06: World News & Prophecy - Daniel 3:1-30

[Darris McNeely] So in the last class, we explained to everybody's perfection, perfect understanding, the image here of Daniel and the dream of Nebuchadnezzar and all that that meant. And we're ready to go into Chapter 3. But as a prelude to that, let's just go back and look at Daniel 2:46 and read these few verses as kind of a setup for Chapter 3.

 Daniel 2:46-47 After Daniel gives us interpretation of his dream, "Nebuchadnezzar fell on his face, prostrate before Daniel and commanded that they should present an offering and incense to him. The king answered Daniel and said, 'Truly your God is the God of gods, the Lord of kings and a revealer of secrets since you could reveal this secret.'" 

So he believes Daniel's interpretation, he accepts it. It doesn't mean that he becomes a "believer" or "member" or anything like that. We'll talk about that again when we come to Chapter 4 and what he does there. But he realizes that Daniel has influence. Daniel has power, and it's quite large.

Daniel 2:48 "And so the king promoted Daniel and gave him many great gifts. He made him ruler over the whole province of Babylon and chief administrator over all the wise men of Babylon." 

Daniel gets, probably, the office right next to the king in the corner suite, there at the Swiss suite, as we say in business today. And he has quite an influential position. He's over the whole province of Babylon and over all the wise men of Babylon. Now, understand that human nature is human nature and those wise men probably are not too happy with that, that this Jewish slave is now over them. But as long as Nebuchadnezzar is alive, there's not much they can do about it. They have to live with it. Daniel becomes quite influential. Now, he did something else in verse 49. 

Daniel 2:49 “He petitioned the king and he said, ‘Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego over the affairs of the province of Babylon. But Daniel sat in the gate of the king.’” 

The gate in biblical reference and in the ancient world what it means is it's the chief administrative building. The gate of the city, but a gate was not your typical gate as we think of a gate today on a piece of property, rather small. A gate to an ancient city like Babylon was a massive building through which people walked underneath, but everything around it held offices. It's kind of like a courthouse and a chief administrative center. So when Daniel sat in the gate of the king, it tells you that he's right there next to the king where the king goes in every day into his office, and he's got quite a bit of influence.

Now, it seems then that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego are not where Daniel is. Daniel's down here in Babylon and they're over the province of Babylon. They're probably away from the city, very likely away from the city. And they have very important jobs. Provincial governors would be the way to look at that. And why is that important? It's important because when we open up Chapter 3, we have a different story going on now. And this is what happens with Chapter 3, which we all know is the famous story of the three men being cast into a fiery furnace because they will not bow down to this image that King Nebuchadnezzar creates and commands everybody to bow down to. And it's a story of faith.

It's one of the more well-known stories of the book of Daniel where it's the stuff of Sabbath school lessons and everybody knows this story. It's a story of idolatry. And for our frame of reference, we should recognize that it has a lot to teach us about how we give in to idols of the modern world. How many of you have ever been tempted to bow down to some big idol, some big image? Probably none of us. I never have. I was not raised Catholic, so I didn't bow before any statue in a Catholic church or an icon, if you were an Orthodox. That was not part of my religious training even before we came into the church and certainly not after coming into the church. We have no idols. We have no images that we use to worship God. And so yet here in this story, that is the case. It is a story of idolatry and whether or not you and I bow down to the idols that come our way.

So let's get into it and get a bit of a background. And we're about eight years removed from that story of Chapter 2. So a few years have gone by. 

Daniel 3:1 "Nebuchadnezzar the king made an image of gold whose height was 60 cubits and its width 6 cubits. He set it in the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon." 

And so it's probably best understood as somewhere outside probably the walls, the gates of the city of Babylon but in the province near the capital. The king is not going to go too far himself, and he creates an image of gold. Now, this particular image might give you some idea of what it could have looked like. Did it look like the one image that Daniel interprets? We're not told any details. It just says he makes an image of gold. Silver is not mentioned, bronze is not mentioned, iron is not mentioned. Was it pure gold? Probably not. Probably made of wood or some other material and overlaid with gold would be probably the better way to understand it. But it's a big image. It's large. He is set up. 

Daniel 3:2 Tells us, "Nebuchadnezzar sent word to gather together the satraps, the administrators, the governors, the counselors, and the treasurers, the judges, the magistrates, and all the officials of the provinces to come to the dedication of the image which King Nebuchadnezzar had set up." 

So this is a listing of just about every governmental official within the Empire of Babylon. This is quite a gathering. This is virtually every title, a governor, a secretary of agriculture, the treasurer, other civic leaders of these regions and areas that compose the whole Empire of Babylon at the time. And they have come, they are brought. And it says in verse 4.

Daniel 3:4-6 "A herald cried aloud, 'To you it has commanded, O peoples, nations, and languages.'" And the Babylonian Empire was made up of different nations and languages, "'That at the time you hear the sound of the horn, flute, harp, lyre, and psaltery, in symphony with all kinds of music you shall fall down and worship the gold image that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up. Whoever does not fall down and worship shall be cast immediately into the midst of a burning fiery furnace.'"

"So at that time, when all the people heard the sound of the horn, flute, harp, and lyre in symphony with all kinds of music, all the people, nations, and languages fell down and worship the gold image which King Nebuchadnezzar had set up." That takes us through verse 7. Now, why is this? What's behind this? Why was Nebuchadnezzar moved to create an image? Was it his ego? Did he take, after eight years, did he kind of mull over what Daniel had told him about his dream and begin to get megalomaniacal ideas about his own granderness, person, forget any humility that he might have had through the experience? Is that what happened? Or is there something else working?

Well, look at what we are told. This is a loyalty oath. These officials are brought in and they are not given any choice but to bow down. Now, the bowing down is a symbol of obedience. Nebuchadnezzar has built the image. It represents something about the religion, the kingdom, probably his own persona. So I do think there's a bit of his ego mixed into this. But there's something else working here that is not explicitly told us in the text. And other scholars have pieced together from other pieces of the Bible and records from the time of Nebuchadnezzar. Understand this, archaeologists through the recent years or within the last 100 to 150 years, let's say, of a period of modern archaeology, they have extensively dug up the ancient city of Babylon.

If you chose to go to Iraq today, which I don't, I'd love to see Babylon. I probably don't think I ever will in this lifetime. But through the years, the outline and parts of ancient Babylon have been excavated archaeologically and dug up. I mean, I've seen what is called the Ishtar Gate taken from the site of ancient Babylon. It sits today in a museum in Berlin, the Pergamon Museum. We did some "Beyond Today" filming there a few years ago. And it's a reconstruction on a smaller scale, but it's quite large even in the museum from Babylon. It's got a lot of the original tiles. And in Babylon, they know where the palace of Nebuchadnezzar was. They have streets laid out. There's been quite a bit of work. But the knowledge of this is quite extensive here. I've forgotten why I even got off onto that part of it.

What was I talking about? David, you're going to have to edit this section out. I had a point for talking about the archaeology. Oh, I know now. All right. Part of what they've dug up are clay tablets, extensive library of clay tablets that have on them what are called the Babylonian Chronicles. We have a lot of the history from this period of time written on clay tablets, many of them about the size of our iPhones or our smartphones. If you ever go to a museum and look at the Babylonian collection and you'll see these clay tablets about the size of a smartphone. And, you know, they're clay and stamped on there with a stylus in hieroglyphics or cuneiform are records. There's even one, I've seen that in that museum in Berlin. I've seen a clay tablet that is a shopping list for one of the Jehoiachin, the king of Judah that has taken captive to Babylon with his family.

And there's a clay tablet that's, essentially, a shopping list from Trader Joe's or Walmart, really, for provisions for the king's family. So that tells us, yeah, there was a king and he was in Babylon, the record's right. But we also know the record of Nebuchadnezzar's time and others as well. And here's what we know. There was a revolt. There was a rebellion in the provinces at the time. And we have even an allusion to this in the book of Jeremiah 51. Jeremiah 51:59, there's a prophecy that Jeremiah writes on a scroll, and he sends to Babylon through the hand of a servant who is accompanying King Zedekiah, one of the later...actually, the last king of Judah, King Zedekiah. This is out of Jeremiah 51. Zedekiah goes to Babylon. Now, that's a long haul. He goes from Jerusalem all the way over to Babylon. But he's kind of a vassal king.

Why is he going to Babylon? And why is Jeremiah, the main point of the passage in Jeremiah is the prophecy that he puts on it. But we know from the timing of when that took place from the Babylonian Chronicle that at that time there had been a revolt among those subject kingdoms. And it's very likely that Zedekiah got caught up in that and has to go to Babylon along with all these other magistrates that are referenced here after this revolt. And so what they're doing, Nebuchadnezzar who is worried about insurrection, he's demanding that they all come in and you're going to bow down to this image and maybe they signed another loyalty oath, maybe they had to go through an indoctrination camp before they left. He was going to make sure it didn't happen again.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego are part of this entourage. They more than likely were not part of any revolt. But if they were out in the province of Babylon, they weren't in the capital. And they're out there someplace, and they kind of in this big dragnet that gets cast, they have to come in too. And they're standing out there on the plain of Dura, and they're part of all of this assemblage and the command to bow down applies to them as well. And I think that some other scholars have put this together from looking at the historic record, the biblical record, and inferring, though we're not told explicitly in Daniel 3 what, that's why all this takes place. I think it's a pretty good analysis, and I think it's accurate.

But beyond that, here's three men. We've already been introduced to them in Chapters 1 and 2. Daniel is not mentioned in Chapter 3. Daniel is not mentioned. Why? Why would he not be mentioned? What do you think, Danny?

[Danny] Because he is still in Babylon.

[Darris] Yeah, he's in Babylon. He's at the king's gate. He didn't rebel. He wasn't part of it. He probably was in the king's office when word came about this rebellion. He's not required to bow down. That's a good supposition as to why he's not part of the story, but the three friends, the three amigos, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego are. And so let's read on.

Daniel 3:8-11 "Therefore," verse 8, "at that time, certain Chaldeans came forward." Wait, let's see. Did we skip over? Yeah. "Therefore, at that time, certain Chaldeans came forward and accused the Jews. They spoke and said to the king of Nebuchadnezzar, 'O King, live forever. You, O King, have made a decree that everyone who hears the sound of the horned flute, harp, lyre, and psaltery, and symphony with all kinds of music shall fall down and worship the gold image. Whoever does not shall be cast into the midst of a fiery furnace.'"

Nebuchadnezzar was probably, you know, twiddling his thumbs or trembling his fingers and saying, "Get on with it. I already know this. I heard this. What do you guys got for me?" 

Daniel 3:12 "'There are certain Jews,'" here's the crux, "'whom you have set over the affairs of the province of Babylon, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego. These men, O King, have not paid due regard to you. They do not serve your gods or worship the gold image which you have set up.'" 

Envy. Who comes forward? Certain Chaldeans. They accused the Jews. It's probably those that had been passed over by the promotion of Daniel and these three and don't have the same jobs that they do. And they've now found the opportunity to strike. We're seeing envy at work. Envy happens all the time. It happens all the time where more than two or three are gathered together, it seems like.

Offices, sometimes it happens in the Church, unfortunately. And this is what's happening.

Daniel 3:13-14 "So Nebuchadnezzar flies off in a rage and fury. He gave the command to bring Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego. So they brought these men before the king. Nebuchadnezzar spoke, saying to them, 'Is it true, Shadrach, Meshach, Abed-Nego, you do not serve my gods or worship the gold image which I've set up? If you're ready at the time you hear the sound.'" 

He's going to give them one more opportunity. Strike up the band. And the band leaders over there kind of looking at Nebuchadnezzar waiting and waiting. And Nebuchadnezzar gives them a chance.

Daniel 3:15 "'When you hear that horn, flute, harp, lyre, and psaltery, you fall down and worship the image which I have made. Good. But if you don't, you're going to be cast immediately into the midst of a burning fiery furnace. And who's the god who will deliver you from my hands?'" 

Yeah. Nebuchadnezzar's lost a few steps by this point. He's forgotten he fell on his face and admitted back in Chapter 2 when Daniel gave him the interpretation. Well, here's what they said.

Daniel 3:16-17 "They answered and said to the king, 'O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If that is the case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace. He will deliver us from your hand, O King.'" 

That's faith. They were not going to bow down. They knew the consequences. They knew that they were also not guilty if insurrection was the reason everybody had been brought in. They knew they weren't guilty of that. It would not have been in their mind or in their character. And they come to that conclusion, and they're steadfast. And verse 18 is the key verse of this discussion.

Daniel 3:18 "But if not..." In other words, if God doesn't deliver us, we know He can. He can answer our prayer. God can do anything. Faith believes what God's Word tells us He will do for us. "But if not, let it be known to you, O King, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up.'" 

So all through all these years, these three had maintained their faith just as we had seen demonstrated in Chapter 1. But if not, you know, that's really what all of us have to come down to in our life as we worship God. Keep the Sabbath, determine that we're going to keep all of God's Word. We're going to, in faith, look to God in our life, trust Him, and if we're tested, and it might cost us a job, a relationship. You know, people have lost jobs because of the Sabbath. People have lost relationships and families and marriages because one is not in the Church, they can't abide this new teaching, this new idea disrupts everything about their life, family, leads to divorce. I've seen that many, many times in the Church. Some of you will know examples of that, perhaps some in your own families. 

To obey God, we have to count the cost. But if not, we set ourselves on a path of life when we are baptized, when we come to know God, and we commit through repentance, faith, and baptism to live this way of life and understanding that it may come to cost. Now, there's another thing that's at work here. Notice that, as we've said, it's Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego. You know, in the story of the first two chapters, Daniel's been the leader, hasn't he? It's Daniel that seems to be the spokesperson for the group. There's four amigos, but Daniel's the one that goes to the king. Daniel's the one that goes to the chief of the eunuchs. But, now, these three are on their own, Daniel's not around.

You know, sometimes our faith will be tested as we have to stand alone without anyone else, not your mom, your dad, your aunt, your closest friend. It's you and God. It's you and God. It's not all the comfort of what you've had in a home where everybody's in the Church, camp environment that's in the zone, and everything else. No, we're out on our own. We have to make this decision. We have to tell the employer, "I can't be there. I won't be there." You have to make a decision about your life, your career, whereby if you go this particular route, the Sabbath is going to ultimately be a conflict. And if you are going to accomplish what you think you can or want to do, you will have a choice between the Sabbath, God's law, and not. And it's your decision. You're 19, you're 29, whatever. It's your decision. A wise parent will let you make that decision if you're 19 or 20.

A wise parent will let you make that decision and say, "I've taught you. I've been an example to you. It's yours now. You're going to own it. And you're not going to blame me. If you lose out on the opportunity because you obey God, you'll know why." There will come a time when you will have to face that yourself. You'll face your fiery furnace. And nobody else will be there to really help you make it. Sure, I mean, people will be praying for you and encouraging you, but you've got to make that decision. And you can't rely on the strength of somebody else. You have to be strong. That's where these three young men were. That's how life is sometimes. And they said, you know, we're set. We're determined. Sometimes that's called the moment of truth. Truth about yourself, truth about God, truth about how you are going to live, truth about what you really do believe.

Well, again, Nebuchadnezzar flies off. He's just insane with anger.

Daniel 3:19 "He was full of fury. The expression on his face changed toward Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego. He spoke and commanded that they heat the furnace seven times more than it was usually heated." 

You know, there's probably a number of people that are watching this confrontation. He knows these three from their years of experience and he remembered Chapter 1, that they were with Daniel, that they, you know, didn't follow the instructions, came out okay, but he cannot lose face.

Daniel 3:20-22 "He commanded certain mighty men of valor who were in his army to bind the three, casting them into the burning fiery furnace." Verse 21, "These men were then bound in their coats, their trousers, their turbans, their other garments, and they were cast into the midst of the burning fiery furnace.Heated seven times hotter, seven times hotter. It was so hot that the flame of the fire killed the men who took them up.” 

Which gives you an indication it was furnace like that would have been a very large kiln, and the opening would have been probably several feet up and maybe up a ramp or some other type of system where they were carried up and thrown into and then down into the depths of the furnace. But it was so hot that it killed the men that carried them.

Daniel 3:23-25 "And these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego fell down, bound into the midst of the burning fiery furnace." Would have been, you know, before they even hit that hot, it should have been burned up, vaporized. "Then King Nebuchadnezzar was astonished and he rose in haste and spoke to his counselors, 'Did we not cast three men bound into the midst of the fire?' They answered and said to the king, 'True, O King.' 'Look, I see four men, loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they are not hurt, and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.'"

Now, what did he see? Some feel that this was the pre-incarnate Christ. Some feel it's an angel. Text is not clear. The NIV translation says that a son of the gods, little G. And so the Aramaic explicitly is like a son of the gods, little G as well. And so, again, it's not clear as to what it is. It could be an angel as well or some other spirit being. I lean toward that it was like the Son of God and would have been the one who became Christ. That's how I lean toward it and there to encourage them, the fourth man in the fire in this way. But whatever it was, it was a demonstration, obviously, of God's presence, God's protection. And we read this and we get kind of a full picture of faith. Yes, God can deliver, but we have to go into a trial. We have to face a difficult situation. But if not, in other words, whatever the consequences, whatever the decision of the person and the context of the situation we're dealing with, we're not going to compromise.

We're going to hold to our conviction, our values, our understanding of God's way of life, and we're going to live that. We're not going to give in. You know, there's all kinds of idols in our modern world, status, prestige, money, position, you know, personality, cults that we would like to be like, sports or idols. Anything that comes between us and the worship of the true God based on His way of life can become an idol. As I said at the beginning, I've never been confronted with an idol to bow down to it. The only time I've ever been into a Catholic church in any type of service was when one of my cousins got married when I was a kid. He married a Catholic girl, and he converted to Catholicism. So they had a Catholic wedding, and I went with my family and they had to go and pray to the Virgin Mary and receive communion, whatever. And everybody else that was Catholic in the church knew when to get up, sit down.

And I thought, "Boy, this thing will never end." It just went on and on and on and on. And it was quite elaborate, full mass and everything, but part of it, they had to go and light a candle before a statue of the Virgin Mary. And, of course, you've seen pictures of people bowing down to icons and other things, and we don't do that necessarily. You go to Asia and you see a lot more of that in the paganism of Buddhism and Hinduism in Asia. But our idols are different. We're subtle. We're in just as much a Babylon as Daniel and these three men were in our modern world today, confronted many steps along the way with compromise, with influences that seek to draw us into the culture of this world that is a modern Babylon. And, again, sometimes the temptation, the problem is going to draw us into something that can be a deal breaker in terms of our faith. And we have to make a decision, are you going to go this way of life or not? And live it completely, and that's where they were, but and if not.

Daniel 3:26-27 And so, "Nebuchadnezzar goes to the mouth of the fiery furnace, and he speaks, saying, 'Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego, servants of the Most High God, come out and come here.' And they came from the midst of the fire." Verse 27, "The satraps, administrators, governors and the kings, counselors gathered together and they saw these men on whose bodies the fire had no power. The hair of their head was not singed, nor were their garments affected, and the smell of fire was not on them." 

Nothing, no soot, no smoke. It would seem they didn't even smell like they'd been around a campfire, like you and I would be when we go camping and, you know, the smoke comes in and that's just part of the deal. It would seem that nothing lingered upon them.

Daniel 3:28-29 "Nebuchadnezzar spoke, saying, 'Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego who sent His angel and delivered His servants who trusted in Him.'" And that word angel can mean messenger or it can mean a spirit being, malakeh, in that sense there. "'And they have frustrated the king's word and yielded their bodies that they should not serve nor worship any God except their own God. Therefore, I make a decree that any people, nation, or language which speaks anything amiss about the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego shall be cut to pieces, their houses shall be made in ash heap because there's no other God who could deliver like this.'" 

So he's back on board, kind of like he was at the end of Chapter 2. He promotes them in the province of Babylon. They come out with even more than they went in. Sometimes when we go through a trial and we make that commitment, God does bless us. And we get to promote not only retain the job but it comes with a promotion or it comes out better than we could have ever imagined. Plus, we still have our faith intact and obeying God. The result of this doesn't always come overnight. With this, we seem to get the understanding that it happens rather quickly, obviously, sparing them from the fiery furnace did and then this promotion. But it may not be quite that quickly or dramatic with us.

Faith doesn't always follow along such a story. But the lessons that we learn from it, God can encourage us and help us and keep us in that way if we put Him first. So it is a great story. It has a little bit more to the background perhaps than what we would know from just a casual reading of it here. We don't read anymore about these three men in the Scripture. They go back into their provinces and it would seem, live their lives. Did they have families? Probably did. What happened to them and how long did they live? We don't know. Daniel is not led to put that into this. But they give us an example of what it means to walk with God even at times when we may have to walk through a kind of a fiery trial.

In 1 Peter 4, Peter talks about a fiery trial that comes upon us. And by that, it's not the physical burning, you know, and singeing of our flesh. It's just a difficult, painful time. We're hurt emotionally. We've been betrayed or we're being tested and we may see you know, a dramatic alteration of our life if we...you know, as a result of the choice that we make. And your stomach twists. You know, you can't eat. You lose weight. And there may be other physical reactions while we are emotionally distressed. And it could go on for a period of time. We have to learn to cope and that can be a fiery trial. Believe me, you know, sometimes, you know, some of the things we have to go through to prove our faith, we have to be prepared in advance for a fiery trial.

You know, when the test hits, our conviction should be in place. Our thought about how we're going to respond, we've already thought it out, in a sense, we've got a script. We know what we're going to say because you think ahead and you have a situational awareness when it comes to people, situations, and you know what you're going to do and how you're going to react to that. And there are some things that we just don't know until we go through it. You know, trials of health, for instance. We get prayer requests all the time for people in the church to pray for people because of cancer, heart disease, other injuries, sicknesses that people have. We do and we should.

And if you're like me, you think, how would I react with that particular phone call that might come from the doctor saying, I've got this or test show that this is coming, that this is what you're dealing with? And, you know, I've been to the bedside and to the homes and anointed people through my years in the ministry who have had those and counseled with them. None of us know how we're going to react until it comes to us or someone very close to us. And while we appreciate good health and the life we have, and we should not live in a sense of dread or morbidity of those things, we pray for one another. We observe, we read scriptures about faith, about trust of all different types, whether it's a matter of health, a job, our reaction to another type of test that would come into our life.

Preparation for that comes through our own relationship with God and prayer, and the study of the Bible to know what the scriptures tell us so that, when it happens, there's already something working within us. It can stun us. It can test us and it will. But if we have been prepared through a life that is living soberly and righteously with hope, with the joy of God's truth, a peace of mind that we have a relationship with God, that He knows us, then we can be prepared for whatever might come. And there will be those things that come. And we'll have to always deal with it in our relationship with God. Just like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego had to come to that and deal with it apart from Daniel, who had been their confidant, their tower of strength, in one sense, even their spokesperson, and maybe their team captain at the time. We all have to stand before God in that way. It's a great story. A great story of faith and showing God's hand in our life but also what this life is all about.