”They trusted in him and defied the king’s command and were willing to give up their lives rather than serve or worship any god except their own God.” (Daniel 3:28b)
This Sunday, we continue our series on Daniel with a look at the time, when Daniel’s friends resisted strong pressure to worship a golden statue.
As recorded at St. Luke’s
Dare to Resist
Dare to Resist – that is our topic today in our Sermon series on the Book of Daniel and I’m going to read our bible passage out after we’ve had a little look at the context so don’t worry it’s not been forgotten. But if you haven’t been here the last few weeks our previous two topics have been based around this idea to Dare – Dare to stand out and dare to pray. That’s partly because the book of Daniel contains many daring stories, people stepping out, being brave, being unshakeable in their faith, such as Daniel in the Lions den or our story today which is about the three men thrown into a fiery furnace. It’s no wonder that the people and the events recounted are so extraordinary because they took place in an incredibly chaotic time, Jerusalem has been conquered by Babylon and the Israelite people, God’s people are forced into exile with those who had besieged their city and plundered their Holy temples. So we read this morning Daniel chapter 3, Daniel 1 Daniel stood out and spoke up for his friends, chapter two is full of prayer, revelation and Daniel interpereting dreams causing the King to actually proclaim God is the one true God, the lord over kings.
So now we come to what is estimated to be years or months later and that is Daniel chapter 3 – where the king on the plain of dura has invited the most important people, including Shadrach Meshach and abednigo, Jewish exiles who so impressed the king, to worship a statue of Gold, an impressive maybe even excessive band is playing and they are warned anyone who refuses to obey and worship the statue will be thrown immediately into a fiery furnace. The King hasn’t seen that these three men have refused to bow but some of the astrologers tell on them and we jump into chapter 3 here at verse 13 to see how the King responds.
Reading – Daniel 3:13-30
The men, without Daniel their leader this time as they had in the last two chapters, the men dare to resist. They resist temptation, pressure, threats and turning away from their God even in the face of such a terrible consequence.
Why did they feel the need to resist in the first place? How did they know bowing down to a piece of Gold in the desert would have been a bad decision.
As much as the men had learnt about their new culture, they hadn’t forgotten what God had done for them, Who God was and who they were in his eyes. Even though they were living and working for the good of Babylon they had resisted the polytheism of the culture, poly meaning many, polytheism meaning many Gods they had resisted that. Knowing their commandments and knowing there were no other Gods above God and that God had commanded them, us not to make Idols. An object of devotion – something you worship and give worth to.
And that is exactly what happened in Babylon; the King had created an idol of Gold 60 cubits by 6, around 90 feet high and 9 feet wide in our measurements today. And the polytheistic people of Babylon, used to acknowledging many different deities or gods had just added it to their collection of things they worshipped.
But this was not the case for Shadrach, Mishach and Abednigo. They refuse, as everyone is bowed to the ground the three men are tall above the rest. And are tattletaled on by the astologers.
An interesting comparison to make is the control between the mens voices, the astrologer, the King and the Exiles.
The astrologer seems calm on the surface but looking deeper we can see a cold manipulation in their use of you, very little they and a lot of you. They use the power of someone else – the king to get what they want
‘They said to King Nebuchadnezzar, “O king, live forever! 10 You, O king, have made a decree, that everyone who hears the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, drum, and entire musical ensemble, shall fall down and worship the golden statue, 11 and whoever does not fall down and worship shall be thrown into a furnace of blazing fire. 12 There are certain Jews whom you have appointed over the affairs of the province of Babylon: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. These men pay no heed to you, O king. They do not serve your gods, and they do not worship the golden statue that you have set up.” Daniel 3 9-12
The King – able to control so much around him – cannot control himself – He is in charge of his own power, and he is using it, but it causes him rage and anger, not peace and calmness, knowing he is in control. He is SO full of rage that it says he visually become distorted. This feeling inside spews onto the outside and his rage and desire for the furnace to be 7 times hotter results in the death of some of his strongest soldiers. And its not even logical, the hotter the furnace surely the quicker the death. He is so in control in his own power but so out of control.
However the exiles, they hand all and I mean all their power over to God. They don’t expect power back from God, they’re not manipulating God in a way to get out of this death threat, They don’t argue, they don’t explain, they simply and calmly say ‘Dad’s got this’ ‘ Our Father I heaven, he’s got this, I don’t even need to know the outcome because whatever he decides its for our good and for his glory.
‘They will remain faithful to the living God, who is able to save even if he chooses not to save, rather than abandon him for the idols and images of the Babylonians, who could not save even if they were sufficiently alive to wish it’ Iain Provan – Eerdman’s Commentary
And because of that because we are looking at daring to resist specifically today rather than incredible miracles or hints of Jesus in Old Testement Passages – we are not going to focus much on the rest of this passage with the men walking out of the fire unharmed either – of God’s miracle saving them from the flames, of the fourth man in their with them, because their resistance, they themselves proclaim, was not dependant on God saving them, and neither should our resistance be. Our resistance, just like theirs, should be based on who God is and who God says we are, the promises he has made for us.
If we look back to Jeremiah, we can see an amazing prophecy about how the exiles are to live in Babylon.
Jeremiah 29:5-7,11
“Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. 6 Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” … 11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”
So the Men know their commandments and appear to know God’s desire for them to work for the good of the city they are in, not to harm or respond in violence to what has happened to them but respond in peace.
So let’s look at what the exiles, the three men, Shadrach, Mishach and Abednigo resist, and ive got three out of a possible many ways they could have talked themselves into worshipping other Gods. These three are rationalising, minimising and validating, Rationalising, minimising and validating.
Rationalising – Rationalising is where we give or come up with a reason for our actions. These men are exiles they’ve probably got a worry or a desire to see God worshipped by more generations than just them they could very easily have rationalised that if they worship today a big golden statue and live another day maybe they’ll have another chance to share their story of their God that would have been a very rational idea for why they needed to worship another God.
Minimising this is when we convince ourselves that the problem is smaller than it is they could have thought to themselves well it’s clearly not a God it’s clearly nothing that can actually hurt us it’s just a bit of gold in the middle of the desert I’m sure God wouldn’t mind if we just bow our heads down to save us from this horrible future of having to get thrown into a burning furnace I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about it doesn’t mean anything anyway we know in our hearts that we’re not doing anything wrong.
And the third one out of probably many other ways they could have thought around this is validating and the Bible tells us that iron sharpens iron as one man sharpened another.
the problem with rationalising minimising and validating is we take the problem ourselves when we’re rationalising we think there’s a big problem that but that we can solve it for our own thinking power
minimising we’re completely unrealistic about what the problem is in the first place
and validating we have that issue in that communication between us and other people
in each of these areas God is kept out, kept away and actually to work against these we need to make sure that the problem the thing that we’re facing the thing that we need to resist stays between ourselves and God or us and God
For me I think what I find hard with resistance is knowing exactly what to resist I haven’t had a point in my life yet where someone stood me in front of something and said worship this instead of God. But time and time again I felt forced to give things more time more money more power in my life than God and I think that’s exactly what this passage is trying to tell us to resist.
So I’m going to finish with three things that will hopefully help us dare to resist more and more first one is know God more we won’t know what to resist if we don’t know him if we don’t know the good ways in which he’s asked us to live our lives.
The second is to be aware when you’re rationalising minimising or validating reasons why you can’t do what God has specifically asked you to.
And the third one I want to take from king nebuchadnezzar’s response because when the men walk out of that furnace unharmed the king again like he did in the chapter before responds in praise he says praise to the God of Shadrack Meshach and Abednego he sent his angels to rescue his servant who trusted in him they defied the King’s command and were willing to die rather than serve or worship any God except their own God therefore I make this decree if any people whatever their race or nation or language speaker word against the God of Shadrack Meshach and Abednego they’ll be torn limb from limb and their houses will be turned into heaps of rubble there is no other God who can rescue like this’
Sounds great doesn’t it but what I notice when I look at this King’s response and he’s responded a similar way to this before is that he praises God but he doesn’t repent to God he doesn’t turn away from what he’s already doing from the other gods he’s already worshipping but he does praise. And surprise surprise he turns away from God again after this but we will hear more of that in the coming weeks. so let’s be careful where in our lives might we might be really willing to receive blessing and praise God but not ready to listen to him for things we need to resist, to be daring in standing up for our faith, for the goodness of all people and the goodness of the whole earth.
Let’s finish with a prayer.
Holy Spirit search our hearts bring to our mind something we need to resist.
Father god thank you that when we have been walking away from you, as soon as we turn back you are there waiting with open arms. We pray give us the strength to not just resist but be daring in our resistance, for our good and your glory, in Jesus name Amen.
St. George's Church Ramsgate 