SPEAKER_00: After working all day, Rosa Parks boarded the Cleveland Avenue bus on December the 1st, 1955 in Montgomery, Alabama.
SPEAKER_00: That particular day, she paid her fare and she walked onto the bus, and the first ten rows of the bus were reserved for whites only.
SPEAKER_00: She went and she sat herself on the first row that was available for African Americans to sit.
SPEAKER_00: As the bus began to fill, the white section overflowed.
SPEAKER_00: And the driver came and approached she and three other African American writers and asked them if they would relocate further back in the bus to expand the whites only section.
SPEAKER_00: Three of the riders got up and moved further back.
SPEAKER_00: But Rosa Parks sat resolved.
SPEAKER_00: She would write in her autobiography, I felt a determination come over my body like a quilt on a winter night.
SPEAKER_00: She was arrested that day, and she'd lose her job as a seamstress.
SPEAKER_00: But Rosa Parks' civil disobedience enabled a movement to begin to move our nation more and more toward equality.
SPEAKER_00: In Daniel chapter 3, we're seeing a similar mark of civil disobedience.
SPEAKER_00: 2,500 years prior to Rosa Park, we're seeing three teenagers who were standing against the calls of a king to bow down to a statue that would call for them to betray their God.
SPEAKER_00: The crowd that day was filled with thousands and thousands of the conquered peoples of the world.
SPEAKER_00: Nebuchadnezzar had constructed a 90-foot golden statue to himself.
SPEAKER_00: And every time the royal marching band would play, all of the conquered peoples of the earth were expected to bow down in homage and worship to Nebuchadnezzar to proclaim him as being the king of kings and a God deity himself.
SPEAKER_00: And in this crowd of thousands, three young men, likely teenagers at the time, refused to bow and continued to stand because they recognized that bowing would violate the first two of the Ten Commandments.
SPEAKER_00: You see, civil disobedience is not merely just refusing an order.
SPEAKER_00: It's the revelation of a higher allegiance.
SPEAKER_00: For Rosa Park, she would say, You may have the law, but you'll never have my dignity.
SPEAKER_00: Here, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are saying, You may have the fiery furnace, you may have the mighty military, you may be seated upon the throne, but you'll never have my worship.
SPEAKER_00: And so there they stood.
SPEAKER_00: This morning, as we look at chapter three, what I want us to see are three questions that we can ask that determine our ability to stand, the strength that we have to stand as we live in our own Babylon and when the circumstances might arrive.
SPEAKER_00: The first question that I want us to ask this morning is who is God?
SPEAKER_00: Who is God?
SPEAKER_00: Fear is often used as a synonym for worship throughout the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: And that likely hits us as being pretty odd.
SPEAKER_00: We don't like to think of fear, and we don't like to associate God in fear.
SPEAKER_00: And so we might not understand exactly why this was so prevalent, particularly in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: And it's because the context of that day was very different than the context of our day.
SPEAKER_00: See, what they understood is every nation and every people were looking for the most fearsome God on earth.
SPEAKER_00: And the belief was that if you could identify the most fearsome God on earth and you could forge an alliance with this fierce God, well then you yourself would have nothing to fear at all.
SPEAKER_00: That if you had an alliance with the God that every other nation feared and every other nation and every other nation was ruled by, well then you, you could rest.
SPEAKER_00: You could know that you were okay.
SPEAKER_00: You could know that you were safe.
SPEAKER_00: And so fear became the language of worship because you knew that if you had the fearsome God, you actually had nothing to fear at all.
SPEAKER_00: So the question of who to fear in Daniel 3 is the same exact question as who is God?
SPEAKER_00: That's what's being asked here in Daniel chapter 3.
SPEAKER_00: Nebuchadnezzar is trying to convince all the peoples of the earth that Babylon is mostly to be feared, and that he himself is a God, and that he himself ought to be feared.
SPEAKER_00: And so when these three young men stand with resolute boldness, it's rooted deeply in their realization that there is a God that is greater than Nebuchadnezzar, that there is a throne that is greater than the throne upon which he sits.
SPEAKER_00: So if we're going to rest, if we're going to stand, then we have to be able to answer that question, who is God?
SPEAKER_00: And we have to recognize and understand the art of war.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to recognize that there's been an escalation in the book of Daniel since chapter one.
SPEAKER_00: You remember in chapter one, that what was happening in Daniel is Nebuchadnezzar is trying to feed them all from the king's table.
SPEAKER_00: He's appealing to them with the beauty, with the delight, with the offerings of Babylon, so that they might acquire something of the taste of Babylon, that they might be caught up in the pleasures of Babylon and all of the riches of Babylon.
SPEAKER_00: He's like the dealer that gives you the first hit for free so that you'll keep coming back to him time and time again.
SPEAKER_00: But in chapter three, it escalates.
SPEAKER_00: In chapter three, it goes from, hey, don't you see all the good that we can do for you?
SPEAKER_00: Don't you see all the food that you can have at the table?
SPEAKER_00: Don't you see all the pleasures of Babylon too?
SPEAKER_00: Bow down or die.
SPEAKER_00: Bow down or burn.
SPEAKER_00: When he says, immediately be cast, you'll notice it's there at the end of verse 15, immediately be cast.
SPEAKER_00: You shall immediately be cast into a burning furnace.
SPEAKER_00: Nebuchadnezzar is saying, right here, right now, today, in this moment, you're going to decide whom you fear.
SPEAKER_00: Right here, right now, today, in this moment, you're going to decide in whose hand your fate ultimately rests.
SPEAKER_00: Are you going to fear Nebuchadnezzar, who is ruling over the earth?
SPEAKER_00: Are you going to fear Nebuchadnezzar who has laid siege to Jerusalem?
SPEAKER_00: Are you going to fear Nebuchadnezzar who has the furnace heated up and ready to go?
SPEAKER_00: Or are you going to fear some little low inherited God that you got from the heritage of your grandfathers that has allowed you to be conquered?
SPEAKER_00: That right here, right now, you are going to decide, and your decision is going to have immediate and prompt repercussions.
SPEAKER_00: The most famous book on war is The Art of War by Sun Tzu.
SPEAKER_00: Ironically, Sun Tzu wrote The Art of War around the same time that the book of Daniel was written.
SPEAKER_00: And it's a book on strategy of how to go about conquering peoples.
SPEAKER_00: But what we see is that there is a military strategy that far outdates Sun Tzu and Nebuchadnezzar.
SPEAKER_00: That goes all the way back to Genesis chapter 3.
SPEAKER_00: That Sun Tzu wasn't the first strategist Satan was.
SPEAKER_00: And Satan's strategy isn't a particularly potent one.
SPEAKER_00: That we need to note what his strategy was in Daniel's day, because it's the same strategy he had in Genesis 3, and it's the same strategy that he has today.
SPEAKER_00: How does Satan go about tempting us to forsake the Lord and to lean into all of the affections of Babylon, all of the pleasures of Babylon?
SPEAKER_00: Well, first he appeals to our sense of pleasure, doesn't he?
SPEAKER_00: He comes and he says, Hey, don't you want to have knowledge that's equal to that of the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: Come and eat of the tree.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, don't you want to enjoy all that's present here in Babylon?
SPEAKER_00: Come and eat and see.
SPEAKER_00: Don't you want to enjoy all of the pleasures that are available to us in 21st century America?
SPEAKER_00: Come and eat and see.
SPEAKER_00: But then what happens?
SPEAKER_00: You eat and you see, and he slams down on you in shame, doesn't he?
SPEAKER_00: Or perhaps, perhaps you resist.
SPEAKER_00: And when you resist, what happens?
SPEAKER_00: When the desire, when the when the appeal to pleasure doesn't work, the appeal to intimidation begins, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_00: That first comes pleasure.
SPEAKER_00: And he tries to allure you with pleasure.
SPEAKER_00: But when pleasure doesn't work, then comes pressure.
SPEAKER_00: See, the strategy of false gods is to convince you that they can hurt you worse than they actually can.
SPEAKER_00: That they're the big bad wolf, huffing and puffing all of the time, threatening to blow down your house, threatening to come and take down your straw-made life that it might collapse in front of you.
SPEAKER_00: But weak gods are like weak men, they're always trying to compensate.
SPEAKER_00: They're always trying to act like they're bigger and badder than they actually are.
SPEAKER_00: No church family, there will be moments in your life.
SPEAKER_00: There will be moments in your faith, moments of truth where you have to decide where your loyalties lie.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're able to withstand the good looks and the allure of the pleasures of the temptation, then you have to be ready for the pressure to come.
SPEAKER_00: You have to be ready for the intimidation to come into your life to compel you to try to step down and back down.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you want to be included.
SPEAKER_00: So what happens?
SPEAKER_00: If they can't get you to be, if they can't get you to capitulate, what do they do?
SPEAKER_00: They begin to huff and puff and they threaten you that you're going to be isolated if you don't become like them, if you don't act like them, if you don't do like them.
SPEAKER_00: You want to be promoted?
SPEAKER_00: It's good and right to want to be promoted.
SPEAKER_00: This is a reasonable thing.
SPEAKER_00: All of us want to provide better for our families, all of us want to provide better for our communities, all of us want to provide better for our churches.
SPEAKER_00: But what do they say?
SPEAKER_00: Come, you have to be like us.
SPEAKER_00: You have to do business like us.
SPEAKER_00: You have to compromise on your ethics just a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: You have to back down from the radical nature of your faith just a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: Well, if that doesn't work, what happens?
SPEAKER_00: They huff and they puff and they threaten you with a glass ceiling that says, you can come this high, but no higher.
SPEAKER_00: You want to be prosperous and successful, that's human nature.
SPEAKER_00: God's made us to be builders, God's made us to be creative, God's made us to go and to find a garden and to cultivate it and to make it even better.
SPEAKER_00: But if they can't, if they can't get you with the with the allure of success by finding it through some unethical means, they'll huff and puff all of Babylon to assure you of certain failure if you don't abandon the principles that you have.
SPEAKER_00: And the question is, is that in those moments of truth, when Babylon huffs and puffs and threatens you with the fiery furnace, who will you believe has the power?
SPEAKER_00: Who will you believe has the power?
SPEAKER_00: When the threat comes to deny God and disobey God or be on the losing side, whose side will you choose?
SPEAKER_00: Will you choose to lose with the Lord or will you choose to win with Babylon?
SPEAKER_00: No, you have to understand the art of war so that you have the right expectations and you have to beware the coup of pride.
SPEAKER_00: The coup of pride.
SPEAKER_00: To really understand what's happening in chapter three, you have to remember what we talked about last week that took place in chapter two.
SPEAKER_00: Remember in chapter two, King Nebuchadnezzar has a dream.
SPEAKER_00: And he goes and he tries to find somebody that can interpret it.
SPEAKER_00: None of the wise men of Babylon can interpret it.
SPEAKER_00: But the Lord tells Daniel what the dream is, and the Lord gives Daniel an interpretation.
SPEAKER_00: And so what does he say?
SPEAKER_00: He says, the interpretation is that there's this fearsome creature, and at the top is a head made of gold.
SPEAKER_00: And Nebuchadnezzar, you are the head of gold, because there is no kingdom more shiny than Babylon.
SPEAKER_00: There is no kingdom more polished than Babylon.
SPEAKER_00: There is no kingdom that appears more fierce or unassailable than Babylon.
SPEAKER_00: But he says, there is another kingdom coming.
SPEAKER_00: It is a kingdom that has been cut out of a stone by no human hand, and when that kingdom comes, all of the kingdoms of Babylon and Greece and Rome, they will be shattered as they fall upon it, and it will outlast them all.
SPEAKER_00: It will fill the earth as all the other empires and kingdoms diminish.
SPEAKER_00: Well, what we're seeing here in Daniel chapter 3 is Nebuchadnezzar's response.
SPEAKER_00: Nebuchadnezzar's like, not on my watch, homie.
SPEAKER_00: Not gonna happen.
SPEAKER_00: And so he builds a 90-foot golden statue.
SPEAKER_00: He says, You want to see a head of gold?
SPEAKER_00: Let me show you exactly how much gold I have.
SPEAKER_00: Let me show you how powerful I am.
SPEAKER_00: Let me show you how affluent I am.
SPEAKER_00: Let me show you.
SPEAKER_00: Let me huff and puff and prove to you he's a weak man and a weak God compensating, isn't he?
SPEAKER_00: What he's actually doing is he's recapitulating what we see in the Tower of Babel in Genesis chapter 11.
SPEAKER_00: That's where we first meet Babylon, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Way, way, way, way back.
SPEAKER_00: What was the Tower of Babel?
SPEAKER_00: It was the pride of man trying to build a statue to attain the heights of God.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that what we see here in Nebuchadnezzar?
SPEAKER_00: He's attempting to overthrow the God of gods by constructing this great temple, that this great tower that makes him appear as though he is a God, that everyone would bow down in front of him.
SPEAKER_00: He is trying to cause God to abdicate the throne, to usurp the throne, to place himself there.
SPEAKER_00: And so when he says, Who is the God who will deliver you out of my hands?
SPEAKER_00: He's saying point blank to these three men.
SPEAKER_00: The God who interpreted the dream, the God who was supposed to protect you in Jerusalem, he's subordinate to me.
SPEAKER_00: He answers to me.
SPEAKER_00: That everything Nebuchadnezzar could see with his eyes, all of the evidence was that he had all the sovereignty, he had all the might, he had all the power.
SPEAKER_00: You see, we have to be careful not to read this story too quickly.
SPEAKER_00: I think that we tend to think if we're identifying ourselves with any character in the story, we tend to think that it's Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego with whom we identify.
SPEAKER_00: We like to imagine ourselves as the oppressed little Hebrew boys that are being oppressed by the culture, and we're the ones that are gonna stand with this great act of civil disobedience.
SPEAKER_00: But if you're like me, more often than not, I don't identify with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
SPEAKER_00: I identify with Nebuchadnezzar in all of his pride, and all of his hubris, and all of his arrogance.
SPEAKER_00: We want control of our lives, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: We are control freaks.
SPEAKER_00: There's all kinds of research and all kinds of studies that actually show that our continual grasping at control, our continual pursuit of control, our continual assertion of control.
SPEAKER_00: By the way, we have more control than any culture and any group of people has ever had in all of human history.
SPEAKER_00: And what is it all leading to?
SPEAKER_00: More anxiety, more misery, more feelings of we're out of control.
SPEAKER_00: The more we seek to seize the control, the less in control we seem to be.
SPEAKER_00: And so when people don't do what we think they ought to do, when our spouse doesn't do what we think they ought to do, when our kids don't do what we think they ought to do, when our pastors don't do what we think they ought to do, when our company doesn't do what we think they ought to do, when our circumstances don't go exactly the way that we think that they ought to go.
SPEAKER_00: When we feel out of control, what do we do?
SPEAKER_00: We rage.
SPEAKER_00: We rage just like Nebuchadnezzar rages.
SPEAKER_00: Why are you angry?
SPEAKER_00: James tells us the reason that you quarrel, why do you quarrel?
SPEAKER_00: You want and you do not have.
SPEAKER_00: You are seeking the controls, you are seizing the throne, but the throne is not for you, and the controls are not for you.
SPEAKER_00: And so then it spins out of control, and the rage flares up in an attempt to clamp down and be able to assert some type of control.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, you have to beware.
SPEAKER_00: You have to remember that we're angry typically because God is not subordinate to us.
SPEAKER_00: Because God does not consult us on the plans of our lives, because God does not consult us on his plans for the universe or his plans for our family.
SPEAKER_00: And for most of us, like Nebuchadnezzar, we rage because we're frustrated that we're not God Himself.
SPEAKER_00: We rage because we want sovereignty.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, beware of the coup of pride, because as soon as Nebuchadnezzar will soon find out, pride always leads to self-destruction.
SPEAKER_00: Who is God?
SPEAKER_00: And how you answer that question will determine how you're able to stand.
SPEAKER_00: Next, I want you to ask, where is freedom?
SPEAKER_00: Where is freedom?
SPEAKER_00: When Rosa Parks sits and she refuses to move, it's easy to see her as being the person that doesn't have freedom, right?
SPEAKER_00: And of course, there's a really legal and practical sense in which that is true.
SPEAKER_00: Rosa Parks finds herself losing some freedoms and being sent to jail and losing her job and losing her livelihood and losing a number of difficult things, right?
SPEAKER_00: So it's easy for us to see those who are in positions of power of being the ones that have the freedom and Rosa Parks as being the one who doesn't have freedom.
SPEAKER_00: But I would argue that when you get to the place where you're going to do what is right regardless of the outcomes, where you're gonna do what is courageous regardless of the potential costs, that now you're really free.
SPEAKER_00: Now you're really free.
SPEAKER_00: That when you no longer fear the threats that hover over you, when you no longer fear the huffing and the puffing of the enemy coming against you, when you no longer fear all of the leverage that the culture feels like they have over you, and you're going to live out your ethics and your principles and your values and your priorities and your convictions, regardless, because you're living in the face of God, now you've been set free.
SPEAKER_00: Now you've been set free.
SPEAKER_00: See, civil disobedience is a declaration that though you may be able to take away one's lot rights or one's livelihood, that you can't compel a heart to bow.
SPEAKER_00: You can't compel someone to love or to worship or to do that which they don't love, worship, are willing to do.
SPEAKER_00: Though they couldn't make Rose Parks, Timot, and Nebuchadnezzar could not make these three men bow down and pay homage to his statue.
SPEAKER_00: Now, for these three men, there are really, I think, three pillars that are standing beneath their courage and their faithfulness and able enabling them to stand.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to notice these three pillars first is that God's power is great.
SPEAKER_00: Man, I love their response to King Nebuchadnezzar so much.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, this dude never has anybody ever tell him no.
SPEAKER_00: Ever.
SPEAKER_00: This man always gets what he wants.
SPEAKER_00: Because everybody knows what happens if you tell King Nebuchadnezzar no.
SPEAKER_00: And so he goes to these three teenager boys, teenage boys, just post pubescent, right?
SPEAKER_00: Barely able to shave.
SPEAKER_00: And he's like, all right, guys, you're gonna bow down to me.
SPEAKER_00: And you know what he says that what they say to him?
SPEAKER_00: We have no need to answer you in this manner.
SPEAKER_00: It's the first silent treatment anybody's ever gotten from a teenager, right?
SPEAKER_00: This is awesome.
SPEAKER_00: They're like, homie, no comment, right?
SPEAKER_00: I got nothing to say to you, man.
SPEAKER_00: Like, there's nothing you're gonna do.
SPEAKER_00: My goodness, y'all.
SPEAKER_00: This is the kind of courage and winsomeness that we need as the church in the Babylonian age with which we live today.
SPEAKER_00: Their courage was buttressed by their great view of God, and this begins to emerge more and more.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what gave them the sense of freedom to respond so boldly to a man so great is that they knew that they had an alliance with someone who was far greater, someone who was far more sovereign, someone who was far more powerful, that they were convinced that King Nebuchadnezzar's power and authority wasn't supreme.
SPEAKER_00: I wonder if you're convinced that our Congress's power is not supreme, our president's power is not supreme, your boss's power is not supreme.
SPEAKER_00: None of those people determine how you're provided for.
SPEAKER_00: None of those people determine how protected you are.
SPEAKER_00: What we have to recognize is that there is one who is actually on the throne, who is actually sovereign, and whose power is genuinely and ultimately supreme.
SPEAKER_00: See, what they recognize is that he who was with them was mightier and more fearsome than he who was trying to stand against them.
SPEAKER_00: And when you're convinced that God is in charge, you can face any man and you can face any circumstances without flinching.
SPEAKER_00: It enables you and emboldens you to do what is otherwise impossible for a person to do.
SPEAKER_00: So they recognize that God's power is great, and then they recognize that God's character is good.
SPEAKER_00: They don't stop there.
SPEAKER_00: They don't stop there, right?
SPEAKER_00: So not only do they believe that God is greater than King Nebuchadnezzar, they are convinced that he's about to prove it.
SPEAKER_00: That he's gonna show himself, that the same God who came in and proved himself through the interpretation of the dream is about to step in and prove himself in the midst of the fiery furnace.
SPEAKER_00: So in their minds, God is not only able, but God is willing.
SPEAKER_00: Both of those things have to come together.
SPEAKER_00: That God is not only great, but God is also at the same time good.
SPEAKER_00: That God is not only transcendent, God is imminent and dwelling among us, caring about what's happening.
SPEAKER_00: That based upon who they knew God to be, they fully expected that God was going to deliver them.
SPEAKER_00: So you see, the security of their hope was not found in the quality.
SPEAKER_00: Of their faith.
SPEAKER_00: This is important for you to recognize.
SPEAKER_00: This is not a story that's supposed to leave us in awe of the faith of three teenage boys.
SPEAKER_00: That's not the picture.
SPEAKER_00: The point is not that they have great faith.
SPEAKER_00: No, they are not the security of their hope is not found in the quality of their faith.
SPEAKER_00: The security of their hope is found in the quality of the object of their faith.
SPEAKER_00: That this is not a story in which we like and we're amazed at the faith of three teenage boys, though they have great faith.
SPEAKER_00: This is a story in which we are amazed at the faithfulness of a steadfast God who is loyal to his covenant, even though it feels like everything else in the world is melting down around them.
SPEAKER_00: That when you're feeling afraid and anxious and frustrated, I wonder where your thoughts drift.
SPEAKER_00: Do your thoughts drift to the quality of your faith?
SPEAKER_00: Do they drift to the lack of consistency that you have in your quiet time?
SPEAKER_00: Do they maybe they drift to how harsh you were with your spouse or with your kids?
SPEAKER_00: Do they drift with toward how helpless you feel to fix all the things in your life?
SPEAKER_00: Well, if that's the case, if you're trying to live with some security of hope based on the quality of your faith, you know what you're gonna find?
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna find that you're not very free.
SPEAKER_00: You're not very free.
SPEAKER_00: Because you're you're not good enough, you're not sufficient enough, you're not strong enough, you're not faithful enough.
SPEAKER_00: That's true, right?
SPEAKER_00: But what if your thoughts, rather than drifting to your unfaithfulness, were always drifting toward God's faithfulness?
SPEAKER_00: What if, rather than going and trying to examine and seeing how, seeing whether you've been strong enough, whether you've been good enough, whether you've been measuring it up?
SPEAKER_00: What if instead you were going and you were saying, How strong is the Lord?
SPEAKER_00: How faithful is the Lord, how trustworthy is the Lord, how dependable is the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Brothers and sisters, that's where freedom is found.
SPEAKER_00: That's where freedom is found.
SPEAKER_00: You see, Jesus has been faithful to us, and Jesus will be faithful to us.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus has taken care of us, and Jesus will take care of us.
SPEAKER_00: And it's that certainty, it's our confidence in the quality of the object of our faith, not in the quality of our faith where we can find ourselves free.
SPEAKER_00: That they recognize these three pillars that God's power is great, God's character is good, and ultimately that God's plan is trustworthy.
SPEAKER_00: I think this is one of the boldest things you read anywhere in the Bible, you'll find it there in verse 18.
SPEAKER_00: They're here, they're talking with the king, and they're saying, look, we have no need to answer you.
SPEAKER_00: We're giving you the silent treatment like no comment, we're not sweating your issues, we're not gonna bow down, that's never gonna happen.
SPEAKER_00: We believe with all of our hearts that God is going to deliver us, but then look what he says in verse 8, what do they say in verse 18?
SPEAKER_00: But if not, be it known to you, O king, we're never going to bow down.
SPEAKER_00: Do you hear what they're saying there?
SPEAKER_00: Even if we have it wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Like, like, even if God doesn't deliver us from the fiery furnace, even if we go into the furnace and we roast, here's where we are.
SPEAKER_00: We believe that even if God's plan doesn't go according to our plan, that God's plan is still the one worth trusting.
SPEAKER_00: That even if God's way isn't my way, even if God's plan includes my suffering, even if God's plan includes my death, even if God's plan includes my persecution, even if God's plan is calling me to live a life that is different than the one that I want to live and to experience a dream that is different than the way that I've dreamt it, my confidence is that God is great and God is good and God is trustworthy.
SPEAKER_00: And so even if it causes us to die in the furnace, we'll die standing for the Lord rather than capitulating to the heart of Babylon.
SPEAKER_00: Because we are convinced, we are utterly and totally convinced that God's plan is trustworthy.
SPEAKER_00: That's freedom, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: That's freedom.
SPEAKER_00: If you can come to the place where you are wholly surrendered to the sovereign will of God, and whatever that looks like for your life, and whatever that feels like for your family, and however that's experienced in your marriage, if you can come to the place where you are totally surrendered to the sovereign will of God, well now you can live in total freedom.
SPEAKER_00: Now you can live in total freedom.
SPEAKER_00: But this is where most of us have trouble, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: This is where our control issues tend to rear their ugly heads, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: We worry about our job.
SPEAKER_00: What if we lose it?
SPEAKER_00: We worry about our kids, what if they rebel?
SPEAKER_00: We can't force them to do anything.
SPEAKER_00: We worry about our health.
SPEAKER_00: We have no control over that.
SPEAKER_00: What if we get cancer?
SPEAKER_00: We worry about our future.
SPEAKER_00: What if we don't have enough?
SPEAKER_00: What if the economy collapses?
SPEAKER_00: What if this happens?
SPEAKER_00: What if that happens?
SPEAKER_00: We worry about all of these things and we spin out of control, and it's all us trying to seize the controls of our lives again, trying to know how the story ends.
SPEAKER_00: And here is Jesus saying, No, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: It is finished.
SPEAKER_00: I've shown you that I sit upon the throne.
SPEAKER_00: I have ascended to the right hand of the Father, I am ruling over the universe.
SPEAKER_00: I am not pacing the floors of heaven, I am seated upon the throne.
SPEAKER_00: I have secured your future, I have assured you I am with you always to the ends of the age.
SPEAKER_00: It is finished.
SPEAKER_00: That the finished work of Jesus is always beckoning us to contemplate whether or not we trust it, whether or not we can rest in it.
SPEAKER_00: When you can rest in the finished work of Jesus, you are resting in the sovereign will of God.
SPEAKER_00: And when you rest in the sovereign will of God, you find freedom.
SPEAKER_00: You find freedom.
SPEAKER_00: Where is freedom for you?
SPEAKER_00: That'll determine your ability to stand.
SPEAKER_00: So the first question that reveals your strength to stand, who is God?
SPEAKER_00: The second question is, where is freedom?
SPEAKER_00: And the final question is, what is strength?
SPEAKER_00: What is strength?
SPEAKER_00: Typically, when we think of strength, we think of those who are in power.
SPEAKER_00: We might think of great conquerors from the past, men like Napoleon or Nebuchadnezzar himself.
SPEAKER_00: We might think of Alexander the Great.
SPEAKER_00: We might think of rulers and politicians, men like King Henry VIII or Caesar, or we might think of George Washington here on the 250th anniversary of our country's birth.
SPEAKER_00: But stories like Rosa Parks, I think it ought to give us pause.
SPEAKER_00: Like, who was stronger in 1955?
SPEAKER_00: Was it the government that could put her in jail?
SPEAKER_00: Or was it this middle-aged black lady who could not be forced to bow down?
SPEAKER_00: See, I want to ask a similar question of our text this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Who's strong here?
SPEAKER_00: Who's strong?
SPEAKER_00: Is it the mighty Nebuchadnezzar and all of his military, or is it these three teenage boys whose hearts cannot be compelled to bow down to the king?
SPEAKER_00: And that question can help us distinguish between counterfeit, bluffing, fake strength, and insurmountable, proven, verifiable strength.
SPEAKER_00: You see what Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon hadn't yet learned is that their feats are futile, futile.
SPEAKER_00: We're meant to ask the question here: who is in the position of strength?
SPEAKER_00: This is being drawn out.
SPEAKER_00: Because if you're watching this from afar and you can't hear the conversations and you don't know the spiritual element, the answer seems pretty obvious.
SPEAKER_00: And Nebuchadnezzar seems really determined that he's gonna flex here a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: You'll notice who he sends over there, right?
SPEAKER_00: It says that he sends the mighty men of his army to go and to bind Shatterak, Meshach, and Abednego.
SPEAKER_00: You might remember the phrase mighty men when we talk about David.
SPEAKER_00: David had his mighty men.
SPEAKER_00: So these weren't just soldiers, like these were some bad dudes.
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_00: Like these are some bad dudes, like this is the baddest of the bad, the best of the best.
SPEAKER_00: We're talking Navy SIELS, army rangers, like these are the cats, right?
SPEAKER_00: Now think about that.
SPEAKER_00: He's got three little wimpy teenagers, and he's getting SIL team six to come and tie their hands up to take them to the furnace.
SPEAKER_00: Now, why is he doing that?
SPEAKER_00: Well, he's doing that as a show of strength, isn't he?
SPEAKER_00: He's doing that to flex.
SPEAKER_00: He's doing that to huff and to puff.
SPEAKER_00: He wants them to know, he wants them to recognize who he really is.
SPEAKER_00: And so he takes these men, and what are these men known for?
SPEAKER_00: They're known for their feats of valor.
SPEAKER_00: They're known for their feats of strength, they're known for their feats of courage, they're known for being mighty warriors.
SPEAKER_00: And you know what they discover?
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter how big your muscles are when you run into a fire.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter how strong you are, the fire, the fire burns your skin just the same.
SPEAKER_00: But they met their match.
SPEAKER_00: See, these mighty men who had walked undoubtedly through many battles and proven their might, they eventually found their end.
SPEAKER_00: And it's important for us to remember, all of us who tend towards self-sufficiency, all of us who tend toward our own strength, it's important for us to remember that there is always a fire too big for any man to withstand.
SPEAKER_00: Eventually, every single one of us, no matter how strong we find ourselves, all of us are gonna find the end of ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: Death eventually proves every person weak and every feat futile.
SPEAKER_00: You see, regardless of how you measure strength.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you measure strength in your family intellectually.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you uh uh evaluate it more on the unity of your family unit, maybe you evaluate it more on the professional level, maybe you do evaluate it on the physical level.
SPEAKER_00: And you know what happens?
SPEAKER_00: Every single one of those ways that we evaluate strength in our culture, all of them will be completely in and completely consumed by the infinity of eternity.
SPEAKER_00: Every one of them.
SPEAKER_00: And if all you have are your feats and your accomplishments and your stack of certificates of appreciation that you have accumulated over a lifetime, when you stand before the sovereign king who is actually on the throne, guess what happens?
SPEAKER_00: You get thrown into the fire.
SPEAKER_00: This is the picture.
SPEAKER_00: Your feet are futile.
SPEAKER_00: Nebuchadnezzar's were futile.
SPEAKER_00: He was a golden head on a giant statue with clay feet that was going to be crushed by the kingdom when it came.
SPEAKER_00: Your feet are futile.
SPEAKER_00: But the good news is that Jesus' feet are forever.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus's feet are forever.
SPEAKER_00: The mighty men are killed by the heat of the door.
SPEAKER_00: They overheat the furnace and it kills the mighty men.
SPEAKER_00: But King Nebuchadnezzar is astonished when he looks, and there, there is the furnace that has slain his mighty warriors, known for all of their feats.
SPEAKER_00: And there in the midst of the furnace are three teenage boys standing and dancing and walking about with the ropes burned away from their hands.
SPEAKER_00: And he looks, and he realizes there's not just three.
SPEAKER_00: No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_00: Now there's four men unbound.
SPEAKER_00: That there are Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and even King Nebuchadnezzar says and testifies for all of history to know that they were not alone.
SPEAKER_00: You see, what we have here, brothers and sisters, is an Old Testament, pre-incarnate glimpse of the person of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Nebuchadnezzar himself testifies that this fourth is like a son of the gods.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't that stand out?
SPEAKER_00: And what we have for all of us is a physical, walking reminder that real strength is found only in the presence of the triune God, not in any end of human strength or human resolve or human will.
SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus is here, and Jesus is doing what Jesus always does.
SPEAKER_00: What does Jesus always do?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus always joins his people in the flames.
SPEAKER_00: He steps right into the middle of the furnace with us, that we might be delivered.
SPEAKER_00: That the point of the story is not the faith of these men.
SPEAKER_00: The point of these stores, the story is the faithfulness of our Savior.
SPEAKER_00: That our Savior is the same Savior that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego had so many years ago.
SPEAKER_00: That the ability to withstand the flame is not found in the strength of men.
SPEAKER_00: The mighty men prove the futility of the salvation that comes by men's strength.
SPEAKER_00: The ability to withstand the flame is found in the strength of knowing the living, reigning, ruling, sovereign God.
SPEAKER_00: See, Jesus' feet was to come and to join us in the fire.
SPEAKER_00: But he didn't just come and join us in the fire.
SPEAKER_00: He absorbed the full, unfiltered fire of God's wrath.
SPEAKER_00: And when he raised on the third day, he proved that that fire had been overcome forever on our behalf, that our future was now totally secure.
SPEAKER_00: So his feet are proven to be eternal, and his feats have been credited to the security of all of his people who now abide in him.
SPEAKER_00: So whoever is in him, whoever is found abiding in him, guess what it says?
SPEAKER_00: No smell of fire shall come upon them.
SPEAKER_00: That you might walk through this earth.
SPEAKER_00: And all of Babylon will huff and puff and threaten to burn your house down.
SPEAKER_00: For you to be ushered into the presence of the King without even a smell of smoke.
SPEAKER_00: Church, when Jesus stands with you, you can walk through the flames.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus stands with you, you can stand for him.
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus stands with him with you, you can taunt death.
SPEAKER_00: Oh death, oh death, where is your stain?
SPEAKER_00: Oh fire, where is your burn?
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray the Lord together.
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, this morning we come and we submit ourselves to you, Lord, and we pray that you would forgive us for all the times, Lord, that we are much more like Nebuchadnezzar than we are like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
SPEAKER_00: Forgive us, O Lord, for how deceived we are by our own strength.
SPEAKER_00: Forgive us, O Lord, for how we are so often led astray, God.
SPEAKER_00: And bring to us self-awareness that we might see.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, let us see the huffing and the puffing of Babylon for what it actually is.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, they can do nothing to those of us who stand firmly in Christ, who rest in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, set us free to live with courage.
SPEAKER_00: Set us free to live with boldness.
SPEAKER_00: Set us free to live with peace.
SPEAKER_00: Oh Lord, we are so thankful that our God is not like the gods of Babylon.
SPEAKER_00: The gods of Babylon are made out of metal and never do answer.
SPEAKER_00: But our God can be seen standing beside us in the midst of the fiery furnace.
SPEAKER_00: Praise be to your name.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.