Take your Bibles now and turn to Daniel chapter 3. Daniel chapter 3. We return again to this, making our way through this wonderful book in the Old Testament. I’ll remind you again that the first six chapters of Daniel are narrative genre, and then the chapters 7 to 12 are apocalyptic. But we are in chapter 3 now, and so let us give our full attention now as we hear from the Lord from Daniel chapter 3.

King Nebuchadnezzar made an image of gold whose height was 60 cubits and his breadth six cubits. He set it up on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon. Then King Nebuchadnezzar sent to gather the satraps, the prefects, the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the justices, the magistrates, and all the officials of the provinces to come to the dedication of the image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. Then the satraps, the prefects, the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the justices, the magistrates, and all the officials of the provinces gathered for the dedication of the image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. And they stood before the image that Nebuchadnezzar had set up. And the herald proclaimed aloud, you are commanded, O peoples, nations, and languages, that when you hear the sound of the horn, the pipe, the lyre, the tragon, the harp, the bagpipe, and every kind of music, you are to fall down and worship the golden image that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up. And whoever does not fall down and worship shall immediately be cast into a burning, fiery furnace. Therefore, as soon as all the peoples heard the sound, of the horn, the pipe, the lyre, the trigon, the harp, the bagpipe, and every kind of musical instrument, all the peoples, nations, and languages fell down and worshiped the golden image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. Therefore, at that time, certain Chaldeans came forward and maliciously accused the Jews. They declared to King Nebuchadnezzar, oh, king, live forever. You, O King, have made a decree that every man who hears the sound of the horn, the pipe, the lyre, the trigon, the harp, the bagpipe, and every kind of musical instrument shall fall down and worship the golden image. And whoever does not fall down and worship shall be cast into a burning, fiery furnace. There are certain Jews whom you have appointed over the affairs of the province of Babylon, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. These men, O king, pay no attention to you. They do not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up. The Nebuchadnezzar, in furious rage, commanded that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego So they brought these men before the king, and 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, the pipe, the lyre, the tragon, the harp, the bagpipe, and every kind of musical music, to fall down and worship that image that I have made well and good. But if you do not worship, you shall immediately be cast into the 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. And 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, their other garments, and they were thrown into the burning fiery furnace because the king’s order was urgent and the furnace overheated. The flames 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 fiery furnace. Then King Nebuchadnezzar was astonished and rose up in haste. He declared to his counselors, did we not cast three men bounded in the fire? And they answered and said to the king, true, O king, And 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 the door of the burning fire 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, prefects, and governors, and the king’s counselor 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, any people or 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 was no other God who was able to rescue in this way. Then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the province of Babylon.

The word of the Lord. Amen. You may be seated. Please join your hearts and minds in prayer as we ask His blessing upon the preaching of His Word.

Our Heavenly Father, we thank You for the good news of the Gospel and for Jesus Christ, who not only is the Gospel, but who Himself has promised to come and to preach the Gospel to us from every page of His Word and from every line of every page. And we pray now, dear Lord, as we open again your word, that your Holy Spirit would open our eyes and that we may see wonderful things written in your truth. We pray, Lord, that by his power, our hearts may burn within us as though Jesus were walking with us by the way, even as our eyes are upon his word. And we listen to his voice. Lord, we thank you for all the blessings that you have poured out upon us and upon your people throughout the ages. in faithfulness and power and love. Heavenly Father, we pray that again today you would make our experience full of Jesus Christ as we come to his word and through it to Christ himself. Father, we pray help us and hear us. And we ask this in Jesus’ name and all God’s people said, amen, amen.

Well, as we pointed out, the first six chapters of the book of Daniel are narrative, and they tell a story that matches the theme of the whole book, right? It’s good to see a macro theme, an overarching theme when we’re reading a book. And the theme here in Daniel is that no matter how things appear, God is in control and God is with his people. Right? Power and people. God’s power and he’s with his people. Right? And in light of that, it’s about living in hope and faith while in exile. Living in hope and faith in exile. And in our chapter this morning, chapter three, we see that it tells the same story very, very powerfully and clearly. In chapter three, the focus is upon, rather than previously, is upon Daniel’s three friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, as was repeated over and over in chapter three. And if you remember, of course, their Hebrew names were Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. We’re not sure where Daniel is, right? We’re not told where Daniel is and why he’s not in this situation. Many have speculated and come to various and sundry conclusions. It’s good not to speculate. It’s usually safe not to do so. It’s most likely that he was away serving as an ambassador or an emissary somewhere. Remember that Daniel’s working in the administration of Nebuchadnezzar as his high official. But the focus here is upon the other three Israelites, the other three Hebrews. And this event is related, you’ll notice, to the book’s theme, of the fact of God’s power, despite how things look, and God’s presence with his people. And we see as we work through this text, we won’t get through all of it today, but we see Nebuchadnezzar’s gross self-obsession, and then we see God’s gift of strength and faith to these Israelites, and then Nebuchadnezzar’s psychotic fury, and then finally God’s power, his powerful gift. of safety and protection for his people there in that situation. So let’s look first at Nebuchadnezzar’s self-obsession, which is really a picture of mankind’s idolatry, right, writ large. Notice the plot of the text today in chapter 3. This massive image, right, or statue, the word in Hebrew means both, seldom is the words statue or image. And interestingly enough, you’ll recall in chapter two, how it ended, right? It also had an image in the story, right? In chapter two, Nebuchadnezzar has this image or statue in his dream, in these nightmares that he has. And in chapter two, it said, his spirit was troubled and his sleep left him. And so you had the mighty king of Babylon, the Babylonian empire, rattled and shaken by nightmares about the statue and image. And this rock, remember, as part of the image that would come and crush the statue into pieces and then grow into a mountain that would cover the whole of the earth. And remember also, it’s important to notice that It wasn’t a one-off nightmare or dream, right? It says dreams, it was plural. So he had this recurring, plaguing dream, bad dreams or nightmares of this image. And so what’s going on in King Nebuchadnezzar’s mind as he’s tormented by these disturbing terror dreams, right? What is the meaning he surely was thinking as he asked, insisted that he be told by his staff there, What does this statue mean? What is this rock that comes? Why does it smash that image into pieces? What does this mean about my kingdom? He probably asked. And you recall Daniel ends up coming on the scene and he explains the dream. And it was this great image, a statue made of a golden head and a silver chest and arms and a middle and thighs of bronze and legs of iron and feet mixed with iron and clay. And Daniel tells him that those pieces represented kingdoms, kingdoms with gold, the golden head being Babylon and Nebuchadnezzar himself. When we look at history, most make the correlation to the other kingdoms that followed historically, as we know, as the Medo-Persians, Greece, and then the Roman Empires. And the Lord continues through Daniel to explain that all of them will be broken by this stone, not cut with human hands, it says. And it would come and it would set up a kingdom that would grow into a mighty mountain that would cover the whole of the earth. And remember after this, Nebuchadnezzar is humbled. He’s amazed and he’s humbled. And notice how chapter two ends. Amazingly, verse 46 of chapter two, then Nebuchadnezzar fell on his face and paid homage to Daniel and commanded that an offering an incense be offered up to him. And the king answered and said to Daniel, truly your God is God of gods and the Lord of kings and revealer of mysteries for you’ve been able to reveal this mystery Then the king gave Daniel high honors and many great gifts and made him ruler over the whole province of Babylon and chief prefect over all the wise men of Babylon. Then 49 says, Daniel made a request of the king and he appointed Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego over the affairs of the province of Babylon. But Daniel remained at the king’s court, right? What an incredible profession and we’ll see this cycle repeated as we go forward. But this confession, right, is Nebuchadnezzar a changed man after the revelation of this dream that he had, right? There’s this apparent conversion of Nebuchadnezzar. Well, the very next verse, after verse 49, is Daniel 3.1, and it would tell us otherwise, right? It says, King Nebuchadnezzar made an image of gold. And so whatever change seemed to happen in the mind or heart of Nebuchadnezzar, it was only temporary, it was only superficial. Right after having those recurring nightmares of this massive statue, Nebuchadnezzar what? He makes one of his own. The statue in his dream had a head of gold, and he makes his image is all gold. King Nebuchadnezzar, verse one, made an image of gold. And it’s gone from his head to the making of one that’s height is 60 cubits, that’s about 90 feet. And it’s about nine feet wide. And he’s just finished saying, that Israel’s God is the God of God and Lord of kings, but now, following Paul’s observation from Romans 1, Nebuchadnezzar worships what? He worships the creature rather than the creator, who is blessed forever. And so, so much for his conversion, right? He shows that his faith was like the seed that falls on rocky soil and immediately springs up, but quickly dies because it has no depth. And so to emphasize the folly of this, Daniel repeats a number of things, right? If you notice in the reading of the chapter, he repeats over and over again that Nebuchadnezzar made the image, right? In verses 1 and 15 he says that. And then nine times he repeats that Nebuchadnezzar had set up, the image that Nebuchadnezzar had set up, right? Nine times over and over. And it’s also significant, and I hinted at this a few weeks ago, that we see here the connection between the Tower of Babel, this episode in Genesis 11, and what’s going on here, right? How is that, what’s the connection? Well, the location of the statue, right, the Babylonian plane was the location of the building of the Tower of Babel. Remember, in the plane of Shinar, the Tower of Babel had a kind of two-fold purpose for those who constructed it. It was an attempt to make a name and bring a legacy of glory to them. And then secondly, was to keep the people from being scattered throughout the earth, which of course, as you know, was in opposition to the decree of the Lord, right? To be fruitful, multiply, and spread, right? So this was the opposite of that. And so Nebuchadnezzar’s statue had the same two goals to it, right? In mind, it was designed to create a lasting testimony to his glory, Nebuchadnezzar’s, and to provide this unifying focus for the kingdom over which he was ruler. And this is why, of course, we read that he summoned the local dignitaries and all the leading officials from around the empire in this list of characters, or the offices that he says, the satraps, the prefects, and on and on. And then it says, and all the other provincial officials, he summoned them to gather before the statue for its dedication. So what is this image about? Well, clearly, it’s a visible demonstration of the power of the almighty state, right, of this government power. And we know from history, the reflex of totalitarian governments to set up symbols of authority, right? We see this throughout history. Tyrants and dictators, it’s in their DNA to throw up statues of themselves or their symbols, right? Symbols of the nation or of the movement, right? The Nazis did this with their symbols all over the place. One of the greatest mass murders in history of the world. Communist China’s Chairman Mao, his statue covered China. It was all over the place. The same for another communist mass murderer, the Soviet leader, Lenin, of Vladimir, not John. He also, the statues were all over the Soviet Union, and still are in some places, pervasive throughout that land. But long before those, even the ancient Romans, they forced the peoples to make a decision, you recall. between Kyrios Caesar and Kyrios Christos, right? Either Caesar is Lord or Christ is Lord, and they were forced to make that decision. And so examples of this can be multiplied throughout history, but notice for us, brothers and sisters, right, very much so for us, we certainly aren’t removed from the same kind of thing in our day as well. And we see those examples were similar to the ancient Rome. And you’ll recall from your church history that the Roman society and governments didn’t care if Christians worshipped Jesus, so long as they also worshipped the pantheon of their gods. It’s okay, you can add on to it, but not just that one, right? And they had gods for everything. If you remember your Roman history, they had gods for everything. The god Janus was the god who looked both ways, right? That’s why January is named after that god. They even had a god for the baby that sucks the thumb, right? And so they were very much polytheistic. And what they were outraged about at the Christians was that the Christians refused to worship anything but Christ. And so they accused them of being atheists, right, because they denied the gods, the pantheon of false gods. They were perfectly fine as long as they put Jesus in line, right, with their system. As long as your Jesus thing didn’t ruffle the feathers in standards and norms of the government-imposed religion or the pressures of society, all was fine. But Christians couldn’t do that. And we still can’t do that. We are certainly pressured in our day to fall in line, maybe in less violent ways for now. But as long as I can remember, I’m sure you’ve heard it as well, right? You’re just to keep your beliefs private and to yourself, right? We hear again and again and again, it’s not polite to speak about what in public, politics or religion, right? We hear this drummed into us. You can talk about anything else but those. which I’ve always thought was kind of foolish because what’s more important than one’s worldview or their faith or belief system? And devoid of these things, small talk is vacuous and it’s just that, it’s small, it’s trite, it’s superficial. And I don’t think we’re called as followers of Christ to be vacuous, small, trite and superficial people. But a wicked Christ-hating culture has conditioned believers to just be quiet about their faith. Believe what you want, just keep it to yourself, which is a lie because what’s the problem with that? What if what I want to believe is that I speak of and share and defend my faith, right? So it’s a disingenuous claim at the end of the day. And I’m afraid that the era of that kind of soft hostility towards Christians, the Christian faith, is coming to an end. And the enemies of the truth of the gospel of Christ are not content with putting Christ second or keeping him private. if you’re at all paying attention to the world today, you know that the enemies of truth and all that is good and reality and logic itself have become a not-so-quiet cult. They become more and more vocal and insane. It’s a demonic cult, to be perfectly honest. It won’t contend itself until it’s destroyed the most precious, thing to the Lord, right? Our children destroyed the God-created institution of the family, destroyed anyone who opposes the perversion and evil that they aggressively push, and destroyed everyone who doesn’t champion that backward world of fluid this and trans that and deny the reality of the chromosomes that they’ve been given. And this is more than mere opinion, right, or issues to do with politics. It is a demonic assault, brothers and sisters, on the Lord and His creation and His design and His desire for that creation. And we are called, dear Christian, to resist wickedness wherever we encounter it. And we need forever to throw off the weakness and the passivity and the cowardice that the enemies of God have made so prevalent, and to recover a godly boldness, right, that pushes back against the devil in the strength of Christ’s might for our children, for our families, for our neighbors, and for Christ’s honor and His glory ultimately. We’re told in 1 Corinthians 16, in no uncertain terms, be watchful, Stand firm in the faith, act like men. The old version says, quit ye like men, act like men, and let all you do be done in love. So there’s the truth in love, Ephesians 4. 2 Timothy 1 says, for God gave us a spirit not of fear, but of power and love and self-control. Therefore, do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God. We are to protect the weak and the helpless, not throw them to the wolves of wickedness, to be trained and brainwashed. We’re to love our children, love our neighbor, and love the Lord by living for the Lord, living for the truth. Spread his fame and his name throughout the world. And if you want or need to learn how to do this better or more effectively, please, please let me know. We can help you with this. But pray for the Lord’s strength, that He would give you courage and boldness to stand firm for Him in love. And why is that? Because of who you are in Christ, right? See who you are? United to Jesus. Be who you are. The Apostle Peter tells us who we are in 1 Peter 2, 9. It says this, Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles, right, that’s us, to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct amongst the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. History is replete with those who, like these three young men, in Babylon, took a stand for the Lord and faced the fury of fire of the enemy. Many examples can be given, but you’ll all be familiar with the famous stand of the former Martin Luther, right? In 1521, Luther took a stand at that famous Diet of Worms and declared that his conscience was captive to the word of God alone. He was ordered to recant of his teachings and his criticisms of the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church, and he replied what? You recall? And we see this. glorious boldness of this man before the weight of the world really upon him, of the pressure of the world. But long before Martin Luther, you know, there was one who faced the fiery heat of another kind. He was innocent, deserving zero wrath. And as he underwent that incredible, excruciating trial, there wasn’t one to come and protect him from being harmed. Rather, He took the full force and weight of all that wrath upon Himself. And you’ll recall in the upper room, this one, Jesus, He gives His disciples the cup of blessing. And He says, drink the sweet fellowship I have with the Father. My peace I give to you. My joy I give to you. My glory I pray for you. And He presses that cup into the hands of the disciples. And He says, take, drink of it, all of you. And then in the garden of Gethsemane, he tremblingly takes the cup from his father’s hand, that cup about which the prophet spoke, the cup of God’s wrath against sin, the cup of judgment. And Jesus drinks it to the dregs and he cries out, my God, I am forsaken. Why? Why? And the father says, why, my son? because I’m making you to be sin, although you knew no sin, so that those who come and cast themselves upon you and are found in you may be my very righteousness and be reconciled to me by the power of the gospel.” Have you grasped it? Have you grasped that? The glory of the message of reconciliation that the gospel alone brings, that in Christ, this exchange that is offered, And the hand of eternal blessing bestowed upon his son falls on you. Why? Because the hand of his judgment and curse fell on the son of his eternal love. It’s Christ’s work, right? That great exchange. And it renders you, Christian, the very righteousness of God. We’ll get back to Daniel 3 next week, but for now, May we be captivated, truly captivated, and moved along, even in the most wicked of times and trials brought upon us, by the reality of His sacrifice for us, and the Spirit working in us, the life that He gave to secure our eternal life in glory with Him. Brothers and sisters, go back down from this place, down back into your week, taking with you the joy and security of knowing that very thing, the love of Christ, the protection of the Father, and the strengthening of our faith by the Holy Spirit. What a wonderful Redeemer and King that we have indeed. Amen.

Let’s pray. Our Heavenly Father, we are so awed by your mercy and your love and your power. We praise you for this gospel and the great exchange that’s taking place by virtue of the work of Jesus Christ and his sacrifice. We praise you for giving us life in Jesus. Lord God, we do pray that as your word goes out, that it would feed your people and have its full effect here and around the world. We pray, dear Lord, give us a true sense of the victory that is ours in Christ. Help us to see truly, Father, give us faith, give us eyes that we would see that we are united to Jesus and dead to sin once and for all. Lord God, may we live in the newness of life. Help us, we pray, Lord, to have hearts filled with your love, that we would be caring and loving one another. Work through us to bear testimony to the love you’ve shown us in Christ, and that we, dear Lord, to the outside world would have a strong spiritual aroma of love and forgiveness and grace and hearts that care and live for you. All to your glory. Lord, help us to be singularly focused, drives the rest of what we do. Father, we pray for those among us who suffer in various ways. You, Lord, you know them all. We ask, Father, that you would encourage them Even use us in that encouragement, Lord. We thank you that we can do so. Father, we pray, may you grant us as we endure the comfort of your spirit and a peace that transcends all understanding. Pray, Father, for our children this morning in this church. Pray that you would bless them and that they would grow to love you more and more, Lord, with all of their hearts, and that as they struggle in this life and as they suffer, and even as they sin and fail, that the gospel would become all the more real to them and truly become good news as they embrace it by faith time and time again. Protect them, we pray. Lord, we pray for their parents here as well, Lord, that they would love their children and rear them according to your word in the true and holy faith. We pray, Lord, grant husbands and wives would love one another with a Christ-like love and sacrificial service to one another, even for all of us, Father, married or single, young or old. Help us to have hearts full with your love caring and loving one another, witnessing to the world that they would wonder and be captivated by our peculiarity. Lord, use us, we pray, to witness to that glory. Father, we plead with you regarding the state of the world, Lord, of the rampant and gross wickedness that prevails in our culture and in the institutions and governments and officials of this land. Lord, even beyond the ghoulish practice of infanticide that is worshiped and held up as a sacrament of Satan, Lord, abortion, Lord, we pray that you put an end to that. Your Spirit would go forth in power and even through us to change hearts and open minds to bring a rapid end to the casual and even celebrated and defended hideous practice. Lord, we pray for your mercy and power. in putting an end to the promotion of wickedness and the damage done to the weakest among us, our children. from being conditioned by an evil society and taught in government and schools all around us, a perverse ideology and a worldview that is aggressively hostile towards your holy nature and creation, and therefore us in our Christ, Lord. Father, we ask, put an end to the mentality of deranged and demonic obsessed forces that promote such things which you despise. Lord, We pray, convict and convert these people to Christ, that they would love you and live for you, for your people’s good, and for your glory. Father, we pray, your kingdom come. We praise You that You have fed us afresh this day as we have heard Your Word to us and that You will feed us in the supper momentarily. Lord, we pray, may we see that this is our life in sustenance, even in this time of sojourn away from our true home with You in glory, even in sorrow and difficulty and affliction, Lord. Make it so, we pray. Strengthen us and be with us, dear Lord. We love you. We bring all these things to you in the name of our mighty Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.