphrases says they don't hang around with people like us.
Daniel hears about this. He goes to the king and says, "King, give me a little bit of time and let's see what happens." Daniel went back, and there were the boys, and they prayed about this. Then the interpretation of the dream came to Daniel in a dream.
Daniel's response amazes me. Maybe I put you into my category - you shouldn't have done that. My flinch, if I had gotten that dream, would have been to go to Nebuchadnezzar and say, "I got it!" Daniel doesn't do that. He's a humble man. He's a man of prayer. He's totally dependent upon God.
He says in verse 20, "Let the name of God be blessed forever for the wisdom and power belong to Him. He's the one who changes times and removes kings. He's the one who gives wisdom - He is God." Then Daniel goes to the king and interprets the dream.
It was a dream about a statue made up of gold and bronze and silver and all different elements. He said each of these represent an empire. The head was of gold - the Babylonian empire. Each empire got progressively weaker. Ultimately, there is a rock, a stone that comes and destroys the statue. We say that's the kingdom of God.
Here's where we left off. Chapter 2, verse 46: "Nebuchadnezzar fell on his face and did homage to Daniel and gave orders to present to him..."
and fragrant incense. The king said to Daniel—this is big now, this is one of those circle moments—and by the way, very similar to what you see at the end of chapter one: "Your God is a God of gods. So we got all these other gods, your God trumps it. And He's the Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries."
The king promoted Daniel and gave him many gifts and made him ruler over the whole province of Babylon, the chief prefect of all the wise men. Daniel said, "How about the boys?" And he said, "All right, Daniel, you bring the boys with you."
We said last week, it was just a passing sentence or two, but this is setting up an explosive situation. Here are all of the guys who are identified in chapter two, verse two—the cabinet, the go-to guys—and there are these four boys from Jerusalem. Nebuchadnezzar, and we understand why, because he's experienced the benefit of knowing God in a way, though Nebuchadnezzar, I'm not that interested in your God, now makes them the boss of everybody.
The Explosive Promotion
We said at this time, the boys would have been about 18, 19 years old. So here are these guys that have been around there for a long time. They're Babylonians. And now within a period of three or four years, these kids are assimilated into the culture and now promoted over them. This is an explosive situation.
You can kind of just think of your own experience, maybe at a job or in a school or in some situation where you had something like that happen, and you know that's going to breed all sorts of jealousy and resentment. That comes to bear now when we get to chapter three, verse one.
Nebuchadnezzar's Golden Image
We get to chapter three, verse one, and Nebuchadnezzar has a plan. There's His plan and it's laid out in verse one: "Nebuchadnezzar the king made an image of gold, the height of which is 90 feet. Its width is nine feet. And he set it on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon."
So he makes this image. Again, I don't know if you caught it, but he made this image of gold. It wasn't gold plated, it was solid gold. 90 feet high, nine feet wide. Archaeologists have uncovered the pedestal that the statue rested on. The statue was 20 feet. So this thing is 110 feet in the air. It's 11 stories high.
I made the point first hour, because I didn't do the work or the research, I made the point first hour that I didn't research it, but here's what I know. It wasn't gold plated, it was solid gold. What I wrote is, it's a lot of gold. So of course, now in this day and age, that ain't going to last long. So I got a text right afterwards. That would weigh approximately 488.5 tons. In today's gold prices, it'd be $24,741,910,000. That's a lot of gold.
The King's Pride Problem
He says, there's that statue, and when you worship it, you kind of worship me, really. "I got an idea here. I like the idea that in that dream, the statue was a gold head, but wouldn't it be better if that statue was head to toe gold? That it was my kingdom? And my kingdom would, in essence, trump all the other kingdoms?"
Boy, has he forgotten quickly, huh? He went from, "Boy, yours is the God of gods, and boy, we're going to bow down and we're going to worship that God, and that's the God," to "wouldn't it be better if I was God? Wouldn't it be better if I was part of the image, or you were at least worshiping something that had to do with me?" Somewhere along the way, he lost that sense of awe, that sense of God and who He is.
I guess I would say I've seen, maybe some of you in here have even experienced it, where you've had that moment where, "Oh, here's that God, Jesus is so sweet," but then life comes and it kind of rips it away, or you come up with a better idea. He says, "I got an idea for a new religion."
What Drives Us All
By the way, here's what he's driven by. He's driven by the same thing that drives you. "How can you say that, Tom, you don't even know me?" Yeah, I do, you're a person. It's the same thing that drives all of us. It's pride and ego. Some hide it better than others. Nebuchadnezzar had a terrible problem with this.
Turn over to chapter four—this is going to be next week—but chapter four, Nebuchadnezzar has this dream, and Daniel comes along and helps him with the dream. Then a year passes. Chapter four, verse 29: "12 months later, Nebuchadnezzar's walking on the roof of the royal palace." Now, I haven't done my work for chapter four. If I remember correctly, the palace walls were thick enough that they could hold chariot races on them. It was one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.
The king reflected, and he said, look at verse 30: "Is this not Babylon the great, which I myself have built as a royal residence by the might of my power for the glory of my majesty?" Got a lot of singular personal pronouns in that. While these words were on the king's lip, a voice came from heaven saying, "King Nebuchadnezzar, that's enough of that," and then Nebuchadnezzar's reduced to humiliation. Study it next week, but that's Nebuchadnezzar.
That's His go-to, that's His flinch. So here it is, and the way it's kind of after dinner, and he's got a little brandy, and he's got a cigar, and he's whistling His favorite song, "How Great I Art," and he's looking around the whole castle. He says, "Look at this, look at all of this. I built it all." There's some sense in the truth that he did build it, but God gave him the ability to do it, and that's the truth.
Sandy and I were watching some Olympic trials the other night, and you know, she's a swimmer, so she likes it, and because she likes it, I'm trying to be supportive. The only thing worse than track is field, and so we're watching this, but I got to tell you, there's amazing—like there was a little girl swim, she's 16, and she just got
Nebuchadnezzar was right in one sense—he had built this magnificent statue. But he was wrong in thinking he had accomplished it entirely on his own. She just has this amazing body that's totally a gift. My daughter trained hard, but that athletic ability was ultimately a gift from God. So Nebuchadnezzar said, "I'm going to build this statue, and let's worship this statue, and thereby really worship me."
Verse 2 tells us: "Then Nebuchadnezzar the king sent word to assemble the satraps, the prefects, 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." This was like a ribbon cutting ceremony—the groundbreaking, the dedication. He gathered everyone together.
The Golden Image and the Command to Worship
Verse 3 continues: "Then the satraps, the prefects, the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the judges, the magistrates, and all the rulers of the provinces were assembled for the dedication of the image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up; and they stood before the image that Nebuchadnezzar had set up." Picture this: an 11-story-high statue on this flat plain, solid gold. When the sun hit it—like that blazing sun we had down here in the summer—you could see it for miles and miles around. They were all there at Nebuchadnezzar's request, which was really a command.
Then the herald loudly proclaimed in verse 4: "To you the command is given, O peoples, nations, and men of every language, that at the moment you hear the sound of the horn, the flute, the lyre, the trigon, the psaltery, and the bagpipes and all kinds of music, you are to fall down and worship the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king has set up." That's an interesting collection of instruments. I don't know much about the others, but I hate bagpipes, so that had to sound terrible together. The command continued: "Whoever does not fall down and worship shall immediately be cast into the midst of a furnace of blazing fire."
Verse 7 records what happened: "Therefore at that time, when all the peoples heard the sound of the horn, the flute, the lyre, the trigon, the psaltery, the bagpipes and all kinds of music, all the peoples, nations and men of every language fell down and worshiped the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up."
The Conspicuous Absence
Now it says everybody fell down, but it wasn't actually everybody, was it? Immediately our mind goes to Daniel, but what we learn as we work through chapter 3 is that Daniel is noticeably absent—there's no mention of him at all. But the boys—Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego—they're mentioned, and they come to the forefront of this story.
All that jealousy, bigotry, and resentment I mentioned last week comes to the surface now. Verse 8 says: "For this reason at that time certain Chaldeans came forward and brought charges against the Jews." You get a sense of their attitude in verse 12, when they talk to Nebuchadnezzar about "certain Jews whom you appointed over us."
Maybe you've experienced that jealousy from a coworker, neighbors, classmates, friends, or even fellow church people. People who seem to find it irresistible to engage in slander or gossip, tearing each other down rather than building people up. That's what people can be—they can be savage. Something happens that you don't even understand, and suddenly there's this bitter personal rivalry and hatred.
Accusations Before the King
Maybe you've been on the receiving end because you love to think of yourself as a victim rather than a villain. Or maybe you've been on the villain's side. That's how these Chaldeans felt. They had been running things, and the king had turned to them and no one else. But now the organizational chart got turned around, and suddenly between the king and these men were Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. These guys were in positions of authority, and the Chaldeans didn't like it.
There was probably some age jealousy involved—and definitely a lot of ethnic jealousy. These men were essentially saying, "I can't work for these little Jewish boys." Daniel wasn't there, but we see the resolve in the three young men. Let's see how the story unfolds.
Verse 8 again: "For this reason at that time certain Chaldeans came forward and brought charges against the Jews." They responded to Nebuchadnezzar the king by saying: "O king, live forever! You yourself, O king, have made a decree that every man who hears the sound of the horn, flute, lyre, trigon, psaltery, and bagpipes and all kinds of music, is to fall down and worship the golden image. Whoever does not fall down and worship shall be cast into the midst of a furnace of blazing fire."
They restated the decree as if Nebuchadnezzar could have forgotten it. Then they continued: "There are certain Jews whom you have appointed over the administration of the province of Babylon, namely Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. These men, O king, have disregarded you; they do not serve your gods or worship the golden image which you have set up."
The King's Response
The only way these accusers would know about the three men's refusal is if they had been watching while everyone else was bowing down. They were essentially saying, "You've got this declaration out there. This is what you ordered, and you said if they didn't comply, they should be thrown into the fire. We're here to tell you they didn't do it. You may want to investigate, but we're telling you that you'd better act on this. You say you're king, but they're going behind your back."
They were trying to catch the king's attention and stir up his rage. That's exactly what happened. Verse 13: "Then Nebuchadnezzar in rage and anger gave orders to bring Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego; then these men were brought before the king." He said, "All right, I'll get to the bottom of this. I don't mind investigating this matter at all."
And Nebuchadnezzar responded and said, "Is it true, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that you do not serve my gods or worship the image that I have set up?" Is that true?
Now, we have no record of an answer here. My assumption is either he knew it was true because he just understood what these guys were made of, or maybe there was an answer and Daniel, as he wrote the book, said we don't need that. We know what it is.
A Second Chance Offered
And then the king said, Nebuchadnezzar then said, "Now if you are ready, at the moment you hear the sound of the horn and the flute and the lyre and all the music, to fall down and worship the image that I made—very well." In essence, I'm going to give you a second chance here. "But if you don't worship, you will immediately be cast into the midst of the furnace of the blazing fire, and what god is there that can deliver you out of my hand?"
So in essence, he seems—and I'm reading into it maybe slightly—he said, I'm going to give you a second chance. Maybe now that you're in here and we're doing a little one-on-three here and you see that I'm not kidding about this, maybe you understand it. Maybe you begin to understand. I understand the cost.
My first job while I was in college, my dad had me work construction. I worked construction one summer, which is just—anybody who knows me—that was just silly. And my dad did it, I think, to convince me that manual labor was not going to be my deal. I'm just not good with that. I mean, one of the great things about Sandy is she's got all sorts of stuff, plus she does drywall. I didn't even know that when we got married. It was amazing.
Learning About Everyone's Price
Well, my first real job when I graduated from St. Ambrose College was across the river at a company selling paper products, so like this. We sold paper product, chemicals, et cetera. And it was a little—it was kind of a regional paper company, distribution sales. And I worked for him, it was like the whole thing was like cartoon characters, everybody in it. And the guy I worked for, every time I talk about him, my hand goes like this, because he just chain-smoked, but he never flicked ashes. He would just smoke until the end, and they would just fall on him. He was amazing. And like I said, the whole place was.
At the end of the first day, this will give you an idea of what this place was like. At the end of the first day, he called me in. He said, "How was it?" And I said, "Eh." He goes, "What do you think?" I said, "That receptionist is awful. She's rude, she's unprofessional, she doesn't know anything about it." And he said, "That's my daughter." And I did that, I went, "Oh," and he goes, "No, no, no, no, no, no, it's all true. She couldn't get a job anywhere, and that's why I got her working here." She was just awful.
So one day, I came in, and my hand just goes like this. I came in, and he said, "How are you doing?" And it was morning, like mid-morning. I said, "I just called on"—I don't know if it was Deere, one of those companies. I said, "I'm trying to get a product in there." And who are you dealing with? And let's get Deere off of this, because this has a bad ending to it. But I told him, I said, "Here's what we're doing." He goes, "Listen, let's go to lunch."
So there's a restaurant called the Gay 90s. So if you know Durrant's here, that's the Gay 90s. So he would go to lunch every day, and when he would come in, they would say, "Good afternoon, Mr. Christensen. Your table's ready." There'd be a Manhattan there for him. He'd drink his Manhattan, we'd eat lunch, we'd have another Manhattan, and then go back to work. He was a lot easier to deal with in the afternoon than in the morning.
And so we're talking. He said, "Well, tell me about it." And I said this, and he said, "Have you talked to the guy?" And I said, "Yes." And he said, "I'm going to give you a first lesson of business here." And he said to me, "Everybody has a price. Let's find out what his price is. What is it he wants? Is it accolades? Is it saving money? Is it something—is he going to need a little personal scratch? What is it that we're going to need to do to get our product in there?"
You know, and the old man was probably pretty right on for most people. What's it going to take to get this deal done? And so maybe there's a little of that in Nebuchadnezzar, that he understands human nature enough to know everybody's got a break point here. So maybe now that you've been through this, and now you've had a chance to come back in, and we've had a chance to talk about this, maybe now you want to reconsider. Because we're going to blow that whole musical thing again, and if you bow down—if you don't, into the fire you go.
The Ultimate Challenge
Look at the statement at the end of verse 15: "And what god is there who can save you out of my hands?"
Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego replied to the king, "O Nebuchadnezzar." Now they didn't say let us go think about this. They said, "O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to give you an answer concerning this matter. For if it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of the blazing fire, and He will deliver us out of your hand, O king. And even if He doesn't, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods or worship your gods that you have set up."
I love this passage. That resolve we saw in Daniel, right? Chapter one, verse eight. Daniel made up his mind. Daniel resolved. Daniel purposed. Daniel determined. Daniel pre-decided his decision.
The Power of Pre-Decided Convictions
We're talking about convictions here. These are things that they know. He says, I know this, and so when that time comes—and I don't know. I role-play everything. My life is like a total role-play. I try to figure out who's going to say what, this is how this will go, this is how I'll respond.
So remember what we saw back in chapter two. When the moment of crisis came, Daniel didn't have to call the guys together. He went home, and there they were. And my guess is now for four or five years, these
These guys have lived together, they've experienced all these things together, and in the midst of all this experience, they've probably talked about how they're going to be challenged. I'm sure Daniel's gone back and said, remember back at what we saw in chapter one? Remember why the king came there? And we resolved it. We determined it. We have to have those things upon which we aren't going to move. And they knew this full well. There was no wavering.
James writes in James chapter one, and he's talking about faith, and he said we should ask with faith without doubting. The one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from God, being a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
The Foundation of Their Faith
Well, this we don't have to speculate about. Turn to the book of Exodus, page 40 in the Bible we gave you. The book of Exodus, chapter 20. And the heading on chapter 20's probably going to say, the Ten Commandments. God spoke these words, I'm the Lord your God, I brought you out of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. Look at chapter three, or I'm sorry, chapter 20, verse three. "You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an idol or a likeness of what is in heaven above or on earth beneath or in the water underneath. You shall not worship them or serve them, for I your God, I am the Lord your God, and I'm a jealous God."
They knew this. They knew what God had declared. This wasn't theory for them. God had said, listen, we're not going to have statues that we're going to worship. You're going to worship me, and I'm a jealous God.
Now, for us, when we hear a word like jealousy, we bring all the negativity and all our experience to it, and we see that as a trait that's in our life that there's a bad way—the time you became jealous of somebody because they got that, or jealous of him because he got the girl, or she got the guy, or they got the house. That's not how God uses the word here. God is a jealous God in the sense that He wants what's best for you, and what's best for you is to worship the one true God.
They are taught this, and they understand this, and they get this. They didn't have to say, let's pray about this and decide—we don't have to pray about it. This is one of those easy calls, really, because it's black or white. You're telling us to do something that God tells us not to do. We don't have to get together and talk about it.
Confident in God's Sovereignty
Now, in his words, back to chapter three, in his words, the king says, who can deliver you out of my hand? They tell him, verse 17, our God. So, three things I observed here. These are confident young men. Why? I have three things here.
Number one, they know God's sovereign. He is able, that's what they say. God is able to deliver us. He's the one who can deliver us out of our hands. You're saying who can deliver us? We're saying God can. How do we know? By faith.
So, in Hebrews 11, the author of Hebrews tells us, as he gives us what becomes, really, the definition for faith, it's recorded in Hebrews chapter 11, which is kind of a hall of fame of faith. Here are all these giants of the faith listed. "Now, faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen." Then he tells us, in verse six, "without faith, it's impossible to please God."
Understanding Biblical Hope
Well, it's the assurance of things hoped for. We need to recalibrate that word. When I use the word hope, I use it so that it may or may not come true. So, I mentioned we're in Flag. So, we're going back up to Flag tonight. We're going to spend a little more time up there.
One of the things I'll do, this week or next, is go down to Barnes & Noble, and all the college football magazines are in. And I'll buy three of them. I have the same three I buy every year. And I'll go, and I'll say, okay, where are the Hawks? Where are the Hawks going to be in this? And I already know, because I looked ahead. One of them has them 32nd. One has them 44th. One has them, like, 53rd in the country.
So, I'll go, I check the Iowa website every day. I check the blogs every day. I check recruiting every day. And it's a whole, really a whole new era. Kirk Ferentz has been there for 12 years. Same offensive, defensive coordinator till now. So, it's a whole new deal. Some people excited, some aren't. The girls and I are going to go back for the Iowa State game. We go to a game every year. And then Sandy and I are going to stay for the Northern Iowa game. So, I got a little greedy. I'm going to stay for two of them.
And Haley now, this will be Haley's fifth or sixth game. She hasn't seen them win yet. But we were just having this conversation the other day. So, when the Hawks were down here at Christmas, we were invited to go out and do a chapel with them and got to spend a little time with Kirk. I have a little man crush on Kirk Ferentz. And so, I mean, I just think Kirk's like, I love Kirk.
So, we got to talking and Haley said, oh my gosh. Haley had been practicing for two years. We first met him down in Tucson. For two years, because she said, someday I'm going to get to meet you. And she'd go, hello, Coach Ferentz. My name's Haley, I'm a big fan. So, we're standing and Kirk came out and he said, hi, I'm Kirk. And she said, I think I'm Haley. I don't know. I don't know. We don't know, Coach. We love you at our.
So here's what I say—so all those scuttlebutt, so here's what I'm saying, I hope they have a good year. When I say that, what I'm saying is, they may, they may not. That's what I mean. I hope it rains, it may, it may not. That's not the way that God uses the word in His book in Hebrews 11:1. He says the things I hope for, these are the things—what He means is these are the things we know are true but they're in their future and we anticipate them, kind of like a kid at Christmas. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for. In other words, God says, I'll
never leave you or forsake you. If I leave you, Jesus said, I go to prepare a place for you and if I prepare a place, I'm coming to get you. All those things. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for and oftentimes, even though it doesn't really look right at this moment, without faith, it's impossible to please God. This is not, by the way, intellectual suicide. This is to say, listen, God spoke these things and they're true and we know them and we can count on them.
We came down yesterday, it was really interesting. We got to Bumblebee coming down. There's that little turn and an overpass. There's like a triangle there. There was just a raging fire and I thought, oh my God. It's so dry up there. 75 days without rain and I thought, boy, if this gets going, and everybody's on their cell phone, if this flips over that hill. It mustn't have because I didn't hear anything on the news today. He said, boy, I hope that doesn't spread.
Well, that's not what He's talking about. He's talking about if it would come down that hill. Sandy was driving so I can say it this way, and she puts us into a ditch and I die, here's my hope, and by hope I mean I know it's certain. I'll be absent from the body but present with the Lord. That's based on faith and trust in God and what He said, not based in me. These boys were men of faith. They understand that indeed God is sovereign.
They Knew the Scriptures
The second thing is they knew the scriptures. This is what we looked at when we went back to Exodus chapter 20. When I was in school, again, Sandy and I are learning a lot about each other, and when I was in school, she was talking about what kind of student we were, and I said, not very good. But I wasn't good at math or science or English or foreign languages I didn't like. What else is there? History I liked, civics I liked, anything else I didn't like.
But I learned to like math for one reason, because my goal was to get a C. I get a C, that was, what's it take to get out of here? C, okay, I'm a goal-oriented person. Well, here's what I loved about math. All the answers are in the back of the book. You can't make it any easier than that. That's not a problem. So I got every answer right, but if Sister Mary Owen said, how did you get that? I go, well, it was in the back of the book. I mean, that was all I had.
Here we go. So along comes all this life stuff. Here you go, this is really cool. Life's an open book test. All scripture's inspired by God, right? Second Timothy 3:16, and it's profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, training, and righteousness. So the man of God will be equipped for every good work. So the way we say it here, to kind of get that in like maybe something we can get our arms around, the Bible tells us what's right, what's not right, how to get right, how to stay right.
These guys knew their scripture. They knew that Exodus chapter 20 passage, cold. So they didn't have to think about it. They didn't have to pray about it. They didn't have to wonder or speculate about it. They didn't get together, what do you think God would say about this? It was clear.
Now, that's not always true. There are some things, honestly, that are a little difficult. They're nuanced. There's some ambiguity to them. But I still go to this word from which I draw either concrete answers or principles that I can apply. They knew the scripture.
They Were Willing to Die
Here's the third thing. They were willing to die. Our God is able to save us. I love verse 18, but even if He doesn't, their belief translates to action. Now, in all likelihood, you're never going to be asked to die for your faith. But you may be asked to lose some popularity. That's always with the assumption, what? That you have something to begin with. But lose popularity or maybe loneliness, isolation, or ridicule.
I don't know. Obviously, I've thought about this a lot. I think that if some guys busted in here right now, and I was up here, and they came up and they said, all right, you're the guy doing all the talking. Either you deny everything you just said, or we'll kill you. I think, well, first, I would say, how are you going to kill me? Because if I say you're going to peel my skin off, that might affect my decision a little bit. No, no, no, we're going to blow your brains out. Okay, good, good, good. Okay, so, you deny your faith, we're going to kill you. I think I would say, I think I'd just grab the gun and just put it here and just say, just go. Do it fast. I think I would say that. I think.
Because I think, in a lot of ways, it's easier to die for Christ than live for Him. I think. It's like your kids. Your kid's swimming out in the ocean, his kid's down there drowning, you'll risk your life to go get him. But you won't come home from work early to go to a soccer game. It's easier to die for this little kid than it is to live for this kid. But they got it, and they got it once they were there, because there has to be those things.
I imagine the stats have changed a bit, but not long ago, a survey among high school students, 45% of them said they could not imagine something they would die for. So think about this. Think of the implications to your future. Everything's bad. So, not family, not faith, not country, not friends, not anything they could die for. Well, you know that, right? If there's nothing to die for, there's nothing to live for. These guys have resolved this.
A Picture of the Struggle Between Two Ways
It's a picture, by the way, of a wonderful struggle, and I don't want to go too far here, but it's a picture here of a wonderful struggle between the world's ways and God's ways. James Boyce, and I was just, why I bring it in, I don't know, but I just reread this book this week, Two Cities, Two Loves, James Montgomery Boyce. So it's another one of those books. You ought to pick up, it was written in 1996. He talks about crooked politicians, and it's interesting, some of the guys he names. And he talks about the battle, it's kind of his version of the city of God, between the world
of God and the world of man. You see it really pictured here in Daniel chapter three.
Boyce identifies Nebuchadnezzar as what we'd call today a radical secular humanist, meaning that everything exists by man for man's glory, and it's all of man. He said that's the world we live in. We live in a very man-centered world. Now we look at it and say everything is of God, and it's by God, and it's for God's glory. That's not the dominant view, at least in some of the power areas of our country today.
So along comes something like evolution, and what this does is to say everything's knowable. Since everything is knowable, we can explain everything, and the biggest thing is we can eliminate God. If you pushed them, by the way, and this is the irony of it, they'll say this is right or wrong, and you'd have to say, what do you base that on? Because the general idea is you're all an accident, here by accident, and you don't go anywhere afterwards. See how that shapes your view of the world? Nebuchadnezzar said, I'm God in that.
The Problem of Separation
Boyce goes on to say one of the real issues here is an issue of separation of church and state. What Boyce goes on to say, and I think I've seen it played out (the book was written in '96), is there was the idea of the state getting into the church, but what's happened now is we've got a bunch of church people that don't want to get engaged with the state, and that's a problem.
Can you imagine, rewind to 1850, and slavery's going on, and you say, "I'm not going to get involved, that's politics, the church shouldn't be in politics, I'm not going to get involved in politics." Can you imagine through the Civil Rights Movement saying, "I'm not going to get involved in that"? Can you imagine abortion, the way we are? We've essentially grown weary of that battle, just saying, "Oh, that's church and state, and we don't do those." No, God left us here for a reason, and you certainly have the invitation and the right to be involved in the state.
The state, good or bad, is established by God, and we submit to it. That's Romans 13, unless the state commands us to do something God forbids, or forbids us to do something God commands. If you were in Nazi Germany, well, we aren't. We're in Gilbert. So we can talk about Nazi Germany some other time, but I understand. You see it played out here, and we're going to see it all the way through these six chapters.
Our God Is Able, But Even If He Doesn't
Now I'm going to dissect this, but move quickly. Time's going to be important here. He says, "Our God is able to get us out of this place, but even if He doesn't."
Well, why would He allow them to die in that? If you don't know the story, I'll tell you, they get out. That's one of the things that bothers me about the story, frankly, because we now think it's a formula for how we get out of our fires. But why would God allow that? Why would God allow that deal to blow, or that baby to die? Because God either allowed or caused it. If that's not true, He's not God.
Why would He allow that? I made a list of four things here real quickly. It might be helpful to you.
Four Reasons God Allows Suffering
Number one, to make you stronger. We know that testing your faith produces endurance. My daughter Sarah, I forgot to ask her because she was here first hour. It was either her sophomore or junior year of high school. She was in a really serious car wreck. She had a brain seizure. It was very serious initially. Then she was going to live, and then, you know, is there any damage and all that?
So the next Sunday I'm coming to church and I had four or five people say to me, "We heard Sarah's going to live. God is good, Sarah's going to live." I was teaching somewhere in the book of John and I took my notes and put them away and I did an extemporaneous forty minutes. The title was "God Is Good Even If She Dies." God is not good because Sarah lives. God is what? Good. Her living doesn't make Him better. He's good. That's who He is.
Why would He let you go through this? Well, sometimes you can look back and maybe see things, but in the midst of this, so you're going through something right now. I can tell you why He'd let you do this: for your good and His glory.
Here's the second thing, and they kind of get together. Number two, now you have a testimony. I watched Susan for seven years with her cancer and I heard so many people say she's so strong. I kind of resent, to be honest, I kind of resented that a little bit because I thought it trivialized the depth of the pain she was in, especially the last year or two. It was brutal pain. But she had a powerful... I'll tell you what, when she got up to talk, everybody listened. I get up, yap, yap, yap. When we did a Hot Summer Nights with Susan where we were going to share, she was going to share what's going on, we couldn't get everybody in the room because they wanted to hear it.
It's the third thing here. This ordeal allows you to serve others or to be served, which is sometimes harder to do. And the fourth thing, you have a story. It's 1 Corinthians 1. You can say I've been there.
A Powerful Passage for Difficult Times
So that's a few reasons why God would let you perish in this fire. I love that. To me, this should be one of your lists of these passages you go to: Daniel chapter three, verses 16, 17, and 18. "Our God is able, but even if He doesn't." I love it because our response to God, and that's what they're saying, we're going to worship Him no matter what. Our response to God is not based and determined by His actions toward us. He's the potter and we're the clay. He's God, we aren't. I can't explain everything. And there's suffering and there's pain and there's anguish. I got it.
We had a lady from the church. God had saved her as an adult. She was married to a gentleman who happened to be a Jewish attorney. She was dying of cancer, lots of pain. And I'm in there one day, just as
This husband, this was his contribution. I got there just as he was saying, "Where's your God now?" Which wasn't very helpful. But I get that, because when we get it all together, where was God on 9/11? Same place He was on 9/10. He's God. We aren't. And we want to run in and rescue His reputation.
Listen, He either caused it or allowed it or He's not God. I don't know what He's doing all the time. I wrote this. Here's what the boys are saying: We won't be surprised if He gets us out of the fire and we won't be disappointed if He doesn't. He's God.
Nebuchadnezzar's Fury
Verse 19: Nebuchadnezzar was filled with wrath. Look at that phrase. And his facial expression was altered. I want to paraphrase this: His face turned purple with anger. And he answered by giving the order that the furnace be heated up seven times more than usual.
Now this is interesting thinking. Because all he did there was do the guys a favor. If you wanted to really get them, you'd cool the fire down. You'd crock pot them to death. He's gonna zap these guys. Get it hotter. Well, okay, that's better. If I was going in, I'd say get it hotter. Seven times, just get it hot. Get this over with.
And he commanded certain valiant warriors who were in the army to tie up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and cast them into the fire. Verse 21: They were tied up in their trousers. That's when their clothes were left on when they tied them up.
For this reason, because of the king's command, and it was urgent, the furnace had been made extremely hot. The flame and the fire slew the men who carried Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego up. So here's what's going on. This is like a pit. And there's a ladder up to this. So as they're carrying these guys tied up, as they're carrying them up to throw them in, the guys who carry them up burn up. That's what it means. You're doing them a favor, really, Nebuchadnezzar.
The Fourth Man in the Fire
In verse 23: Then these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego—the guys, apparently, as they're burned up, they throw them into this fire. They're still tied up. And we assume some very little time passes.
And then Nebuchadnezzar, verse 24, was astounded. And he stood up in haste, and he said to his officials, "Was there not three men we cast in the midst of the fire?" He said, "Certainly there was." He says, "I know this. I gave the order. I saw it. There were three of them, right?" "Yeah."
Verse 25: Nebuchadnezzar said, "Look, I see four men loosed and walking about in the midst of the fire without harm. And the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods." I mean, if you can't apply this, you got no business teaching, right? He said, "And look at this. There was three, now there's four. And that fourth one, he's different than the others."
Now, who is the fourth one? You know, right? Who is it? Pre-incarnate Christ. We see that periodically in the Old Testament where Jesus will appear. I'm not gonna wait till the end. I'm gonna go for this right now. We'll come back and finish the story.
Jesus in Our Fiery Trials
Here's what Peter writes in 1 Peter chapter four, verse 12: "Beloved, don't be surprised at the fiery ordeals among you." I doubt you're ever gonna be taken out and thrown in the fire literally, but there's fiery ordeals among you day after day after day after day. And that's because you have an enemy. I have an enemy—Satan. You have his demons. You have the world's system. The world hates you because it hates Jesus. That's what He said, right? "They persecute Me, they'll persecute you."
And so you're in the midst of those fiery ordeals right now, some of you. Some of you could barely get here today. It may be financial, it may be relational, it may be spiritual, it may be physical. You're right in the middle of all of that. And the very same Jesus that was with these boys is with you. The Spirit of God dwells in you.
Don't make—a little irony here, I guess—don't make an idol out of these boys. They were ordinary guys infected with an extraordinary spirit, the Spirit of God. They're ordinary like you. And those of you who know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior have the same Spirit in you that was in them, the exact same Spirit.
The Purpose of Trials
So you're gonna have these trials. Count it all joy, right? James 1:2. Count it all joy when you experience trials. Because you know the trials produce endurance. It's the testing of your faith.
Is God gonna bring trials in your life? Throughout your entire life, right till you take the very last breath, there'll be trials. As I say, in all the areas. Some of you know them with your kids. Some of you know them with a spouse. Some of you know them just work-wise. Some of you know them physically. It's like almost everybody ultimately encounters that.
And it's not, "Woe is me. This is unique to me." No, this is everybody. "But God, I really love You." "I love you too, that's why I'm gonna let you go through this. Let you go through it or put you through it." Why? The testing of your faith produces endurance. That's just easy to teach.
Complete Deliverance
Look at that. "It looks like the fourth one is a God." And Nebuchadnezzar comes to the door, and he says, "Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, come out. You servants of the Most High, come here." And out they came.
And the satraps and the prefects and the governors and the king's officials gathered around them and saw in regards to these men that the fire had no effect on their bodies, nor was their hair singed, nor were their trousers damaged, nor had the smell—they didn't even smell like fire. You can't even light the charcoal without this happening to you. Brows are singed and you smell, "You must be barbecuing." But there's not even a smell on these guys.
Now, remember what Nebuchadnezzar started with back at verse 15? "I'm gonna toss you in this fire. I'm gonna turn it up so hot, seven times hotter than this fire's ever been. Who can deliver you out of my hands?" And now, verse 28, he says, "Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego."
found who can deliver you, that God, the one true God, who sent an angel and He delivered His servants who put their trust in Him, violating the king's command and yielding their bodies so as not to serve or worship any god except their own God.
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—and this seems to be, if you've been with us, you know from chapter two, verse five, this is his go-to motivational strategy here. You don't do it, you're going to be torn limb from limb, and your house will be reduced to rubbish heap inasmuch as there's no other god who's able to deliver this way. And the king caused Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to prosper in the province of Babylon.
Boy, they got it right all the way along. He said, "Listen, I don't know that any god could save you." Well, that God can't, the one true God.
Engaging Culture as Christians
There are so many application points, and we've made a lot of them along the way, but one of them is this: in terms of encountering the culture around you, you are probably not going to be asked to bow down to an idol, to a golden statue, but you are going to be asked to engage the culture around you in a whole variety of ways. It's going to constantly be saying to you, if we go back to what we talked about earlier, "What's your price? What's your price?"
Boyce writes this sentence: "Redemption, meaning us coming to Christ, does not change our participation in the culture; rather it changes us, and therefore the character of our involvement." We say it again, we really forfeit the right to complain about the government or the state of the culture. For you to complain about what's in the movies when you aren't out making movies isn't right, as Christians.
Give you just a list: Johann Sebastian Bach, Frederick Handel, Rembrandt, John Donne, John Milton, Sir Isaac Newton—all Christians who engaged the culture. To participate in the culture around you, that's really difficult to do, is to participate in a way where you're also persuasive.
Making Persuasive Arguments Without Scripture
You need to be able to argue against abortion without using the Bible, which I think you can do. If you have a whole group of things, you're a nut for believing it to begin with. And I can simply go on, now science has teed it up for you. You know that whatever this is, I would call it a baby.
I remember watching one day Oprah doing a segment, and I watch Oprah—why do I watch Oprah? For you, that's exactly right. So I'm watching Oprah one day, and Oprah's taking us in the womb, and they're showing like at three, four weeks, there's beginning of a heartbeat and a brain wave. Well, what is that? It's not going to be a dog. And she said, "Look at the baby." See, that's Oprah when she's not thinking politics, but just thinking human.
I'll give you a great persuasive argument for abortion. This is really good. If you had, let's say your mother was at home in a coma, and the doctor came in and said, "Okay, your mom's in this coma, and we don't think she's going to get better. We don't think there's a shot she's going to get better. I guess one in like a zillion. What do you want us to do?" That might be tough, right?
But if they came in and said, "Okay, your mom's in a coma, but we've seen this before, we know what's going to happen. If we just give her nourishment, in three, four months, your mom's going to be fine. What, would you pull the plug on her?" So you got the baby in the womb that if you just give it nourishment, it's going to be a baby. Is this a hard decision? I mean, the only way you can do this is if you had selfish pride politics in the way, but humanly, that's a baby. It's not a dog. It's not a giraffe, not a monkey. And I think that's a compelling argument.
I've sat with people. I've sat with people, and they've said, "Rape and incest," and I've taken them through stories that I've been through, and at the end of the day, some are convinced, and all of them walk away going, "I'd never really thought about that." That's the culture around you. You need to be participating, and you need to be persuading, and ultimately, you need to be praying.
God's Prescription for Healing Our Land
I'm going to ask you to turn—you're in Daniel, chapter four. I'm going to ask you to turn to the left, to the book of 2 Chronicles, and I'll tell you, I kind of wince as I turn there, because it's a passage we go to, I guess, often, which I guess I shouldn't wince at it, but it's a passage written to the nation of Israel, but I think of the wonderful prescription for us. 2 Chronicles, chapter seven, verse 14.
What do we need to do? "If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land."
We humble ourselves. That's not our nature. Even as we go into this battle, now you begin to encounter the culture, and you're going to come with absolute convictions. You can come off like an arrogant jerk, or you can come off like a sympathetic, participating listener. Humble ourselves and pray.
A Lesson in Humility
I would say it was, I don't know, four or five years ago, I got invited to do the prayer city council in Chandler, and not my deal, but I'd just been talking about how we need to engage the culture, so I thought I need to do this. Well, I get there, and they forgot a key word. It's to preside over the closing prayer. So it's not the prayer to open the council meeting, it's to close. So I sat through all the council meeting, and for me, that was difficult.
And then it was time to pray. And the mayor said, "Reverend," so that always makes me laugh, "Reverend Tom Schrader is here, and let's pray." So I'm walking up, and I can see the council members, because they've already been at it, and I can see them going jeepers, because I'm sure every guy that comes in takes this as their opportunity, through prayer, to lecture the city council.
So I said, "Thank you, mayor. Let's pray. Father, we come to You in prayer, because we think You..."
care, and we know you can do something about it. Please do, amen." It's exactly right. Why do I pray? When I pray, I'm acknowledging I can't do something about it, but you can. If He can't, why are we praying? Well, then you're neurotic.
"If you will humble yourselves and pray, and seek God's face"—that means to find favor with Him, not the world around us. We know we're in opposition to one another. We know there's going to be a collision. We know there's going to have to be decisions that are going to be made. We know there's going to be a lot of confusion. There's going to be times we're going to have to either please the people around us or please God, and we find favor with Him. And then we turn from our own wicked ways. We acknowledge our sin.
He said, "There's your prescription." Now, I got all the context. I got that. But I think that's a pretty good prescription for us as we deal with our land.
Living Out Our Faith in Every Arena
Just in an election like the one we're in—and that's always the most serious election—you look around. For me, because I can get cynical like that, critical like that, if I've been watching a lot of TV, watching a lot of Fox, I can get critical like that. I got to realize and go, "No, participate in the world around you."
It doesn't, by the way, just mean politics. It could be the culture at school. If school's around you, you have a dropout rate, roughly, of 50 percent. They have teacher issues, principal issues, all sorts of issues. Yet some of the people that I find most inspiring are men and women who love Christ who are teaching in a public school system and making a difference.
So are you humble? Do you pray? Do you seek God's face? Because you got the confidence, man. You got the same confidence. Is God going to fix this? I don't know. Doesn't look like it. He is able to save it, even if He doesn't. It's not about the outcome. That's His job. My job's obedience.
A Call to Stand and Make a Difference
That's a call, as are chapters four, five, and six, to those who make a difference for Christ—to stand, to take our faith into the whole world around us. Not, again, just the era of politics, but it's art, it's science, it's education, it's business.
Some of you know Christ. Remember what we said? Redemption doesn't change our engagement with the culture; it changes us. Redemption is coming to know Christ as our Lord and Savior. Some of you know Him in a personal way.
Now, if you're over in the conference center, Brian's going to come and close that service. If you're here in the chapel, Neil's going to come and lead us in communion and the band come close our time of worshiping God through song.
So let me pray as Neil comes. Father, thank you for this amazing gift you give us. You are able to save us from physical harm and hardship around us. You're able to, but even if you don't, that doesn't in any way diminish you. God, thank you for grace and mercy and love. Thank you that you are the sovereign God. We love you, we worship you, we praise you. We do it in Christ's name, amen.