Daniel 3:19-25; With Us In The Fire~ 20210815 ~ Pastor Rodney Zedicher ~ Ephraim Church of the Bible ~ www.ephraimbible.org

08/15_Daniel 03:19-25; With Us In The Fire; Audio available at: http://www.ephraimbible.org/Sermons/20210815_dan03_19-25.mp3

We left Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego last time counting the cost and standing firm in their faith in God. Facing the fiery furnace, they ‘considered the sufferings of this present time not worth comparing to the glory that is to be revealed to us’ (Rom.8:18). They looked into the flames, and counted it ‘light, momentary affliction that is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison’ (2Cor.4:17). They ‘did not account their lives precious’, but only to remain faithful to the Lord and discharge the ministry he entrusted to them (Act.20:24).

Conspiracy or not, they were accused of paying no attention to the king, refusing to serve his gods or worship the golden image that he had set up. We’ll pick up in verse 13 of Daniel 3.

Daniel 3:13 Then Nebuchadnezzar in furious rage commanded that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego be brought. So they brought these men before the king. 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? 15 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... . 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?”

Actions Louder Than Words

Who is the god who will deliver out of my hands? They could have stalled for hours answering his question with history and a theology lesson, lecturing Nebuchadnezzar on who God is and how he had been faithful in the past. But sometimes actions speak louder than words.

Daniel 3:16 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. 17 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. 18 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.”

They had unshaken confidence even in the face of the flames and the fury of the king that their God was able. He is able to deliver from even the most powerful king (like he rescued his people from the hand of the Pharaoh), and he is able to deliver from the burning fiery furnace (like he rescued his people out of the iron furnace of Egypt; Deut.4:20). They knew that God is sovereign over all things.

But they also knew and understood that God is not obligated and does not always rescue his people from present circumstances. Our hope is not ultimately in this life. They had counted the cost, they had thought through the ‘but if not’; they were willing to seal their testimonies with their own blood (Rev.6:9).

Knowing God

Who is the god who will deliver out of my hands? These three could answer that question. They knew God. They enjoyed relationship with their God. These three knew the God who is. They knew a God worthy of living lives to serve him, to please only him, and they valued their relationship with this God more than they valued their own skin. These three knew a God who made the 90 foot image of gold seem small and valueless; they knew a God who made the blazing fire and the wrath of the king seem powerless and weak.

It is only if you know God, if you really know him, that you will be able to stand in the face of adversity. Do you know him? Do you know this God? Are you walking with him today, so that when you are faced with the fire, you know him and your confidence is in him?

Daniel 3:16 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. 17 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. 18 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.” 19 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. 20 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. 21 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.

It’s important for us to pause and recognize that God did not rescue them. He did not rescue them from the king or from the burning fiery furnace. They took a stand for truth, and they were bound and thrown into the fire. In fact their resolve to refuse to worship all but the one true God so infuriated the king, that he had the furnace superheated, just in case their God might be able to rescue them from a regularly heated furnace.

The Folly of Fury

This demonstrates the foolishness of fury. If the king really wanted to see them suffer, he should have cooled the furnace to prolong their agony, not have it superheated it to accelerate their deaths. But he was not thinking clearly. In his proud rage he wanted to make a spectacle of any who would defy him, and he did succeed in creating a greater spectacle which put on display the glory of God.

Daniel 3:22 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. 23 And these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell bound into the burning fiery furnace.

The king lost some of his strongest, his best soldiers that day. No skeptic could argue that the physics of the furnace weren’t working that day; this was not smoke and mirrors; it proved lethal for Nebuchadnezzars’ mighty men.

Daniel 3:24 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.” 25 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.”

The king was incensed by the audacity of those who would dare defy his command. In ironic reversal, those who obeyed the king’s command die in the flames; those who refused to bow in obedience to the king survive. The executioners executed; the captives freed, unharmed.

Freed From Sin

Notice that the three were thrown bound into the flames, but the flames only succeeded in freeing them from their bonds. There is a picture for us in this. God may not spare us from adversity, instead he may use adversity to set us free us from our bondage to sin. Later in Daniel we read of those who ‘stumble so that they may be refined, purified, and made white’ (Dan.11:35). In Zechariah 13, the Lord says:

Zechariah 13:9 And I will put this third into the fire, and refine them as one refines silver, and test them as gold is tested. They will call upon my name,

and I will answer them. I will say, ‘They are my people’; and they will say, ‘The LORD is my God.’”

The path to holiness is often not escape from the flames, but passing through the flames. Peter says:

1 Peter 4:1 Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, 2 so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God.

Suffering has a way of refining us, of setting us free.

Romans 6:6 We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. 7 For one who has died has been set free from sin.

We want to escape suffering, and it is right for us to pray for rescue. But God’s rescue may not be escape from the fire, but escape from the ‘sin which clings so closely’ (Heb.12:1). He may bring us through the fire for our good, for our sanctification. True freedom comes through the cross, through our death, through dying to self, not apart from it.

Charles Spurgeon said it this way:

“Into the central heat of the fire doth the Lord cast his saints, and mark you this, he casts them there because they are his own beloved and dearly loved people. I do not see the goldsmith putting dross into the furnace — what would be the good of it? It would be a waste of fuel and labour. But he thrusts the crucible full of gold into the hottest part of the fire and heaps on coals till the heat is terrible. ... the pure gold is put into the furnace to make it purer still.

...The fire did not hurt them, but it snapped their bonds. Blessed loss this! A true Christian’s losses are gains in another shape.

...Have not you, dear friends, frequently experienced that trouble cuts the cords which bind us to earth? ...Happy trouble that looses our care of earth!”

https://www.spurgeon.org/resource-library/sermons/consolation-in-the-furnace/

Nebuchadnezzar observed that the fire, rather than destroying his captives, had only served to set them free.

With Us In The Fire

The thing that astonished Nebuchadnezzar more than the death of his soldiers, more than the freedom of his captives, was that the count was off. He remembered throwing three men in, and now he sees four. “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.”

Psalm 34 says:

Psalm 34:4 I sought the LORD, and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears. 5 Those who look to him are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed. 6 This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him and saved him out of all his troubles. 7 The angel of the LORD encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them. 8 Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him! 9 Oh, fear the LORD, you his saints, for those who fear him have no lack!

Taste and see that the Lord is good. There is a sweetness, an intimacy of fellowship with the Lord that is only found in the midst of the fire. These three learned first hand, they experienced something that up until this point had been only something they had heard, something they had read, something they believed but had yet to experience. In Isaiah they read:

Isaiah 43:1 But now thus says the LORD, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. 2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. 3 For I am the LORD your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. ...4 Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you, .... 5 Fear not, for I am with you;

Isaiah had prophesied about those who four times over belong to God; those who were created, formed, redeemed, called; those owned by the Lord. Those to whom God says ‘you are mine’. The Lord God, the Creator and Redeemer promises his presence through deep waters, through the fire. “I will be with you.” “Fear not, for I am with you.” These three experienced his presence with them in the fire.

It is significant that Nebuchadnezzar observed them walking in the midst of the fire. Not writhing in agony, not running in fear, simply walking. Adam and Eve ‘heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day’ (Gen.3:8). Now, in the middle of a blazing superheated furnace, they were walking with the Lord God as if in a garden in the cool of the day. Not hurried, not anxious; at peace. They were enjoying fellowship with their Creator, God the Son, the Word who was with God and who was God, the only Son from the Father (Jn.1:1,14).

Notice, this promise of his presence is directly connected to affliction. When you pass through the waters, when you walk through the fire, it is there I will be with you. The Psalm says:

Psalm 23:4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

God is with us. He will never leave us or forsake us. But we often are given a special perception of his presence with us when we are in the fire. Do you know him?

In Our Place In The Fire

Jesus is not only with us in our suffering; he enters in to our suffering. We are not alone; he feels what we feel.

1 Corinthians 12:26 If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. 27 Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.

As Christ is the head of the body, does he not feel the hurt when one of his members suffers? We have a compassionate High Priest (Heb.4:15)

But Jesus enters in to our suffering in an even more profound way. On the cross, Jesus experienced the suffering I deserve so that I will never for eternity experience that suffering. Jesus endured the furnace of the wrath of God Almighty so that I can enjoy my relationship with him even in; dare I say especially in the furnace of trials. Do you know him? Do you know this Jesus?

Jesus said:

John 16:33 ...in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”

Matthew 28:20 ...And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Resolve it today your answer to ‘but if not’. Our God is able. He is able to deliver you from your present circumstances. But if not? What if he allows the furnace to be heated seven times hotter? What if his plan is not to rescue you from the flames, but to bring you safely through the flames, to refine you, to purify you, to loose you from your bonds and burn away your impurities? What if he desires that you experience intimacy with him that is only found in the furnace of affliction?

***

1 How firm a foundation, you saints of the Lord,

is laid for your faith in his excellent Word!

What more can he say than to you he has said,

to you who for refuge to Jesus have fled?

2 “Fear not, I am with you; O be not dismayed,

for I am your God, and will still give you aid.

I’ll strengthen you, help you, and cause you to stand,

upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand.

3 “When through the deep waters I call you to go,

the rivers of sorrow shall not overflow,

for I will be with you, your troubles to bless,

and sanctify to you the deepest distress.

4 “When through fiery trials your pathway shall lie,

my grace, all sufficient, shall be your supply.

The flames shall not hurt you. I only design

your dross to consume, and your gold to refine.

5 “The soul that on Jesus still leans for repose,

I will not, I will not desert to its foes.

That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake,

I’ll never, no never, no never forsake!”

[How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord; Author: K. (1787]

***

2021.08.15 Sermon Notes

Daniel 3:19-25 – With Us In The Fire

Actions sometimes speak louder than words

Daniel 3:16; Romans 8:18; 2 Corinthians 4:17; Acts 20:24

The importance of knowing God

-Does your view of God make the big things in life seem small?

The folly of fury

Daniel 3:19-22

The fire frees us from sin

Daniel 11:35; 12:10; Isaiah 48:10; Zechariah 13:9; Malachi 3:23; Romans 6:6-7; 1 Peter 4:1-2

God is wth us in the fire

Psalm 34:4-9; Isaiah 43:1-5; Psalm 23:4-5; John 16:33; Matthew 28:20

Jesus enters in to our suffering

1 Corinthians 12:26-27; Hebrews 4:15; Isaiah 53:3-6

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Pastor Rodney Zedicher ~ Ephraim Church of the Bible ~ www.ephraimbible.org