Sermon Tone Analysis

*Fourth Man in the Furnace *

/Text:/ Daniel 3 

/Topic:/ Why your trials might be the best things for you[KM1] 

/Big Idea:/* *Christ meets us in our worst trials.

/Keywords:/ Christ, Burden Bearer; Danger; Devotion; Experiencing God; Trials; Idolatry; Courage

 

*Introduction*

·        /Illustration: /When the Russian submarine /Kursk/ [KM2] sank, Dmitry Kolesnikov wrote a letter to his wife while waiting to die, and in it he wrote these telling words: “ Mustn’t despair.”

·        In the final moments of life, people want to send a message.

What would yours be?

 

*Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego chose death over worshiping idols.*

·        All they have to do is bend a knee to worship the golden images, and they will live and be restored to positions of power, honor, and status.

They are headed toward unimaginable pain and death, and one word would mean life for them.

But they would not say that word.

·        Furious, Nebuchadnezzar ordered them thrown into the furnace, heated hotter than usual.

-            /Daniel 3:19/

·        The three were unharmed in the furnace, and a fourth appeared, looking like a Son of God.

-            /Daniel 3:24/

·        The furnace, which looked like the end of their lives, turns out to be the place where they met God.

God meets us in the furnace, too.

* *

*God decided to deliver Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego /in/ the furnace, not /from/ it.

*

·        Jesus said to them what he says to people still, “ I’ll meet you in the furnace.”

·        Nebuchadnezzar ordered the three to come out, praised them for their courage, and promoted them.

-            /Daniel 3:26-28/

·        Going into the furnace turned out to be the greatest event of their lives, because God was there.

-            /Illustration: Early in Ortberg’s teaching days,/ /he sometimes fainted during his messages.

He related with Paul’s thorn (2 Corinthians 12) and realized that God was meeting him in the furnace…./

* *

*God calls us to a dangerous life, as he did Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, because he has something better for us.*

·        We should stop asking for a more pleasant life and instead ask God to give us the opportunity to show devotion to him.

·        God wants to meet us in the furnace.

\\ *Fourth Man in the Furnace *

by John Ortberg  

 

 

/Illustration:/ Last August, you might remember 118 crewmen dying when a series of explosions caused the Russian submarine /Kursk/ to sink.

Twenty-three of these men survived in an isolated chamber for several hours after the explosion.

One of them was 27-year-old Lieutenant Captain Dmitry Kolesnikov, and he wrote a note to his wife while he waited to die.

Two words from that note were displayed in a black frame next to his coffin at his funeral service.

He wrote, “ Mustn’t despair.”

Mustn’t despair.

When human beings experience the moment when they know they’re going to die, it’  s almost instinctive that they want to send a message; they want someone to know their story.

Passengers spiraling downward to their deaths on a JAL airliner in 1985 used the last moments of their lives to write letters to those they loved.

Prisoners of the Nazis in a Warsaw ghetto, after seeing people shot or starved to death, used their last breaths to write notes and store them in crevices in the wall.

They hoped somebody besides the Nazis would read the notes and know their story.

In that final moment when the scaffolding of life gets stripped away, all the toys we’ve spent our lives chasing--success, reputation, security, wealth, comfort, ease--mean nothing.

You are left with what you believe, what you’ve built your life on.

If that moment were to come for you, and one day it will, what would you write?

What’s the message you want to leave behind?

What’s your story?

*Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego chose death over worshipping idols.*

This moment came in the lives of three young men, possibly the age of Captain Kolesnikov.

They were men of great promise.

They had risen to positions of eminence in the world’s most powerful nation; they could raise great families, living deeply fulfilling lives doing noble things for their people and their God.

Their hearts were full of hopes and dreams.

Verses 14-18 say: “ And Nebuchadnezzar said to them, ‘Is it true, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, that you do not serve my gods or worship the image of gold I have set up? Now when you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipes and all kinds of music, if you are ready to fall down and worship the image I made, very good.

But if you do not worship it, you will be thrown immediately into a blazing furnace.

Then what god will be able to rescue you from my hand?’

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to the king, ‘O Necuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter.

If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king.

But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.’   “ 

 

I’ll tell you what’s striking to me about their story.

The moment inevitably comes when somebody realizes that death is inescapable and there is nothing they can do.

Often the last message is an expression of regret at having to leave life.

For Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, death is escapable--all they have to do is bend a knee to worship the golden images, and their nightmare will be over.

They will live and be restored to positions of power, honor, and status.

They are headed toward unimaginable pain and death, and one word would mean life for them.

But they would not say that word, they would not bend that knee.

“ Life, or death?”

They chose death.

That kind of devotion to God is possible for ordinary people.

They say, “ The God we serve is able to save us, but even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods and worship the image of gold you have set up.”

That looked like their final words:

“ Mustn’t despair.”

Verse 19: “ Then Nebuchadnezzar was furious with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and his attitude toward them changed.”

Literally that could be translated, “and the expression of his face changed.”

When they were brought to him for not bowing down, he was mad, but he had been using the velvet glove approach.

He tried to woo them to the other side: “ Now, when you hear the music, when you are ready to fall down and worship the image I made, very good; you can have everything back.”

But in the face of their unshakable devotion, the staggering commitment to face death rather than disobey God, Nebuchadnezzar lost control.

His attitude towards them changed, and he ordered the furnace to be heated seven times hotter than usual.

Seven was used in the ancient world meaning “ a lot.”

Nebuchadnezzar is saying, “ I want you to crank that furnace as hot as you can make it.

Imagine these three young men, facing what looks to be their final moment.

They have been faithful to the end.

They’ve seen the end coming since they first heard about the command to bow down before a statue of gold.

Every exit has been closed, and they have been faithful to the last.

Real people, filled with courage, maybe some fear, defiance, and faith.

They feel the heat, they see the men who carried them to the furnace collapse and die from the flame.

Then they’re in the fire, and they wait for the searing pain, for the numbness, for the smoke inhalation that will suffocate their lungs, but nothing happens.

They don’t feel any different, and it begins to dawn on them they’re not even warm--no burns, no smoke, and their restraints have disappeared.

That’s not the best part.

The best part is what happens to turn this from a miracle to a divine encounter.

Verse 24:  “ Then King Nebuchadnezzar leapt to his feet in amazement.”

One translation has the word /trepidation/, because this indicates an element of fear.

“ He asked his advisers, ‘Weren’t there three men that we tied up and threw into the fire?’

They replied, ‘  Certainly, O King.’

He said, ‘Look!

I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a Son of God.’   “  

 

There is a fourth member of the furnace club, and he is unharmed and apparently is the one who delivered the other three.

He convened a little meeting right there in the furnace.

Who was this fourth man, who appeared from nowhere and cheated death and, “ looks in appearance like a son of the gods”?

The text doesn’t say, but I think it was Jesus.

Apparently they spent a little time together in the furnace.

I wonder what they said to each other.