Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / May 29, 2022 | RETOLD - The Fiery Furnace

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May 29, 2022 | RETOLD - The Fiery Furnace · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: That was cool, wasn't it?
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Some of your eyes glazed over.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Who what is that?
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: How many of you rem remember flannel graph?
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, you do.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: When I was in third grade, uh school bus, uh, my school bus would stop outside my home, and it wasn't just uh my sister and I that got off.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: It was about 25 other kids, and they would run up our drive of our little house and then in the back door and down to the basement where my mother would have lemonade and cookies and a big flannel graph board.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so for an hour, hour and a half before their parents picked them up, my mother, who was a volunteer for child evangelism fellowship, would use the flannograph and tell stories of Jesus, and and also she told the story that I'm gonna share this morning because this series is called Retold, which means we're gonna tell stories that you know and children know from the Bible, but we're going to retell them once more.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's a fun thing to do for summer, and we're doing it partly because each one can stand alone.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, you're gone on vacation, you're not missing, say, Romans 7, you know, in the middle of a book.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: You're just missing one of the stories, and you can catch up.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_00: Connor's out of town this week, and uh uh he will always be able, Lord willing, to tell his baby, which is coming at the end of this series, that that uh retold was the series when he uh when your parents, Connor and Hannah, had you.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's that's how we're making special plans for the end of August right now, not expecting Connor to be in the pulpit.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: But uh, I get to take the very first story retold, and it comes from the book of Daniel and chapter three, and it's the story of the fiery furnace.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: You're familiar with the story of the fiery furnace?
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Great story.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, right?
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Which story that parents love to tell their children.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: Our daughter-in-law Emily says her daddy, an attorney, used to put her to bed by saying Shadrach, Meshach, and to bed we go.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: But it's uh it's fun.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Those three names, those three guys are sort of one of the famous threesomes of history, along with the three musketeers and the uh Marx brothers and uh BGs, help me here, and Harry Rodin her mind.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: No, there's the girl in there.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: So uh I like to think of these three guys who were really sharp.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: Their characters are not told us here.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: We're simply told in the previous chapter that they had be they had been named, even though they were Jewish, you know, foreigners, that Nebuchadnezzar, that they were so sharp that Nebuchadnezzar had made them the triumvirate in charge of the province of Babylon, which was the greatest province in all of the world.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Babylon, the greatest city in all the world at this time.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: 200,000, 250,000 people, in a world in which uh, you know, there were only back then 100 million people in the whole world, which is California, Texas, Florida, and Missouri, you know, combined.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: So city of 200,000 people, 250,000 was huge.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: And anyway, so they they were really cool.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now I'm just gonna call them this morning.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: Well, when I read the verses, which are gonna be on the screen, I'll call them Shadrach, Meshach, and Tibedni, and and Tibed we go, and Abednego, but I think of them as Shad, who was really a cool musician.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: Music, by the way, they were fanatic in Babylon about music, as you will see.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think of him as sort of a cool jazz playing musician, Shad, right?
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: Shack, we know who he was, he was an athlete.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: He led the basketball team.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: He was a big guy.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Come on, S-H-A-Q, help me out here.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: Shad, Shack, and Ab.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll say he was the thinker.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: See, I'm an athlete musician, but these guys had to be outgoing because they were administrating hundreds of thousands of people.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna talk about them because this is not just a children's story.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: This is a great story for adults with 10 lessons that I'm gonna take you to.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: Fiery furnace, Daniel chapter 3 retold.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: King Nebuchadnezzar, this is verse 1.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: He was the king at that time, most famous person in the world.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_00: He made a gold statue 90 feet high and nine feet wide.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: People used to laugh.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: They say, how can you have a statue that's ten times as high as its width, right?
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the answer is that it was more like an obelisk that was 90 feet high and nine feet wide, that had the image of uh him on it.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and that's pretty tall, nine-story building.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and he set it up on the plain of Dura, which is just a mile outside the great city of Babylon, in the province of Babylon.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_00: And Babylon, remember, is about 1700 miles to the east of Jerusalem, and uh a few years before this, Babylon, the first great world power, right?
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: Egypt was a great power a thousand years before this, but it didn't conquer the world.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_00: Babylon has conquered the known world.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's the Babylon Empire at 550 BC.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: And they have taken Jerusalem exile in 586 BC all the way out to Babylon.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: So this is a foreign city.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: It's more than just a foreign city.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: If you remember from Genesis and Revelation, Babylon is the great enemy of God.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: It is the great state, the great civilization, Revelation chapter 17 and 18, the Tower of Babel, which now they have rebuilt.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so it is uh it is the opposite of Jerusalem.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_00: And it is this astounding city.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: Archaeologists have done a lot of work, and these there are some reconstructions here.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_00: The great city of Babylon, this is the famous ziggurat, the rebuilding of the Tower of Babel.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: It was exact almost exactly as tall as our state capitol building there, or Crown Plaza in Kansas City, and its name, Etiemanki, meant the coming together of heaven and earth, which is basically, again, a titanic assertion that we are God and the state is God.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: Here, by the way, is actually the greatest building in all the world at that time.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: It is Nebuchadnezzar's palace, and each of the four levels was four football fields long, you know, and uh even when you got into the sixth, you know, the sixth room to approach Nebuchadnezzar, you still had to walk 50 yards just to get to his throne.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: Here are the Hanging Towers of Babylon, one of the seven great wonders of the world.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: And uh and the city was was protected by this.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: This is more than a moat, this is one of the greatest rivers in the world called the river Euphrates, and in fact, the river Euphrates ran right through the city, which is how Cyrus conquered the city in about 30 or 40 years, as Daniel predicts in this book.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_00: So here's the great processional way, and here is uh, you know, Nebuchadnezzar's palace, there's the Zigarot with the temple to Ishtar on the top.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so this is this is just, can you imagine being an exile from the humble country of Israel, this little country, and now you are thrown into the midst of this amazing, huge, impregnable city, whose walls, by the way, whose walls stretch uh almost uh uh 50, 60 miles around this town, which is about 15 miles on each side, and the walls are so high, 85 feet high, no battering ram can get up over them, and they're so thick, 65 feet thick, that nobody can break through them.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, they have a ramp up to the top so that, since they're 65 feet wide, that two four-horse chariots can go side by side on the top of the walls in case they get attacked, so that they can move their troops easily to another part of the wall.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: And the main gate, the Ishtar gate, has got these lions.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: We had this is from the British, no Berlin Museum, I think, had these lions embossed.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: You have uh, this should be white, white paving stones, three and a half feet on each side.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so this is the uh this is the entryway to this gigantic city.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: So it just uh dwarfs your imagination to think that somehow you can be in this city and not be overwhelmed.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_00: Overwhelmed.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: Just like you or me going to New York City as Shadrach, Meshach, and Nebednego, I'm thinking somehow we can change things that are going on.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: And then here is the great uh, they in defiance of God, they've rebuilt the Tower of Babel, and they have a temple at the top.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: Basically, they are saying, we are God, we control the world.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: King Nebuchadnezzar, now what has happened, we know from the Babylonian chronicles outside of the Bible, there was a rebellion since they'd conquered the known world, a rebellion in Babylon just before this.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so King Nebuchadnezzar, having put down the rebellion, wants to unify the country and show whose boss that he's the great Pubah.
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so he sends word to a symbol.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: They say traps, prefects, governors, advisors, treasures, judges, magistrates, and all the rulers of the provinces.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: Every one of these words has been attested in archaeology.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_00: They are actually the words of the bureaucrats and leaders of that day in Babylon.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: And all of the these are what he's doing is he's saying, if I can get all of the leaders to come from the entire pro from my entire kingdom, they represent the people.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna have them kneel down and I'm gonna get them all unified.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: So they're gonna attend the dedication of this statue that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: So the satrap prefects that list the seven names again, and they assemble for the dedication of the statue, and then they stood before the statue Nebuchadnezzar had set up, and Harold loudly proclaimed, people of every nation and language, you are commanded.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: When you hear the sound of, like I said, this country's gone crazy over music, the horn, the flute, the zither, the lyre, the harp, the drum, and every kind of music.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: So they got an orchestra up there, right?
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: You are to fall face down and worship the gold statue that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: So it's sort of like musical chairs.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: You're waiting, and when the orchestra strikes that music, instead of running for a chair, you hit your knees.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: You're to fall face down and worship, literally, to you are to bend your knee and bow down before the gold statue.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_00: But whoever does not fall down and worship will immediately be thrown into a furnace of blazing fire.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I know what you're thinking, you're thinking that would never happen today.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: People would never do that.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: We live in a world today that's beyond worshiping like this.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, uh, we have fewer people going to church in America than we had before COVID.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: Americans don't worship.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, you don't think so.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_00: You don't think that uh bureaucrats and politicians don't bow down every day and worship before the gods of power and fame?
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: You don't think that the people at the Department of State and Commerce and FBI and housing and urban development and TSA and FBI and so forth, you don't think that those people go to work saying, I will do whatever you tell me to do?
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: I want to keep my job, I want to get advanced, I don't want to offend people, I don't want to make waves.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: You don't think that the rest of us sitting back home, whether we go to church or not, aren't worshiping before the screens of television and cell phone and computer, before gods of power and fame and sports and entertainment, listening carefully so that we won't offend what's popular, what will keep us popular, what will keep people from being mad at us.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: You don't think we live in a world, I say we live in a world that is as full of toadyism and worship as this world was.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: And these bureaucrats slither in like toadies, ever eager to immediately bend and bow when the music starts up, because that's the way the world is, and that's the way many of us are geared to be because we don't want to be killed.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: Sooner or later, first of ten points, the gods of this world demand our worship.
• 13:37
  SPEAKER_00: Sooner or later, the enemy will come in and he will say, I'm gonna give you a choice, and I'm gonna make it cost you if you want to stay standing.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'll make it easy on you if you will bend and bow before the gods of this world.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: And therefore, verse 7, what happens is they're all too ready to hit their knees.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: So when they hear the sound of the little orchestra, people of every nation language, that is the leaders, the thousands of leaders representing those people, they're all in the plain of Dura, they fell down and worshiped the gold statue that he had set up.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_00: The world hurries, is eager, it rushes, it can't wait to bend and bow at the feet of the gods of this world, whether they are the gods of sports or the gods of entertainment or the gods of politics, right?
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: When you interview kids today in high school and ask them who they adore, who they admire, who they'd like to be like.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_00: 50, 80, 90 years ago, the answers were completely different.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: The people they admired most were Abraham Lincoln or George Washington or Martin Luther King, well, not Martin Luther King 50 years ago, but you know, Jesus.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: Great people.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: And today, it's singers, it's actors, it's athletes, people that they see on the screen.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: But the problem is that, and notice by the way, we haven't heard a word about anybody who's standing yet.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_00: And this story is very well spoken because it hides the fact that anybody has stood, as far as we know, we have the orchestra up front, this little dinky orchestra that starts playing up and everybody bows down.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: But God is looking for fully committed followers who will stand and say, No, not me, not now, not here.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'm not going to do this.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to kneel down.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, so here you have the statue, and you and I know what we don't know yet in the story, which is that three young men stay standing.
• 15:58
  SPEAKER_00: That happens to be Shad, and there's Shech and there's Ab.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_00: And everybody knows them because they're the administrators of the province of Babylon.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: Some Chaldeans, that's what it is in the text, some of your translations wrongly say astrologers, but they're actually we now know nobles.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_00: That is the kind of people who who who wanted to become the administrators of the province of Babylon, who wanted that high position, but then are upset because these three young Jews of all things were elevated over them.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: So there's envy going on here, right?
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: Very much like those people who got Daniel thrown into the lion's den in a few chapters.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: So some of the natives took this occasion to come forward and maliciously accuse the Jews.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: They said to King Nebuchadnezzar, May the king live forever.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: You, as king, have issued a decree that everyone who hears the sound of the hornflute, zithalaya, harp, drum, and every kind of music must fall down and worship the gold statue.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_00: And whoever does not fall down and worship be thrown into a furnace of blazing fire.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_00: See, they're pushing them into a corner.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: There are some Jews, and now we find out for the first time, that there are some brave souls who've disobeyed.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: You've appointed, you appointed, accusing him, you appointed these guys to manage the province of Babylon, Shad, Shekh, and Ab.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_00: These men have ignored you, the king.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: They do not serve your gods or worship the gold statue that you have set up.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: This is going to make some people mad.
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: If you stand up when everyone else is kneeling down before the gods of this world, this will make some people mad.
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: This will make some people offended.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: This will make some people say, I don't like being around you because you're always putting a guilt trip on me, and you say, I've never said a thing.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: But what you've done is you've stood up, whereas everyone else is kneeling down.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: And it'll make them mad.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: And in a furious rage, Nebuchadnezzar.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: Nebuchadnezzar, by the way, he's going to meet his come-up in the next chapter.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_00: But Nebuchadnezzar is this egomaniac who loves violence and cruelty.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_00: Saddam Hussein tried to pattern himself, by the way, after Nebuchadnezzar.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so he was this incredible, he loved cruelty as well, Saddam Hussein.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: And by the way, the palace walls of Nebuchadnezzar were a hundred feet thick, but the first 23 feet, every single one of the millions of bricks, he had written on it his name.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: And Saddam Hussein, copying Nebuchadnezzar, and by the way, we have uh pictures of some of those bricks.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: We have those bricks, but Saddam Hussein did the same thing as a result.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: In his palace, he had every brick with his name Saddam Hussein written on it.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: So he's an egomaniac.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_00: Nebuchadnezzar, you may remember, as the guy who, when the last king of Israel, King Zedekiah, was captured, he brought him before him.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: This is how much Nebuchadnezzar loved blood and gore and screams.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Bring Zedekiah's two sons in front of him.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: And then he said, Zedekiah, watch this.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: This is the last thing you'll ever see.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: He had those two boys slaughtered in front of him and then put out King Zedekiah's eyes, so that the last thing he would remember seeing was that death.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: So he gave orders then, he's very angry, to bring in the three guys.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: So these men were brought before the king, and he knows them because he appointed them.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so he tries to cut them a little slack, and you can hear it in his voice.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: Nebuchadnezzar asked them, Shad, Shak, Ab, is it true that you don't serve my gods or worship the gold statue I have set up?
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_00: Notice he's saying, Well, you know, I kind of know you don't serve my gods, but all I'm asking for you to do is to worship the statue.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: Just play the game.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_00: When you hear the F zither liar, etc., just fall down and worship the statue.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: But if you don't worship it, you'll immediately be thrown into a furnace of blazing fire.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: And who is the God who can rescue you from my power?
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, you shouldn't have said that.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you're just, you just, you know, don't spit into the wind.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: Don't uh, you know.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: Don't uh so he's tweaking God's nose right now, too.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: And also theirs.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: He shouldn't, Nebuchadnezzar is just asking for it there.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: Uh lesson number five, standing for God, though, and saying no to the world can cost us everything.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: It can cost, it can cost, it costs some people their lives today.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't yet in America, but it would have cost them their lives if they hadn't been delivered.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: But standing for God and saying no to the world can cost us everything.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: That's a grown-up lesson.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's a lesson that children need to hear as well.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: So Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego replied to the King Nebuchadnezzar, and the emphasis says we don't need to give you an answer to this question, which doesn't make any sense until you see that the word we is repeated.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: It's the emphasis.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's like the answer has already been given.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: Since we worship Yahweh, the answer is certain.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: We don't need to deliberate.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's obvious what we can and can't do.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: And what you're asking us is something we can't do.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: If the God we serve exists, then he can rescue us from the furnace of blazing fire.
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_00: Now, let's just stop for a second and imagine being one of those three guys and you're standing.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: And then here comes the soldiers, and now you're in trouble.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: Can't you just hear?
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine they're standing amidst their countrymen, amidst thousands of Israelites, or at least Israelite leaders, Jewish leaders.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: And can't you hear these other leaders whispering to them?
• 22:19
  unknown: Get down.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_00: Get down.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: What are you doing?
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: When you're in Babylon, do what the Babylonians do.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: This is just a game.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: God will forgive you.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: Anything you do by force doesn't really count.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: Or if it is a sin, then you can ask forgiveness later.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: You know.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't that what people say to you?
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: Don't they come up with an excuse so that they can get you to join them on your knees, on their knees?
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: And they come up with good sound reasons, or at least reasons that sound good, why you should join them in worshiping the statue.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: But it hasn't changed them at all.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: They remain standing, and so they say, you know what, if the God we serve exists, then he can rescue us from the furnace of blazing fire.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: Number six, we can have the conviction that God can deliver us, that God is able to deliver us.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_00: As we sing, he is able to deliver you.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: Is he able?
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: You better believe that even if it's Babylon and the greatest king in all the world, and a furnace of blazing fire, by the way, they've discovered these furnaces.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they were making millions of bricks.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: And they found all of these humongous brick kilns in the ruins of Babylon.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: They were shaped sort of like milk bottles, you know, where you have this sort of wide opening, so you can throw people in, I guess, if if you want to.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, although we do read other occasions where they where they threw runaway slaves in there.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so, and and then and then you have a bellows at the bottom.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to make the fire hotter, you get your men to, you know, to blow it hotter.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: The question is, how in the world can we be saved when you've got the mightiest army in the world following the orders of the mightiest ruler in the world in the city of Babylon, 1700 miles away from the land where God holds control, where Yahweh is.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yahweh's over there, and the temple's gone.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_00: He's not, he doesn't, he's not making appearances over here.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: But you have to have the conviction that no matter where you are in the world, God can deliver us.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_00: And they continue, if the God we serve exists, then he can rescue us from the furnace of blazing fire, and get this, and he will rescue, reduce us.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you hate type?
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: What is it where they correct your, you know, miss, I must have misspelled something.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: And so they gave me the word reduce.
• 24:44
  SPEAKER_00: So he will res, he will, and he will rescue us from the power of you, the king.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't that interesting?
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: But it's no different from, you know, when we elders gather as we often do, right?
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_00: And Hank, you bring the oil, and and we prayed, just did last week, for someone who asks for prayer, someone who has a serious illness, and we're praying for healing and so forth.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: We pray the can prayer.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, we have the utter confidence that you are able to save him, to save her, but we move on from there because we have the optimistic confidence, not only the conviction that God can, we have the optimistic confidence that God loves his children as we do, and we have the confidence that God will.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so we pray with confidence and we pray with faith and we pray with hope, okay?
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what they're doing.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: They believe that they're going to be rescued.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a wonderful thing, and that's point seven.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: We have the confidence that God will deliver us.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: Never, never stop having the confidence that God not only can, but will deliver you, for you are his child, and he loves you, and he would love to deliver you.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: But listen, here's the turning point of the story.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_00: But even if he does not rescue us, we want you as king to know that we will not serve your gods or worship the gold statue you set up.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: We have the commitment that even if not delivered, we will stay standing.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: We have the conviction that God can deliver us.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: We have the confidence that God will deliver us.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: But we have a but if not commitment that even if not delivered, we will stay standing.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: Amen, it is.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, let's all say that.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 26:30
  unknown: Wow.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: Then Nebuchadnezzar was filled with rage, verses 19 and 20, and the expression on his face changed toward these guys that he liked.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_00: He gave orders to heat the furnace.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's a figure of speech in the Old Testament, seven times more.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, he sent them down to the blowers.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: Really doesn't make sense if you want people to suffer, but the temperature at 230, not 630.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_00: But anyway, seven times more than was customary.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_00: And the fire blows up, and he commanded some of the best soldiers in his army, not smart, to tie up Shad, Shak, and Ab and throw them into the furnace of blazing fire.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_00: Next verses say the fire now was so hot that it actually consumed some of the best soldiers of his army.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have all of the verses on here.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so that's that's that's less than nine out of ten.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: We expect to suffer for our stand.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: We should realize that when we take a stand, we will suffer.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: We are rarely delivered from the furnace.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: If we are ever delivered, it is generally in the furnace.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: And then Nebuchadnezzar, three verses later, jumped up in alarm.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: He said to his advisors, didn't we throw these men bound into the fire?
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, of course, your majesty, they replied to the king.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: He exclaimed, Look, I see four men, not tied, walking around in the fire unharmed.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_00: And the fourth looks like a son of Elohim, like a son of the gods, like a divine being.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: Who was that?
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, actually you can tell, because this the photograph shows the hair.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I've seen that picture.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: It was on my Sunday school wall.
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_00: But they're right.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's it's Jesus.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: He's the pre-incarnate Son of God.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: The only place that Jesus appears in this story is in the furnace.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_00: Notice that they come out, he doesn't come out with them.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: The only place Jesus appears in this story is the same place that he appears oftentimes to us.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's when you're in the furnace.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: Ask those three guys years later, what was the highlight of your life when we were in the furnace?
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's where we were with Jesus.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: I've had five really good friends over the years.
• 29:45
  SPEAKER_00: Well, one was my father-in-law, Melody's dad, Jim Smith.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: These five guys all died of cancer.
• 29:55
  SPEAKER_00: One's name was Ward, one's name was Al, one's name was Dwayne, one's name was Ed.
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: I played golf with some of them, I fished with some of them, they all got cancer, they all died of cancer, all five of them said to me during that final, those final months of cancer, they said, I wouldn't trade this cancer for anything.
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's been during this cancer that I met Jesus Christ like never before.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm saying, well, I still don't want cancer.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, having not one, not two, but five men that I admired and loved.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: Melody's dad died quickly, pancreatic cancer at age 55.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: But the last three months I remember as he'd blow it up and he was in pain and he was on morphine.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: He grasped my hand and he said, uh, said a lot of wonderful things to me at that point.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: But he said, I wouldn't trade this for anything.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: And we're sobbing.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: We didn't want to let him go.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: Every week, Melody or I say, Wow, sure wish, sure wish your dad was here so he could fish with the boys or so he could he could see how they're growing up.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: He said, you know, this is.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_00: And when through fiery trials, that song how firma foundation, when we walk through fiery trials, I'll be with you.
• 32:29
  SPEAKER_00: Nebuchadnezzar then approached the door of the furnace of blazing fire and called Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, you servants of the most high God.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: This is the single most lofty name for God that there is.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: This is a king who worshipped a multitude of other gods, but now is acknowledging that above all these other gods, which he still believes exists, that there is a supreme most high God, and it is the God of the Jews.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: It is Yahweh, and he says, You servants of the most high God, come out, so Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: Came out of the fire.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus stayed behind.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: He was there waiting for them in the fire, as he waits for you in the fire and will come to you.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: Nebuchadnezzar exclaimed, Praise to the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: He sent his angel and rescued his servants who trusted in him.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: They violated the king's commands and risk their lives rather than serve or worship, bend or bow to any God except their own God.
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: Praise hallelujah to the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_00: Final lesson.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: When we stand strong, and God does happen to deliver us, He gets the praise.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: And he gets the glory.
• 34:01
  SPEAKER_00: One more amen from that.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: It was uh 40, 60, 80 years ago.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_00: It was this week.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: It was the first year of World War II, and um England was in dire trouble, but they didn't realize back in London what trouble they had.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: Almost 400,000, over a third of a million of their soldiers were stuck on Dunkirk across the English Channel, and they were being attacked and were about to be obliterated by Nazi planes.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: And they could not communicate, their communications were down.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: But then um, but then some enterprising Morse coder using a light was able to signal eight letters back to England, and those letters were but if not.
• 35:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's all they could get out.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: In those days, people knew the Bible a little better than they know it today, and people in England immediately recognized that that was a quote from Daniel chapter 3, from the lips of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who acknowledged that they were in immediate danger and that they were going to die.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_00: They had the conviction that God was able to save them and the confidence that he would, but they also had the commitment, the but if not faith that if God did not deliver them, they would stand strong and not give in.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so the people in England immediately recognized from top to bottom that they had troops over there that were saying they were in immediate and dire peril, but even if not rescued, they would not give in to the enemy.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_00: And that galvanized the people of England.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: And everyone who had a boat, even a rowboat, organized it.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so this coming week, they flooded across the English Channel and brought home 350,000 soldiers.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_00: It was the greatest moment, one of the greatest moments in English history and the greatest moment of World War II for them.
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: And they made a movie about it about 10 years ago, 12 years ago, called Dunkirk, right?
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: Some of you may have seen that movie, but didn't hear what's really the maybe the key to the movie and the key to the story, and that is the but if not faith of the Christian troops of England.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_00: That's the kind of faith God's looking for from us.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: It says, you know what, I uh God may not.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm confident, I'm convicted, I'm just totally convinced he can.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: I'm confident that he will, but even if not, I'm committed to him all the way, all the way.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: Let me review these lessons for you really quickly.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: Sooner or later, the gods of this world will demand our worship.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: The world will hurry to bend and bow at the feet of these gods.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_00: God's looking for fully committed followers who will stand and say no.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_00: This will make some people mad because even though they are our friends, they're offended and embarrassed because we're taking a stand and they're not.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: And the truth is they have good human reasons because standing for God can cost you everything.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_00: But we have the conviction God can deliver us and the confidence that God will, but we also have the commitment that even if not delivered, even if we're shoved into a gas chamber, even if the pills are dropped in and the xyquang gas just kills us, even if despite our prayers we're not rescued, we are determined to be fully committed followers of Jesus Christ to the end and not yield.
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_00: We expect to suffer for our stand, but also expect that if we suffer, that the Lord Jesus Christ will be there in the furnace of trial with us.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: And when we do stand strong, and God does deliver us, he gets the praise and he gets the glory.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we thank you for the stirring story of courage.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: And behind the scenes, a God who takes on his mortal enemy, gods of Babylon, the giants, and defeats them in front of everyone.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: But he's looking for people like us.
• 39:09
  SPEAKER_00: And Lord, in this kind of a day, as the world gets darker, it's difficult to muster up the courage to stand against the gods of this world, the gods of fame and power, sports and entertainment.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_00: Give us, give TBCers, give all who hear this, Father, the determination to be fully committed followers of you in Jesus' name.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_00: We pray, and all God's people said, Amen.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for coming.