In the Furnace

Life of the Church

Good morning everyone. It’s good to see you all here on this Sunday of worship. If you’re visiting us for the first time today, there should be a visitor card tucked into the back pocket of the chair in front of you. Please fill that out and make that your offering as the plate gets passed in a little while and let us know you were here.

Just a few announcements I’d like to touch upon in your bulletins as we begin today.

The men’s group will meet tonight at 6:00 down at the pavilion. All men are invited to attend.

Two donation reminders I’d like to give you, one for the World Hunger Month donations that we’re collecting during October, and for the Trunk-or-Treat we’ll be having on October 30.

You’ll also see that we’ll be having an Operation Christmas Child packing party here on November 6 from 10-12. Please see Della or Joanne if you have any questions there.

There will be a building and grounds meeting this coming Tuesday at 7:00.

Also, I’d like to ask that you pray for Danny and Della’s grandson Matthew. Matthew is at Augusta Health dealing with pneumonia as a result of Covid, so please keep him and all of his family in your prayers.

We also have a visitor with us this morning way in the back. His name is Clifton, and he’s making his way to Texas best he can. If anyone is heading Greenville way after church this morning and has some room in the car for an extra passenger, that would be a blessing. And y’all say hi to Clifton after the service, he’s a nice guy.

Lastly, I’m not sure who left some markers and a note on my desk in the pastor’s study this week, but whoever it was, thank you. You made me smile on a morning when I didn’t think I could.

Sue, do you have anything?

Opening Prayer

Father, We thank you for everyone gathered here today. Thank you that you know each of us by name and have invited us to walk with You and to grow in you. Thank you that we can depend on you and trust in You completely.

As we surrender ourselves in worship, we ask that You come by Your Holy Spirit and inspire our hearts today. Fill our lives with Your love, Fill our conversations with Your grace and truth, Fill this service with Your presence. We ask this for Your glory and praise. Amen.

Sermon

Sprinkled all through the Old Testament are times when God comes to Earth and appears visibly and audibly. There’s a fancy word for that, it’s called a theophany, and of course the ultimate theophany, the ultimate appearance and manifestation of God on Earth, is Christ.

There are more than 50 theophanies in the Old Testament, ranging from God taking a walk through the Garden of Eden to the burning bush and the angel who wrestled with Jacob.

We’re going to talk about another one of those today that’s the heart of one of the most well-known stories in the Bible—the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. That’s found in Daniel chapter 3, verses 14-29. Turn there with me now, and let’s read together:

Nebuchadnezzar answered and said to them, “Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that you do not serve my gods or worship the golden image that I have set up? Now if you are ready when you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, bagpipe, and every kind of music, to fall down and worship the image that I have made, well and good. But if you do not worship, you shall immediately be cast into a burning fiery furnace. And who is the god who will deliver you out of my hands?”

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”

Then Nebuchadnezzar was filled with fury, and the expression of his face was changed against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. He ordered the furnace heated seven times more than it was usually heated. And he ordered some of the mighty men of his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and to cast them into the burning fiery furnace.

Then these men were bound in their cloaks, their tunics, their hats, and their other garments, and they were thrown into the burning fiery furnace. Because the king's order was urgent and the furnace overheated, the flame of the fire killed those men who took up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell bound into the burning fiery furnace.

Then King Nebuchadnezzar was astonished and rose up in haste. He declared to his counselors, “Did we not cast three men bound into the fire?” They answered and said to the king, “True, O king.” He answered and said, “But I see four men unbound, walking in the midst of the fire, and they are not hurt; and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods.”

Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the door of the burning fiery furnace; he declared, “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out, and come here!” Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came out from the fire. And the satraps, the prefects, the governors, and the king's counselors gathered together and saw that the fire had not had any power over the bodies of those men. The hair of their heads was not singed, their cloaks were not harmed, and no smell of fire had come upon them.

Nebuchadnezzar answered and said, “Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent his angel and delivered his servants, who trusted in him, and set aside the king's command, and yielded up their bodies rather than serve and worship any god except their own God.

Therefore I make a decree: Any people, nation, or language that speaks anything against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego shall be torn limb from limb, and their houses laid in ruins, for there is no other god who is able to rescue in this way.”

And this is God’s word.

It’s the 6th century BC, and Babylon is the ruling power in the world. They’ve grown their empire by conquering nation after nation, Israel among them.

As a ruling power, Babylon governed a little differently than the Persians or Assyrians, and it was actually a pretty brilliant thing. What they’d do after conquering a nation is to move all of the professional classes—the artists and scholars, the people in government and military—away from their own country and make them live in Babylon.

Now, why would they do this? Well, if you take the smartest and most talented and influential people in one nation and have them live and grow and work in the heart of another nation, what’s going to happen? They’re eventually going to adopt the way of life of that other nation, aren’t they?

That’s exactly what the Babylonians wanted. It was called subjugation through assimilation, and it worked like a charm.

The Babylonians perfected this, and things always went the same way: they would conquer a nation and force the professional class to move to Babylon, and always in a generation or two that conquered nation would forget about their own values and standards and adopt Babylon’s. They would no longer be Assyrians or Israelites, they would all be Babylonians.

But here in Daniel we have a story of a moment when the Babylonian way didn’t quite work out, when three Israelite friends confronted the king because they wouldn’t compromise their faith.

What this story teaches us is three things that we desperately need to know right now: the pressure of conformity, the place of true faith, and the promise of the furnace. We’re going to take each of these one by one.

First, the pressure of conformity. Look there at verse 14:

Nebuchadnezzar answered and said to them, “Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that you do not serve my gods or worship the golden image that I have set up?”

In the first part of chapter 3, Nebuchadnezzar had built a giant image of gold 90 feet high in a very public place, and he surrounded that statue with orchestras. He decreed that whenever that orchestra began playing, everyone who could hear the music and see that statue had to bow down and worship it.

But Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused. They wouldn’t bow down and worship a false god because they knew the real God. So Nebuchadnezzar had the three of them brought to him. He said if they didn’t start doing what they were supposed to do, they’d be thrown into the blazing furnace.

Now, what did this 90-foot tall golden image represent? This is a hugely important point for us. If you read all of Daniel chapter 3, you’ll realize this image is never given a name. The most obvious guess is that it’s one of the Babylonian gods, but it’s actually more than that.

Nebuchadnezzar gives a hint to what the idol really represented there in verse 14. Is it true, he says, that you do not serve my GODS … OR worship the golden image.

See that? Gods is plural—Babylon had a whole lot of gods—but it’s something more too, isn’t it? The gods and the golden image are separated. That’s very interesting and makes a lot of sense. This image that Nebuchadnezzar has set up doesn’t just represent the Babylonian gods. Not just the Babylonian religion. It’s the entire nation’s values, beliefs, and culture.

I’m not sure you can call Nebuchadnezzar a good king, but he was a smart one. Babylon was at that time the most important city in the world. It was the center of learning and culture. And because they brought in conquered people from many nations, it was also the most diverse city in the world. Hundreds of thousands of people from all over the world, each with their own religions and gods.

But all of these people had to get along. The city had to be kept in order, and most importantly, the city had to be Babylonian. Everyone had to have a common culture and a common set of beliefs for the city and the nation to function.

So important, because what Nebuchadnezzar is saying in verse 14 is this: He saying to these three Israelite friends, “Look, I’m not asking you to worship my gods — the Babylonian gods — instead of your god. What I’m asking is that you worship the Babylonian gods in addition to your gods.

You can worship your God, sure. But you can’t say that your god is the only god. You have to acknowledge our gods at the same time.

You see? In private, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego could believe whatever they wanted. Could worship whoever they wanted. But in public, they had to bow down to the image. In public, they had to act like everybody else.

And here’s the thing: every great and prospering society down through history has done this. Babylon. Rome. The United States. All these nations made up of people from other nations all end up taking this kind of stance.

They say that privately you can worship however you want, but publicly you have to go along with everybody else. You can never say that your religion and your faith is the best one, or the only one, or the one with the most truth.

Everybody’s equal—which is true. But everybody’s also equal in their idea of what the truth is—which isn’t so true.

But that’s all how pluralistic societies work, isn’t it? And the pressure put on you to conform, to be like everyone else and adopt their way of thinking, is immense. Because you have to go along to get along, right? If you don’t, people can make life pretty tough on you.

Nowadays we live in the age known as cancel culture, when you can lose your job just by thinking or saying what the majority don’t agree with. People have gotten into trouble and had their lives ruined because of something they posted online years ago.

You have to toe the line, don’t you? If you stand out, if you disagree, if you go against the flow, then you’re asking for trouble.

The problem we face is that if you’re a Christian and you decide you have to be like everyone else, what are you doing? You’re bowing to the image, aren’t you? If you’re a Christian privately but not one publicly, then you have a problem on your hands. Because you can’t be both.

That’s what non-Christians — and maybe more than a few Christians — don’t understand. People out there in the world say that you have to leave your faith at your front door every day. You can’t come out in public and be outward with your faith. But you see, Christians can’t leave their faith at home. They just can’t.

Because who are you really? Who are you deep down in your core? To use the modern word, what’s your identity?

I see men here. I see women. I see fathers and mothers and grandparents. Brothers and sisters. I see retired people and business people. But that’s not your identity, is it, because first and foremost you’re Christians. That is your core, and that’s not something you can just set aside. You can’t stop being you. Who you are is who you are.

That’s exactly what happened to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They wouldn’t let all the pressure put on them by society turn them into two different people — the ones they were at home, and the ones they were out on the city street.

So who were these three friends? It’s important to note that if you read the first three chapters of Daniel, what you’ll see is these men haven’t withdrawn from the world.

They’re not largely separate from the world’s everyday life, out there on the fringes. All three are actually very involved in the culture of Babylon. They’ve received a Babylonian education, they’re all working for the government. They’re very much a part of the city.

There’s actually a lot of talk now among some prominent writers that Christians shouldn’t engage with our culture at all anymore, that the best thing we can do is withdraw and kind of keep to ourselves.

Raise our kids and make them good Christians and good citizens and wait for the next great awakening. Privatize our faith, in other words, just like Nebuchadnezzar said.

And while there’s a certain appeal to that — because seriously, aren’t we all tired of Christians getting beat up by the media and made fun of on TV? — that’s also the opposite of what the Bible says.

In Jeremiah 29, God tells the Israelites who have been exiled to Babylon how they should live in captivity. Listen to what Jeremiah says:

“Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat their produce.

Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease.

But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”

That’s exactly how Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are living their lives. They don’t hate Babylon. They love the city and pray for their city, they work for the city’s prosperity. They’re not hiding or withdrawing. They’re actively involved.

But when they’re told to privatize their faith, that’s the line in the sand. That’s the thing they will not do as believers. So they tell the Nebuchadnezzar — the king, the most powerful man on the face of the earth — no. No, they say, and we don’t care about the consequences.

Of all the brave things we’re called to do in life as Christians, that one might be the bravest. To say no to the pressures of society, to swim against the culture’s current, is an act of courage.

And as a Christian, if you aren’t fighting that battle, if you aren’t struggling against society’s pressure compromise your beliefs every day, then you’ve already surrendered yourself to that pressure.

That’s the question you have to ask yourself: Am I resisting, or am I privatizing my faith?

Now, the second thing we see in this story: the place of true faith.

Nebuchadnezzar is incensed. These three men aren’t going to listen. They’re going to be out there and they’re going to hear that orchestra start up, but they’re not going to stop what they’re doing and bow down to the idol he’s put up. They’re just going to act like it’s nothing special.

And starting in verse 16 he gets even more angry when Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego give their defense. That defense goes through verse 18, and it’s one of the most powerful declarations of faith in the entire Bible:

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”

How remarkable is that passage? Look at everything that happens here. First, these three men say they don’t have to give a defense at all. They don’t have to give the king their reasons, because they answer to a higher king. And then they say something extraordinary.

It’s three points: “first, O king, we believe that our God is able to save us. Second, we believe He will save us. But third, O king, even if our God does not save us, we still won’t bow down to your idol.”

Extraordinary faith, isn’t it? It’s a faith so strong and so deep that it contains both outcomes of what might happen in the next few hours.

It’s a faith that says God’s gonna save us. But it’s also a faith that says if God doesn’t, if these are the last few hours of our lives, Nebuchadnezzar, then we’re going to spend them doing what we know is right.

Now, let’s be honest here for a minute. Could you do that in that situation?

What do you do? Honestly, what do you do? Because this happens every day to Christians in other parts of the world, every single day.

What are you thinking in a situation like that? What do you know? Do you know that God is able to save you? Yep. Do you know that God wants to save you? Sure. But honestly, do you know He will? That’s a little tougher there, isn’t it? And do you know that even if He doesn’t save you, if this is your last moment in this world, you still won’t deny your faith?

Or let me put it another way. How many people say something like this: I trusted God. I loved God. I worshipped God and put my faith in God, and all I ever asked him for was this one thing, this one important and good thing. But he never gave it to me, and so all of my faith is gone.

Happens quite a bit, doesn’t it? And why is that faith lost? It’s not because God didn’t give them what they wanted. Seems like that, but that’s not the reason. It’s because we said we served God and said we loved God but that love was never for Him, it was for what we thought we could get out of Him.

A faith like that — a faith that’s less centered on God and more centered on what you want from God — will never last. It’ll crumble at the first sign of trouble.

But a faith that trusts God period, a faith that says I’m going to obey what God wants simply because God is worth it, and I’m going to serve him and love him for Himself and not for anything I can get out of it — that’s a faith that cannot break. And that’s a faith we see in Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They trust in God because He’s God, and so they can handle anything. That’s how they can say, “We know that God will rescue us, but if He doesn’t, then it doesn’t matter.”

And why doesn’t it matter? Because the faith that these three men possessed had shown them this one great truth: There are times that God will rescue you from death, and there are times that God will rescue you through death. If you die in Him and wake up in His arms, there’s nothing for you but joy. So no matter what, you’re always safe.

That is the the place of true faith: God alone. Not God and something else. Just Him.

Now, finally, our last point: the promises of suffering. Starting in verse 19.

Nebuchadnezzar’s had it. He’s done. He’s raging so badly that he wants the furnace turned up as fiery as his anger, so he has his servants heat the furnace seven times hotter than it was.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are bound. Nebuchadnezzar has what amounts to the Babylonian special forces throw them into the furnace, and it’s so hot that the soldiers themselves die just from getting near the heat.

Nebuchadnezzar himself, being the king, goes some distance from the furnace to a place where he can see the three men die. But he doesn’t see that at all, does he? Instead, he sees two shocking things: one is that they’re all walking around inside that fire. The other is that there aren’t three of them in the furnace. It’s now four. God had saved them after all.

Now, what do we learn from this?

All through the Bible, fire is used as a metaphor for trials and suffering. And we have three truths from the Bible that tells us about suffering, three truths that we need to know in order to get through our hard times, because we’re all going to have them.

So first, suffering is inevitable. One of the most plainly truthful and beautiful verses in the Bible, Job 5:7: “but man is born to trouble as the sparks fly upward.” We can’t help it. We’re born to it. Surrounded by it. Can’t get away from it. Because you know what? Life is suffering. It just is.

Or how about 1 Peter 4:12: “Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery trial when it comes upon you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you.”

We know this, right? At least to some extent. But it also seems like a lot of us think that if we’re suffering, then somebody’s done something wrong. Either we’ve sinned, or someone else has sinned against us. If we’re living a good life, if we’re doing all the right things, then we shouldn’t be suffering. Isn’t that what we sometimes think on some level? But that can’t be the case, can it? Jesus lived a perfect life, and he suffered more than anyone who’s ever lived.

The point is that there are furnaces in your life. There will be times, sometimes whole seasons of your life, when you’re going to be afraid and grieving and down. Don’t add to that sadness by feeling devastated because you feel devastated.

You don’t have to do that because of point 2: the Bible says that if you believe in Christ and rest in Him, your times of suffering won’t ruin you, they’ll refine you in the very same way that fire refines gold.

1 Peter 1: “In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.”

See that? Your faith is like gold in a fire. Those flames, that terrible heat, makes the gold better and more pure.

How does it do that? Let me ask you some questions.

Do you want to know your own heart? Do you want to be more compassionate? Do you really want a deep trust and faith in God? Do you want to be wise?

Then you need suffering. None of those things are possible unless you suffer, because there’s no way to know any of them until you’ve been tested.

Finally, our last point: You won’t be in your furnace alone.

Have you ever noticed that these three men are always together? It’s never just Shadrach. Never just Meshach. Never just Abednego. It’s always all three of them. Look, I know life is busy. And I know that this pandemic has kept a lot of people at home. And I know kids have things and grandkids have things, and I know that sometimes it’s just nice to sleep in on Sunday.

But you need church. You need church for the people at church, people who will support you and be there for you when you need them the most. It wasn’t just one of them in that furnace. It was all three of them together.

But there was also a fourth too, wasn’t there? Look, just because you suffer doesn’t mean you’ll become a better person. There are plenty of people who come out of their trials worse than before. In order to grow inside your furnace instead of being destroyed, God says he’ll walk with you. God will be with us.

But it’s not just God in the furnace with these three men, is it? Look at the end of verse 25. Nebuchadnezzar says the fourth is “like a son of the gods.” He’s not far off there, is he? And then he hits it right on the head three verses later, in verse 28:

Nebuchadnezzar answered and said, “Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent his angel ... ”

His angel, the angel of the Lord. And remember, in the Old Testament every time the angel of the Lord makes an appearance, who is that? It’s Jesus, isn’t it? It’s Jesus in that furnace walking around with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And it’s Jesus who is walking through your furnace with you.

Look, and we’re almost done here so pay attention, this is the most important point: You’ll feel Jesus walking with you in your furnace only to the degree that you know he was thrown into the ultimate furnace for you.

The Gospel is that you and I deserve to lose God forever when we die. That’s the ultimate furnace, isn’t it? That’s what hell is.

But Christ came to earth and experienced that wrath on the cross. He was thrown into the ultimate furnace so we won’t be. And the more you understand that, the more you have that tucked inside your heart, the easier it’s going to be for you to get through your tough times.

How does that work? Look at the end of this passage in verse 29. What does Nebuchadnezzar say? “There is no other god who is able to rescue in this way.”

Wow. How true is that? It’s right on the money, because every religion in the world has a way to be saved, but all of them but ours says that God will only save you if you do something. You have to live a good life, be a good person.

But if that’s your thinking, what happens when you get thrown into a furnace? When suffering hits, you’re either going to hate God because you think you’re living a good life and doing all the right things and so don’t deserve that furnace, or you’re going to get down on yourself because you haven’t measured up to what God says you should be doing.

You see? Every other religion says salvation depends on the good works you do. But in that furnace, those good works are going to be melted away.

But if you say to yourself that whatever furnace you’re in is nothing compared to the ultimate furnace that Jesus entered into, your perspective changes.

That’s when you can say, “If Jesus faced that furnace for me, then I can face this furnace for him.”

That’s when you can trust him to save you, and be right in there with you. That’s when you can have the faith that the furnace you’re in will only make you better.

Because Christ didn’t suffer on the cross so that we wouldn’t suffer in this world. He suffered on the cross so that through our suffering, we can be more like him.

No God can save like your God. Remember that. And if you feel like you’re all alone in your furnace this morning, I invite you up as we sing our closing hymn.

Let’s pray:

Father each of us gathered here this morning understands that this world can be a hard thing, and that suffering is a part of every life. But it still hurts. We know we have to face our furnaces, but they’re still so hot. That’s why we thank you for this reminder from Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego that we’re not in our furnaces alone. You’re right in there with us, shielding us, protecting us, comforting us, delivering us—just as You did on the cross. Help us to better endure our tough times by clinging to you, and give us the peace and joy of knowing that no matter where we are, no matter what we’re going through, You’re right beside us always. For it’s in Christ name we pray, Amen.