Defiant Faith

Rack, Shack, and Benny

The narrative we just read is probably familiar to many of you. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and the fiery furnace is a popular story from the Old Testament. We tell it to Sunday School kids, and it’s one of the parts of the Old Testament that we don’t even really have to filter much for the little ones. If you grew up with Veggietales (or your kids grew up with Veggietales), I’m sure you know there’s even an episode about Rack, Shack, and Benny based on this. The connection we often don’t make; however, is that these three are operating at the same time as Daniel - as in Daniel in the lion’s den.

It all starts when Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, is God’s instrument for punishing Israel. He comes to Jerusalem and after he conquers the city, Nebuchadnezzar takes some of the wealth of the city back to Babylon with him. This includes young nobles who were gifted in different ways. Those people are taken back to Babylon to learn the culture and language of the Chaldeans. Initially there names were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah but they were renamed Belteshazzar, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They were also given the opportunity to eat food from the king’s table. The problem with that was that the food from the king’s table was unclean, it conflicted with how God had instructed the Israelites to maintain a certain diet. So Daniel convinces the person in charge of them to let them eat an Israelite diet for ten days and to judge at the end of that period if they were still healthy enough to eat their way. God blessed them physically so they were allowed to keep their dietary restrictions intact. This pattern happens a few different times during these young men’s stay in Babylon.

That’s when we get to today’s reading. Nebuchadnezzar sets up a golden idol for the Babylonians to worship, probably to the Babylonian god Bel. This gold statue was around ninety feet tall and nine feet in diameter - so picture something in the ballpark of a ten story building. He commands that people in the vicinity, whenever they hear music, should bow down and worship this golden idol. The Israelites refuse to bow down to this idol, some of the Chaldeans rat them out, and Nebuchadnezzar challenges them. So they double down and make the proclamation of faith that we heard in our reading from Daniel 3:16-18

Daniel 3:16–18 (ESV)

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.”

Essentially they’re saying, our God can deliver us from your punishment if He wants to, and even if He doesn’t - we’re not bowing down to your statue. As you might imagine, Nebuchadnezzar does not react positively to this. He orders a furnace to be heated so hot that the heat kills the men tasked with forcing Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego into the fire. But then Nebuchadnezzar notices the outline of four men in the fire, just casually walking around. In shock, Nebuchadnezzar calls the three Israelites out of the furnace and they walk out - perfectly fine. The fourth figure from the fire is no where to be seen. At that point we see Nebuchadnezzar make a shift where he blesses God, celebrates the faithfulness of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and enshrines protections for the Israelite faith. I don’t know that it is fair to say that Nebuchadnezzar has a full conversion, but he’s definitely a lot closer than he was when he was throwing people into a furnace for worshiping the one, true God.

Message Application

Serial Depiction - Conforming - Deductive

Different idols that people bow down to, different furnaces we are threatened with - culminate with the questions “what’s your furnace, what’s your idol”

What we see in the book of Daniel is the people of God being challenged in different ways by the people around them. There are different idols they are being asked to worship and different parts of their practice of faith they’re being asked to compromise on. In those situations, they are defiantly faithful. They aren’t fighting the power, they aren’t trying to change the world to accommodate them, they are simply doing what is right and staying faithful to God - regardless of the pressure and regardless of the consequences. And what we see is that God is faithful to them. He protects them when they need it and He makes a way for their faithfulness to continue. And this is just one example of something that repeats itself in different ways throughout history. God’s people are pressured to compromise on their faith or to worship some other idol, the consequences are there if they remain defiant, and God is there with His faithfulness. And it invites the question for us today, what are the idols that you are being pressured to give in to? What are the furnaces that you’re afraid of?

Maybe the idols is some extracurricular activity for your kids - whether it’s sports or scouts or some other club. You’re being asked to compromise on the kids time in devotion or worship or Bible study and the ‘furnace’ is that if you don’t compromise, your kid will have less playing time or won’t advance as quickly or won’t have the advantage going forward in life.

Maybe the idol is your job. You’re being asked to compromise on your Christian morals in how you deal with co-workers or clients and the ‘furnace’ is that if you don’t, you won’t have the opportunity for promotion or your job might be at risk.

Maybe the idol is yourself. You’re being challenged to compromise on your faith because of the other things you want to do to build yourself up, you’re being challenged to focus on yourself self-centeredly instead of looking out for the good of others and the ‘furnace’ is that if you stop focusing on yourself you might not be as popular or as powerful or as wealthy or as comfortable as you would like to be.

Maybe the idol is the culture. The world around us pressuring us to compromise on our faith and support things that are antithetical to how Christians are supposed to live - things like homosexualilty or corruption or greed or theft or dishonesty. The ‘furnace’ is that you don’t want to come across as stuffy or hateful.

Maybe the idol is your bank account. You would love to give 10% to your church, you would love to be generous towards your neighbor but you feel the pressure to make sure you have enough first, feel the pressure to only give a little bit away, feel the pressure to hold tight to what you have and ‘furnace’ is the fear of not having what you want or need.

I could come up with example after example, but the reality is that each and every one of us has these idols in our lives. We are all confronted with things that pressure us to live in ways other than the way that God has called us to live, we all have fears of the consequences of being defiant in our faithfulness.

Be defiant in your faithfulness anyway. Adopt the same attitude as Rack, Shack, and Benny saying “I’m going to live the way God wants me to - and He’ll make it work out. And even if He doesn’t, I will still be faithful - even unto death.”

But we’re not faithful to somehow earn God’s love. We’re not faithful to earn Him standing in the furnace next to us, shielding us. We are faithful because He already stands beside us., because He has been faithful all of our lives, and because of Jesus’ faithfulness on the cross where He shielded us from the fires of the evil one. Brothers and sisters, no matter how bad things look and no matter how much it feels like we are in the furnace, Christ stands beside us and we can be confident in His faithfulness to protect and keep us - even to life everlasting. Amen.