2/11/24 Daniel 3:19-30 “The Most Exciting Thing in Your Life!”

08 Feb 2/11/24 Daniel 3:19-30 “The Most Exciting Thing in Your Life!”

2/11/24    Daniel 3:19-30          “The Most Exciting Thing in Your Life!”

You probably don’t know this but I’m not the best person at meetings, especially meetings of the hierarchy of the church.  Sharon is always curious when my brother and I get together, which one of us dislikes authority the most.  Of course, we always maintain our innocence.  So, it shouldn’t be much of a surprise to tell you that I had a little trouble at an annual retreat several years ago.  I happened to listen in on a conversation of a group of pastors who were discussing how people say that they want God back in schools again, but they fail to realize that God never left.  Then they talked about if we were to put the 10 Commandments back up in our public buildings, which ten would we use.  Would we use the Lutheran, Catholic or Jewish 10 Commandments because they are all different?  Then they went on to talk about if we put God back in our schools, which god would we choose?  Brothers and sisters in Christ, this was a group of United Methodist pastors talking about which god!  As far as I know, I exclusively serve the one and only God and all other gods are false.  It is my job to tell the Good News about this wonderful God and dispel everything about these false gods.  It is not my place to endorse false gods.  Anyway, I just shook my head and walked away.  We will get back to that in a minute.  Today we are going to talk about three men who loved the Lord no matter what was happening to them.

Author Tim Hansel tells the story about how he and his young son were out in the country doing a little climbing on some cliffs.  Suddenly he hears a voice from above yelling, “Hey Dad!  Catch me!”  He turned around and looked up and his son had joyfully jumped off a rock and was heading straight for him.  You see, his son had jumped first and then yelled, “Hey Dad!”  Suddenly Tim was a circus act as he tried to catch his son.  They both fell to the ground in the process.  Tim could hardly talk.  It took him a few seconds to find his voice and he asked his son in exasperation, “Why in the world did you do that?”  His son replied very calmly, “Because you’re my dad.”  His son lived his life like his dad was totally trustworthy and there was nothing that he couldn’t do.  This is what we are to do with God.

As we begin today, I would like to point out something that is absent in this reading.  This is the book of Daniel and Daniel is not mentioned in this story.  Daniel was kind of the leader of this set of people and he wasn’t here.  The three main characters, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, are what we call lesser characters in the larger scope of things as Daniel was the main character.  When I read this I think that these three guys represent us, the common folk.  They are important but not that important in Babylon.  I think that often times we don’t want to identify them like this because it just might add some responsibility to our lives.

First of all, King Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, built an image of something 90 feet tall and 9 feet wide.  Think about that for a minute.  That is one mighty tall and slender idol.  I would think that it would have been a nightmare to set up.  Not only that but it was made of gold.  Then the king sends out this edict that everyone must come before this idol.

So I think it might be safe to say that King Nebuchadnezzar was a bit on the extreme side.  Maybe he even suffered from some sort of mental deficiency.  He decides that everyone must fall down before this idol and worship it.  I think this is really against the norm of what most rulers of the day did, but we aren’t done yet.  They not only have to bow down, but if they don’t bow down, they will be executed by being thrown in the fire.  I’m sorry but I just cannot go along with the idea that King Nebuchadnezzar was anything normal.

So now let’s look at Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.  These fellows were also leaders but not as powerful as Daniel.  They are talked about in the first chapter as they were with Daniel when he did his first fast.  This is a similar fast to what some of us did right after Christmas one year.   They were friends of Daniel and were also devout Jews who had made some enemies along the way.

In the version of the Bible that I just read, it tells us that some astrologers turned them in for not bowing down before this idol.  Other versions say it was the Chaldeans who were a tribe of astrologers.  Whoever it was, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego had made them angry enough to turn them in for execution.  We don’t know what had happened.  Maybe these Chaldeans just didn’t like the Jews.  There was a lot of racial prejudice going on in these days also.

Anyway, they find themselves in front of King Nebuchadnezzar.  He is in a rage because they won’t bow down.  I think that this is more evidence that the man might have been a bit unhinged.  But as crazy as this king sounds, he is going to give Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego another chance.  He is thinking that maybe these guys just made an honest mistake and he gives them another chance to bow down.  At this point things begin to get a little dicey.

These three men are faced with a decision.  Will they be true to their faith or will they bow down and worship this object that has no meaning except to King Nebuchadnezzar?  Just by reading this, I infer that this really wasn’t much of a choice for them to make.  They chose the real God over this fake idol.

I think in our modern world, this is one of the biggest challenges that we face.  Do we go with the ways of the world or do we stay with what we know is the best way of doing things?  Do we follow everyone else who is dancing and singing and having a great old time on the wide road that leads to destruction or do we walk carefully on the narrow path to eternal life?  That is your choice.  Your choice is not the lesser of two evils.  It is between good and evil, period.  There is not in between.

100 years ago, the line between good and evil was fairly distinct.  Now it has been blurred to the extent that it is very hard for our young people to even know what the truth is.  I have been with children of this area who don’t even know what prayer is, let alone know how to do it.  Also, do you curse when things go wrong or do you praise the Lord for the learning experience?  Do you teach your young people that coming to church once in a while is good enough or do you teach taking 5 minutes every day to be in contact with Jesus through prayer?  These are just a couple choices you have to make.  I ask you to check out your idols.  Find out what they are and then make a choice, the right choice.

Now Satan isn’t done with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.  King Nebuchadnezzar offers them a way out of this deal.  All they have to do is take him up on his second chance offer and bow down before this idol.  We like to talk about God as being a God of 2^nd, 3^rd, 4^th chances and we are right.  However, Satan will also offer us as many chances as we need to turn to evil.  And that is what he is doing here.

Now you all know that I believe in the Bible beginning in the first chapter of Genesis.  I believe that the creation story in Genesis is the truth.  There is just too much evidence that this happened versus very shaky evidence that it didn’t.  However, our society has bought into evolution myth for the last 170 years to the point where it is now considered to be fact.  If you don’t believe in evolution, society and people we know will try to put us in the fire like what happened to Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.  There are many other topics like this in our world.  If you don’t believe that homosexuality is the greatest thing in the world, then into the fire you go.  If you don’t believe that our government is god, into the fire you go.  The other side is controlled by Satan and we don’t even get to discuss the matter.  We don’t get a second chance like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.  It is to the point where if we disagree with Satan and society on anything, into the fire we go.  We don’t get a chance for compromise and I wouldn’t accept some of these compromises anyway.

So Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego refuse this generous offer from the king and he goes into another rage.  They do this because of their faith in God.  They know that God will rescue them in some way.  They do not ask that they be rescued from the fire so that they continue to live in this world.  But they know, they know that God will both rescue them and send them back to this world or they will die in this world and live on in paradise with God for eternity.  They know that one of these two things will happen because they know the love of God.  They have a mountain of faith in God.

Now I don’t for a minute think that any of us will be faced with this type of life or death situation.  But it happens quite often in today’s age in third world countries.  Many, many, many times people will choose Jesus over the forces of evil in this world and then they are executed.  They have that much faith.  My question to you today is this, “Do you have this much faith?”  I think that this is a question that we have to ask ourselves once in a while.  This is a question that you need to consider when you go into your deep prayer time.

I think that we often like to hold ourselves up a little higher than we deserve.  I have to include myself in this group as there are many times that someone or my colleagues will bring up a controversial topic, in their minds, and I just don’t feel like going there.  I pass up the chance to tell the Gospel message like I did with these pastors in our opening.  I don’t like to argue.  I don’t like conflict.  I don’t like to get into some of these discussions but I will usually state what the Bible says.  I have the confidence in the word of God to quote it anytime and in any place.

So do you have this confidence?  When someone tells you that the Bible doesn’t really mean what it explicitly says, do you have the confidence to say they are wrong?  When someone tells you that we Christians need to change our ways and join this century, do you have the courage to continue to live in Jesus?  I know that I lack this at times for various inexcusable reasons but I try the best I can to know and act like everything Jesus has said and done is exactly, entirely, and completely right.  There are no exceptions.  There are no maybes.  The word of God is infallible and always right.  This is what I try to do and I hope that you do also.

The reason I know this is the right way to be is because when I am thrown in the fire, like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, I am in direct fellowship with Jesus himself.  These guys were thrown into the fire and when the king looked, there were four figures walking around in this blaze, not three.  Our text doesn’t say it was God but we know that it would have to be or it is someone from God.  Only God could pull off a miracle like this.

One of the reasons that I try to urge you to develop a prayer time is so that you can walk with Jesus like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego did.  When you learn how to do this, then you will want to go back and do it over and over again.  When I walk with Jesus through prayer, I come away feeling so good that I cannot even begin to describe it.  Jesus will never be the author of bad things.  Our non-believing, Satan following friends like to tell us that He does but that is a lie from Satan.  Jesus only does good and good is how you will feel after a time of deep prayer.

Finally, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego come out of the fire and King Nebuchadnezzar is so astounded because there is not even one hair on them that is singed.  There is no sign that they have even been close to the fire.  Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego then witness what might be the beginning of the conversion process in King Nebuchadnezzar.  Our text doesn’t make it real clear that the king began a new life but at least at this point King Nebuchadnezzar believes in God.  He has come to the fire, witnessed the glory and now he believes.

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego get to witness a great thing when they see their king first starting to believe.  I wished that everyone in the community could have been here a few years ago when a middle-aged woman was baptized.  She did everything perfectly.  She was excited and on fire for Jesus.  I remember when I first came to Christ, I was just as excited as this woman was that day and I still try to be today.  When these things happen, they are great to witness because it reaffirms our own faith.  Or it helps us to take that step closer to accepting Jesus for ourselves like King Nebuchadnezzar did.  I was so excited about what happened here that day that I told everyone I saw about it.

You see, this passage is about having the faith in Jesus that He can and will do anything.  There is nothing He can’t do.  It is a story of how your faith works.  There is nothing you can’t do with the help of Jesus Christ.  He loves to be with you and He loves to help you.  And finally, you get to witness to others with your actions.  Then they come to Christ.  I wish someone had seen me when I first came to Christ.  What happened when this woman came to Christ is a great reminder to me of the excitement that Jesus causes in our lives.  There is not one unseen thing in this world that causes this much excitement.  As a matter of fact, there isn’t one thing in this world, seen or unseen, that causes this much excitement.  Praise the Lord!!  He is so great and so good!  I think that it is time to look around and find another local mission project or two.  Let’s help someone else into the loving arms of Jesus Christ.  When I see things like this happen, I just praise the Lord that He brought you into His ministry.  And thank you, Jesus, for first loving all of us.  Let’s pray.