Standing Inside the Fire

Sermon Transcript

I remember talking to a college student once who aspired to material wealth, but he assured me it wasn’t because he loved money. He simply said he wanted more money so that he has more options in life. As to the actual state of his heart, I won’t try to speculate, but I understood what he was saying: It does seem like if you have enough money, you are freer from the demands of others. If your boss tells you to do something and you don’t want to, you can just not do it, because what’s the worst they can do to you? Fire you? No big deal; you have plenty of money. You may even feel free to cut corners around the law, because what’s the government going to do to you? Take you to court? You can afford better lawyers than they have. When you have that kind of independent wealth, you feel free to ignore most of what others want you to do, because you figure your money will be able to deliver you from whatever others throw at you.

 

But there are limits to this. Sometimes the rich are found guilty in court, there still isn’t enough money to cure cancer, and you won’t be able to pay the people closest to you to be your friends if you treat them poorly. But if there was someone who could deliver you from anything the world threw at you, do you see how that would free you from slavery to the world’s demands? If there was someone like that, the only demands you’d have to ultimately worry about submitting to would be his. Well, as we continue our series through the book of Daniel this morning, we find that there is someone like that. Our God is able to deliver us from whatever the world throws at us, and we’ll see that in this passage by looking first at what the world throws at us, then our faithful response, and then our God’s deliverance.

 

What the world throws at us

 

Our passage today begins with King Nebuchadnezzar making an image of gold, whose height was sixty cubits and breadth six cubits. That equates to about 90 feet by 9 feet, a very tall and narrow image. We don’t know what the image was of—it could have been an image of Nebuchadnezzar, or one of the Nebuchadnezzar’s gods. We do know it was made of gold in some way—probably just coated in gold, and this story comes right on the heels of a vision God gave Nebuchadnezzar that is recounted in chapter 2. The vision was of a statue that had a head of gold, which represented Nebuchadnezzar, and then a chest of silver, thighs of bronze, legs of iron, and feet of clay, all of which represented successive kingdoms to come after Nebuchadnezzar, and all of which would ultimately be conquered by the kingdom of God.

 

In response to this revelation of God, at the end of chapter 2 Nebuchadnezzar called Daniel’s god the God of gods and Lord of kings. You might think, then, that Nebuchadnezzar would begin serving Daniel’s god. Here we see that’s obviously not the case. Even if the image Nebuchadnezzar set up was an image of Daniel’s god, which it almost certainly wasn’t, Daniel’s god forbids his people from making images of him and worshiping images at all. Here are the first two of the Ten Commandments Daniel’s god gave to his people: “You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments” (Exodus 20:3-6).

 

Contrary to this, Nebuchadnezzar not only sets up an image, but once he gathers all the officials from the nations he’s conquered that are scattered throughout the region we’d now call the Middle East, here’s what his herald proclaims in Nebuchadnezzar’s name in verse 4: “You are commanded, O peoples, nations, and languages, that when you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, 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.” We always start our services with a biblical call to worship our God; well this is Nebuchadnezzar’s call to worship his image. And amazingly, in verse 7, all the peoples, nations, and languages obey. They fall down and worship the golden image. Verse 7 looks like what so many dream of: all peoples, nations, and languages, instead of fighting one another, are at peace with one another as they gather around something they can all get behind—except what they all get behind is the worship of a statue that Nebuchadnezzar set up. Not all diversity is good diversity; not all unity is good unity.

 

All peoples, nations, and languages fell down and worshiped the golden image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. Except, of course, the servants of our God who were present that day—Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. So we read in verse 8 that certain Chaldeans come forward and maliciously accuse the Jews. These were native, probably upper-class Babylonians, and remember these Jews were mere youths brought to Babylon from Jerusalem, and now these Jewish kids have been appointed over the affairs of the province of Babylon! That’s going to create some jealousy among sinful people, but now the Chaldeans see their chance, so they go to the king and tell him that these Jews pay no attention to the king; they do not serve his gods or worship the golden image that he has set up. Of course, we don’t have any evidence that these Jews paid no attention to the king—in all likelihood, they obeyed the king when they could as provincial rulers under him, but malicious accusers of God’s people typically exaggerate their claims.

 

What then will Nebuchadnezzar do? The herald had already announced that anyone who refused to worship his image would immediately be cast into a burning fiery furnace. So we read in verse 13 that the furnace wasn’t the only thing burning—Nebuchadnezzar, upon hearing that three Jews who he had appointed to a high office refused to bow down to his image, is thrown into what verse 13 calls a “furious rage.” Nonetheless, he brings Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in and he gives them a chance to worship the image. But if they do not, he says, they shall immediately be cast into a burning fiery furnace. And look at the question he asks them at the end of verse 15: And who is the god who will deliver you out of my hands? Whether the image was of Nebuchadnezzar or not, here he is clearly setting himself in competition with any other god. In chapter 2 he called our God the God of gods and Lord of kings, but here he asks: Will even that god be able to deliver you out of my hands?

 

A couple weeks ago we looked at the pressure the world puts on us in chapter 1—the world tempts us to use our gifts in service of human pride, and it does so through literature, language, pleasure, and identity. Here we can add to its tactics. And by the way, when I talk about the world’s tactics, I’m not intending to draw a sharp line between the tactics of the world and those of the devil. The New Testament calls the devil the god of this world, so the world’s tactics are roughly his, and his are roughly the world’s. In any case, here we see that another thing the world throws at us is the call to worship idols. In Philadelphia in 2025, it’s not common that someone would command you to worship a statue; the call to worship is more subtle now. When you feel the tug to give your ultimate allegiance or set your ultimate hopes on anything other than god, that’s the essence of a call to worship. You may feel that tug toward money, body image, the health of your body, the success of a particular political party or policy, your family, your company, and so on. These things aren’t inherently bad; neither is gold. The problem comes when you bow down to them and worship them. An idol is any good thing that has become a God thing, a want that has become a need, a desire that has become a demand.

 

And one of the clearest indications something has become an idol to you is when you are willing to disobey what God has clearly commanded in order to “serve” it, like bowing down to a statue when God has clearly told us not to do that. What if your kids’ coach tells you that he really has the potential to be a great player, but he’ll need to join the travel team and miss church gatherings regularly to do so? You know God’s command to not give up meeting with your church, but now you feel the pull to disobey. I talked to one sister after church a couple weeks ago who said in her field of genetics she has been instructed to counsel patients to “terminate the pregnancy” based on certain genetic testing results, the whole terminology surrounding which is another example of how the world tries to conform us to its image through the use of language. What “terminate the pregnancy” actually means according to scripture is “murder the child,” and we know God’s commandment that you shall not murder, but that’s the sort of thing the world calls us to do. Though God commands us not to bear false witness, I remember counseling another brother here who was pressured by his boss to publish misleading data in service of his company’s goals.

 

And what we see in this passage is that the world doesn’t just call us to worship idols or violate God’s commandments—it threatens to harm us if we don’t! And the threat especially focuses on what the world can do to our bodies, and what it can do immediately. Satan doesn’t want you thinking about your soul, or about your eternal state. He wants you thinking about what could happen to your body, your life in this world, your material interests, and what could happen now if you choose to obey God and not men. Why was it such a big deal for Nebuchadnezzar to demand that the Jews worship his image, even when their God forbids them from doing so? Because Nebuchadnezzar can throw you into the fiery furnace immediately, and that’s what he threatened to do. Why was it such a big deal when state governments in the south commanded business owners to only serve whites, despite it being a violation of God’s commandment to not show partiality (James 2:1-13)? Why is it such a big deal now when the government of certain states in India forbids Christians from sharing the gospel, despite God’s commandment to go and make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:18-20)? Because the government can fine you and imprison you. Why is it a big deal when your boss is the one pressuring you to disobey God? Because your boss can fire you. Why would it be a big deal if your therapist told you maybe you should just go ahead and act on those feelings you’re trying to fight out of obedience to God? Because your therapist says you won’t be mentally well if you don’t. Your kid’s coach can bench your kid. Your friends can ostracize you.

 

What the world throws at us is the call to worship idols and the pressure to disobey what God has clearly commanded in service of them, backed up by threats to our physical or mental well-being in the here and now. What, then, does a faithful response look like? Let’s look next at our faithful response.

 

Our faithful response

 

In verse 16 we see Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego’s answer: “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.” Aside from just bowing down and worshiping the image, two other things you might have expected from their response: First, some kind of defense: “Hey yes it’s technically true that we aren’t bowing to your image, but we’ve been good servants of you in many ways and this is frankly not a fair or just command anyway.” Second, some plea for mercy: “Hey you know we’re Jewish and all; can you just let us get away with this one? We aren’t allowed to worship your image; that’s not our fault.”

 

But instead they say, “We have no need to answer you in this matter.” In other words, we aren’t going to get into a long, protracted argument with you defending ourselves, nor are we going to beg for mercy. But they do answer the question he posed in verse 15: Who is the god who will deliver you out of my hands? They say, “If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace.” Nebuchadnezzar was powerful; he had that burning fiery furnace after all, and he ruled over many different peoples, nations, and languages. But he was never more powerful than our God whom we serve. Is anything too hard for our God? Sure, Nebuchadnezzar could throw them in the fiery furnace, but our God could just deliver them out of it.

 

One of the basic attributes of God that most know is his omnipotence, which means he is all powerful, and that means God is able to do whatever he pleases. So God himself says in Jeremiah 32:27 – “Behold, I am the Lord, the God of all flesh. Is anything too hard for me?” the obvious answer being, “no.” Or in Psalm 135:6 we read, “Whatever the Lord pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps.” We often have things it would please us to do, but that we simply cannot do. We may want to do small things like be better at a sport or complete our work more efficiently. We want to do bigger things like heal the diseases of our loved ones or end material poverty. From big to small, there is so much we want to do, that we simply cannot do, but if you tried to make a list of things our God wants to do that he cannot do, the list would be zero items long. And therefore, though Nebuchadnezzar was able to throw Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego into the fiery furnace, our God was able to deliver them from it.

 

And though your boss can fire you, our God can get you your job back, or get you a new and better job. Though your government can fine you, imprison you, or shut down your business, our God can overturn their decision, provide the money you need, release you from prison, give you joy in prison, reopen your business, give you a new or better business, and much more. Our God can sustain the health of your body, our God can give you optimal mental health, our God can give you the best friends imaginable, the most successful kids in the world; he can do immeasurably more than all we ask of him. This stuff is easy for him. This is the God who spoke planets and galaxies into existence, apart from whom not even a sparrow falls to the ground, and you’re worried about whether he can keep you safe? I mean I get it; I worry about things too, and we have good reasons to worry, but we have better reasons to trust our God. We are dependent on the world for absolutely nothing, and on our God for absolutely everything. Whatever they can take from us, he can restore tenfold. Whatever they throw at us, he can deliver us from it.

 

And yet, of the things I’ve listed that he can do, he hasn’t promised that he will do any of them. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego knew that too. So look at the beginning of verse 18: “But if not.” Our God is able to deliver us from the fiery furnace, O king…but if not. They recognize there is an “if not,” and you must too. We know what God can do, but we know comparatively little about what God will do in each of our specific cases. In Psalm 139:16 David says that in God’s book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for us, when as yet there were none of them. His plan for us is written down exhaustively in his book; every day is covered, but he hasn’t given us that book. Instead, he’s given us this book, and as Gareth reminded us a few weeks back from Deuteronomy 29:29, the secret things belong to the Lord, but the revealed things belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.

 

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego didn’t know what was written in God’s book for their future, but they knew what was written in this book: You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them. And so they say in verse 18, that even if he doesn’t deliver them, though he can, they want the king to know that they will not serve his gods or worship the golden image that he has set up. Their obedience was not conditional on what God would do for them. That’s our faithful response, an obedience that is not conditional on God giving me the job I want, the spouse I want, the friends I want, the kid I want, the church I want, or anything else.

 

If God commands it in the Bible, I will do it, full stop. If God forbids it in the Bible, I will never do it, full stop. Our faithful response really is that simple. You want me to bow down to a statue? Yeah I’m not going to do that. But then I’m going to throw you into a fiery furnace! Well ok then, I guess you’ll have to throw me into a fiery furnace. I once heard Pastor Kevin DeYoung talk about all the ways Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego could have rationalized bowing down to the statue, all the arguments other well-intentioned servants of our God could have made to them. “But guys, you don’t know that our God will deliver you, and if you die in the fiery furnace, who will then replace you over the affairs of the province of Babylon? Wouldn’t it probably be the Chaldeans, and wouldn’t that just be worse for the people of Babylon? Don’t be selfish; think about the people you’d be leaving behind. They’re not the ones telling you to bow down to the statue. Besides, in your current position, think about the level of influence you could have for our God. Who else will tell the Babylonian elites about him? And imagine if just a few of them started serving him—the word of God would then go out from Babylon to all these peoples, nations, and languages Babylon has conquered. We could complete the great commission in the next 10-20 years! For the sake of the people and the mission of God, why die on this hill? Just go through the motions and bow down to the image. In your heart, you can say, “I praise you, Yahweh” and direct that to him, even though Nebuchadnezzar’s image is in front of you when you do it, and isn’t your heart what our God is ultimately after anyway?”

 

Kinda compelling, right? Any you know what the faithful response to that still would have been? Yeah I’m not going to do that. And you know why? Because God said this: “You shall not bow down to them or serve them.” You never disobey God because you think in your wisdom that somehow that’ll go better for God. One time earlier in Israel’s history a king named Saul disobeyed God’s command to kill an enemy nation because he thought God might be helped by Saul keeping some of the livestock to sacrifice to him. But God through the prophet Samuel told him, “Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams” (1 Sam 15:22).

 

I get that sometimes we are put in situations in which knowing what God wants us to do is very difficult; we talked about some situations like that a couple weeks ago from Daniel 1. But this isn’t one of them, and neither are many of the ones we face. You want me to lie? Yeah I’m not going to do that. You want me to commit murder but call it “terminating a pregnancy?” Yeah I’m not going to do that. You want me to give up worshiping the God of heaven so my kid can kick a ball around? Yeah I’m not going to do that. You want me to disobey my parents so I can fit in with the other kids at school? Yeah I’m not going to do that.

 

Brothers and sisters, do you see how important it is that your conscience be formed by the word of God? Your conscience is your sense of what is right or wrong, what you ought to do or ought not to do, what pleases God or displeases him. It’s that instrument in you that says, “Yeah I’m not going to do that.” You all already have one. For almost all of you in the room today, if someone told you to kidnap a child and sell them into slavery, you’d say pretty quickly, “Yeah I’m not going to do that,” as you should, but in one sense, that’s easy to say, because our world agrees that such a thing would be a heinous evil. What will enable you to say, “Yeah I’m not going to do that,” when it’s the king commanding you to do it, and all the peoples, nations, an languages are doing it, as in Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego’s case? You’ll have to know exactly what God it is you are serving, and exactly what it is that he requires of you. Your conscience will have to be formed by the word of our God.

 

And Citylight church, part of our commission from Jesus is to form the consciences of the Christians in our midst. When Jesus commissioned his church to go and make disciples, he included in that commission that we teach them to observe all that he has commanded (Matt 28:18-20). So we teach what he commands, regardless of what the world thinks, and we administer church discipline, regardless of how uncomfortable it is, because through these means that Jesus himself gave us, we communicate clearly what is clear from the word of God. When churches abdicate their God given authority to declare and discipline based on what God has said, the consciences of Christians become more and more conformed to the world and less and less conformed to God’s word. Things that are actually black and white in scripture begin to look gray to them, and then they are ill-prepared to stand before the king, the nations, and the fiery furnace and say, “Yeah I’m not going to do that.” Notice how none of these men in this case stood before the king totally by himself. Our power to obey grows as we encourage one another toward obedience. Let’s be the kind of church that does that.

 

If you are gathering with us today and you are not yet a believer in Jesus, I assume that you also do not want to be formed by the whims of whoever happens to be in power. If you had been a German citizen in the time of Hitler, I assume you would hope today that you would not have gone along with his murderous schemes against the Jews of his day. But if you were actually facing that kind of pressure, how could you stand against it? And how do you know that those in power today aren’t pressuring you into a way of living that will look evil 100 years from now? Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were able to stand because they believed in a real God who could deliver them from whatever the world threw at them, and they believed that God had clearly spoken and told them what was good, and what was evil. Without that, how will you stand?

 

Unconditional obedience to our God, knowing that he can deliver us from whatever the world throws at us, but without demanding that of him as a condition for our obedience. That’s our faithful response to whatever the world throws at us. Let’s close, then, by looking at our God’s deliverance.

 

Our God’s deliverance

 

So once again after the faithful response of the Jews we read in verse 19 that Nebuchadnezzar was filled with fury, so much so that he orders the furnace to be heated to seven times its normal heat, so much so that even the guards who take Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and throw them into the furnace, are killed by the flames. Go to war against the people of God, and that will not end well for you. Then the three servants of our God, verse 23 tells us, fell bound into the fiery furnace.

 

But then something weird happens. Though they threw three men into a furnace that was hot enough to kill even the guards who threw them in, Nebuchadnezzar next sees 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. And sure enough, when he calls Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego out, everyone sees that not only did they survive, but the fire had no power over their bodies. Verse 27 tells us the hair of their heads was not singed, their cloaks were not harmed, and no smell of fire had come upon them. And in verse 28, the same Nebuchadnezzar who had proudly asked what god would deliver them from his hands, now confesses that our God did just that. He even goes so far in the following verse as to forbid anyone from speaking against our God, though he doesn’t yet commit himself to worship and serve our God alone. He now sees that our God not only reveals mysteries that no other god could reveal, but our God is able to rescue in a way that no other god can.

 

And we see from this story something of how our God rescues his people. He rescues us by sending a rescuer. He rescues us by sending a deliverer, here described by Nebuchadnezzar as one like a son of the gods, an angel. But ultimately our God delivers us through a greater deliverer—not one like a son of the gods, but the Son of God himself, Jesus Christ. Consider how much greater our God, our King, is, than King Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar erects an image, demands that every nation, people, and language bow down to it, and threatens anyone who does not that they will immediately be thrown into his fiery furnace. He has absolutely no right to do that. He is just a man, of the same nature as we, doomed to the same dust as we, and this image is just something that he set up. But our God does have the right to demand our worship, and he rightly calls all nations, peoples, and languages to bow down to him, but when they don’t, he doesn’t immediately cast them into the fiery furnace of hell, though that’s exactly what our refusal to worship him deserves! Our God is not given to the fits of rage we see Nebuchadnezzar go through in this passage. He is slow to anger, and patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance (2 Peter 3:9).

 

So instead of casting us bound into the flames that we deserved, God has sent his son to go through the flames for us. Though the god of this world offered Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and their glory if he would fall down and worship him, Jesus essentially said, “Yeah I’m not going to do that,” and even quoted to him the command to worship the Lord your God, and serve him only (Matthew 4:8-10). And unlike the one like a son of God in this story, the fire of God’s judgment did burn Jesus. He truly died for our sins, and at that point, the world had thrown at him everything it had. But our God delivered him, not from death, but through death, when he raised him from the dead, so that now we who have so often failed to say, “Yeah I’m not going to do that” when we should have could be forgiven, reconciled to God, and assured that not only is he able to deliver us, but one day, he will.

 

We get an image of that in this story. God didn’t protect Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from being thrown in the furnace. They got thrown in, and it was seven times hotter than usual. Our God didn’t deliver them from it; he delivered them through it. If you obey God and not men, he may not deliver you from getting fired; he may instead deliver you through it, and give you a better job on the back end. If you obey God and not men, he may not deliver you from the loss of friends; he may instead deliver you through it, and give you better friends on the back end. But he may also just let you remain jobless for the rest of your life, though usually he doesn’t. He may let you remain friendless for the rest of your life, though usually he doesn’t. I can’t promise you things God hasn’t promised, but I can promise you what he has. By faith in Christ, we can say with greater confidence than Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that our God will deliver us from whatever the world throws at us.

 

Listen to what Jesus told his disciples in Luke 21:16-19 – “You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and some of you they will put to death. You will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But not a hair of your head will perish. By your endurance you will gain your lives.” He says some of you they will put to death…but not a hair of your head will perish. What’s he saying? He’s saying that for those who are united to him, it’s not just the fire that has no power over their bodies; it’s death itself! Jesus didn’t come to deliver us from death; he came to deliver us through death, into life everlasting, and so he says, “by your endurance you will gain your lives.” So not only can our God deliver us from whatever the world throws at us; our God will deliver his servants, who trust in the Lord Jesus, and set aside the king’s command, and yield up their bodies rather than serve and worship any god except him. The flame will not touch our souls, which will go to be with the Lord immediately upon our death, and even if it burns our bodies to ashes, Jesus will come again and raise our bodies to be like his glorious body. In that day he will wipe away every tear from our eyes, in that day no one will speak a word against him ever again, in that day we will be together, forever, with our Lord. So do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.