But If Not

Good afternoon, everyone. Thanks to Ray and to Ashandra for the very nice music, the special music that we had here. I've always, I don't want to ever take it for granted, and I hope I know you don't, that we are really blessed with a lot of special music here in the Cincinnati Congregations with all the people we have and the talent that is here, and that is really a blessing. Always adds a great deal to the Sabbath. I know there's a choir that is being put together.

They've been practicing over the last few weeks, and in time we will have a full-fledged Cincinnati adult choir that will complement the ABC choir that we enjoy on an annual basis, and all the other solos and duets and quartets and whatever else that we have in terms of the special music through the years and through the year, that will really, I think, add a great deal to it. So, appreciate all the efforts that everyone has to do that.

Three men stood bound by ropes in front of a roaring furnace of fire. It was their moment of truth to live or to die. What would they do? What would they do? Let's turn back to Daniel 3 and verse 16, and let's read what they did. Three men named Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. I know they have Hebrew names, but I learned a song that taught me how to say it by these names, and that's what I remember through all the years.

Daniel 3, beginning in verse 16, we'll jump right to this point in the story of these three men, Jews, who had been transported to Babylon and found themselves standing before the great king Nebuchadnezzar and in front of a roaring furnace and just about to lose their lives, as they thought, and as everyone else thought. They had one last opportunity.

In verse 16, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If that is the case, we're going to be thrown in this fire. Our God, whom we serve, is able to deliver us from the burning, fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king.

The God we serve can do that, they said. And then verse 18, But if not, three very important words, but if not, meaning if He doesn't save us. Not that He couldn't save us, not that He's not all-powerful, not that He is not God, but if He doesn't save 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've set up. That was their answer. And they gave that answer, feeling the blast furnace in front of them, their hands bound, knowing that they were going to be thrown in.

And they had faith, and they had confidence in God, but they also knew that God was real. And they had a realistic view of that very real God. And they knew that God might choose not to save them, but that the God they knew, the God they served, might let them die.

What kind of God is that? What kind of faith is that? But if not. Now, how did these three men get to this moment? Let's go back and let's bring them forward to this moment here. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego lived in Babylon, the greatest power of its day. They had been taken as captives when Jerusalem and Judah had fallen a few years earlier. They were among the first group of Jewish captives that had been transported to Babylon, along with another man that we know is in the story already from chapters 1 and 2.

And, of course, his name is on the book, Daniel. They were perhaps some of the privileged young men of Judah in their day back in their former life. We could imagine that Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were of a fairly well-off or upper-middle class or upper-class Jewish family. Their parents perhaps engaged in some aspect of the government, the civil service of the government, or the temple structure as it was at that day. They were educated. They were intelligent. They had abilities, which is why they wound up where they did, as we remember from the story in chapter 1 when they were in Babylon.

They were kind of brought off the train. Instead of being sent to work in the factories of Babylon, they were recognized to have ability and could serve perhaps in a civil service capacity of the Babylonian government. They passed their exams. They even passed a test of faith there. And they were used in the government and had a pretty good job because of their skills and their talents.

They had come there because their country, Judah, no longer existed. The center of their country, which was the temple and Jerusalem itself, no longer existed. It had been burned and everything confiscated from the temple. It had been raised, the temple that Solomon built, and the nation no longer existed. Everything they felt that they knew and believed and upon which their lives of faith had been built had been taken away. You can imagine what they may have thought. Where's God? What about our status as the chosen people? What about the covenant that our people had made at Mount Sinai? What about our status as the chosen people? The true people? The true group? The true guys? The true gals? The true church?

Whatever you want to call them, they were the true ones. But they had gotten caught up in sin, and they wouldn't obey God. And they also got caught up in the power politics of the day, because Daniel and these three men lived at a time when there was a monumental shift taking place in the world. The powers of Assyria and Egypt had receded. Babylon was the big kid on the block. They were the new power, and they had bowled over all the others and even now knocked off little Judah. Israel, in its real sense in that region, little understood, is the fact that Israel, in the time of David and Solomon, actually played a very key role among the politics and the nations of that day. They were kind of a buffer between Egypt and Assyria and Egypt, and the Mesopotamian area. And at the height of their power, they were a power that kept the others from growing and becoming dominant, which they later did as first the nation split into, and then Israel was taken captive by Assyria, and now Judah was gone.

And what had been God's great plan there for that people no longer existed. The days when Israel had ridden on the high places of the earth had passed. And the questions, no doubt, were in their minds. Was God still interested in them? Were they still His chosen people? And you know, some of those people probably even wondered, was there even a God of Abraham any longer? Because everything they had known and been taught to believe had been swept away. Everything had changed for Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and for Daniel. And the questions, no doubt, could have been many.

But as we have already seen by the story, they had elected to maintain a core of faith and didn't change from that. They still believed that God was God. Even as we saw in chapter 1 of the story, they had even proven that faith on such a relatively seemingly minor matter as food.

They had proven that God's way was better and that God was God. And they had done that in spite of where they were and what was taking place.

And so in Daniel chapter 3, where Nebuchadnezzar, as we find beginning in the first chapter, decided to make a great image of gold after he'd had this dream that Daniel had interpreted, in which he told the whole course of history. And Nebuchadnezzar kind of said, oh, I'm just head of gold. And so he built this golden image, perhaps thinking that that would represent him and his empire and what he was doing. But then he took a step further and he demanded that everybody bow down and worship this idol at the sound of the great orchestra that he would strike up. And everybody did because that's what they did. That's what the Babylonian, Chaldean people did in their day. They were an idolatrous people and they worshiped like that.

And if the king said to do it, they did it. Didn't change their life. They still had bread the next day. They still went off to work. They still had their entertainments and their pastimes. Who cares? You could have well imagined that the average guy in the street, yeah, you want me to bow down? I'll be there at noon. Pay my homage. But these three young men wouldn't do it. And because of the jealousy that no doubt had already begun to seep into the courtesans and the court of Nebuchadnezzar, some of the spies kind of came to Nebuchadnezzar and said, hey, you've made this decree. There are these young men that you've kind of elevated into some positions that, by the way, we would have liked to have had. And they're not bowing down.

What are you going to do about it? And he got all furious and he demanded that they be brought before him. And he gave them one last opportunity. He said, okay, guys, look, if you'll do this now, we're going to strike up the band once again. Orchestra leader, get ready, bow down. And that's where we find them at this particular point, as they are bound hand and foot and they won't do it.

They said, we're not going to do this. The God we serve is not like this God. He's not a graven image and we have a different approach and He's able to save us. But if He doesn't, if He chooses not to, we're still not going to do it. That is faith. That is a remarkable lesson in faith that we find here, along with what has already transpired in the first two chapters. Daniel is one of these fascinating books. I think all of us would agree that it's filled with just the wonderful story, primarily of Daniel. We have these three young men in the first three chapters and then they kind of disappear from the story. But the story here that is told by Daniel in this prophecy is remarkable, not just for the prophecy. In some ways, for me, it's far more interesting to look at Daniel for what we learned about how we should live. I think that the first, there is enough in the information in the first six chapters of Daniel to spend a whole lifetime studying and learning in terms of principles of Christianity and godly worship for us, than the remaining six chapters of Daniel and all the intricacies of the prophecies and the visions of the beasts and the numbers that are there at the end of chapter 12 of Daniel. Those are important and they are interesting. But even God said to Daniel, hey, I'm not going to tell you everything about these. Go your way. Which tells me, hey, maybe there are other things that I know that I can sink my teeth into and lock my mind into about this book that are more important. There's a lot there in the first six chapters. And this one is a fascinating story about faith. But if not, a story of faith that I think comes down to us and has a lot for you and I to think about in terms of how we look at faith. A few weeks ago, I gave a sermon about hope. This is my second part of that trilogy because of what Paul said in 1 Corinthians, faith, hope, and love. I didn't mean to start off in a trilogy when I started that, but I talked about hope and now I want to talk today about faith because it is something that you and I live with every day and think about and sometimes worry about and sometimes we feel good about. And it is so important. It is a concrete matter of our relationship with God. And this story has something to tell us when it comes down to these three little words, but if not. But if not. This is a story, first of all, about idolatry. These were men of conscience and they would not bend to pressure and worship something that they could neither see nor hear nor speak. There's never been an idol made, a graven image made by the hand of any human being that can talk, see, or hear. And if you can't talk to God, if He can't see you, if He cannot hear you, how can you have a relationship with God?

Or that God? You can't. It's one of the obvious flaws in an idol. They can't see, hear, or talk. That's what God says about idols, but He can. And because He can, you and I can have a relationship with that God. And these three men knew that they couldn't have a relationship with this image.

It was worthless, futile. They also knew that the first two commandments of the Ten specifically dealt with this, to have no other gods before the true God and to not worship a graven image. It was burned into their hearts. That was already there. And as they looked at that, they couldn't do anything else. Or could they? Well, it would have been easy to give in, as I've already said. Their lives had been turned upside down. They were captives in a strange land.

Everything they believed in or thought they knew was gone. Their church was gone. Their building was gone. Their ministers were gone. Their priests at the day. Everything, their whole culture was gone. And they thought it was true. They thought it was God's. And they thought it would be around forever. And they thought nothing would harm them, which was one of the problems they had when they would not listen to men like Jeremiah, Isaiah, or others when they came and said, hey, things aren't quite right here in Jerusalem and Judah. You better change. They wouldn't do it because, hey, we've got this temple. We've got the promises. We're the children of Abraham. We can do what we want and still have all the gravy and the good times. God said, no, you can't. And that's what happened. But all that was gone now. There was a temptation to blend in and to succeed now in this new life that would have been there. And of course, there was a very obvious fact right in front of these three men that their lives were on the line, literally in that moment. Their lives were on the line. Many of us have the Life Application Bible on our shelves and find it to be a very useful study tool. I looked at what they had to say about Daniel 3. They had eight points. And I thought it would be good just to quickly read what they said about these excuses that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego could have used at this particular moment as they stood before the fiery furnace and got out of a tight jam. Here are the eight excuses that the Life Application Bible lists. Number one, they could have said, well, bow down, but not really worship.

That's the idol. We'll just say in our heart, no, it's not an idol. It's not an idol, even as we bow down and make outward show. Number two, we won't become idol worshipers, but we'll do this one time. Then we'll ask God for forgiveness.

That's how human nature thinks sometimes. We'll do this one time, and then I can get forgiveness. Number three, excuse, the king has absolute power, and we must obey him. He's the power that is. God will understand. He could have reasoned that way. Number four, the king has appointed us. We owe this to him. We owe this to him.

He's a nice guy. He's promised us a pension, and a condo on the beach someplace. Number five, well, this is a foreign land, so God will excuse us for following the customs of the land. When in Rome?

Number six, you know what? Come to think of it, our ancestors. Wasn't their king named Manasseh? They set up idols, even some of them in the temple.

This isn't half as bad. It's not half as bad.

Number seven, this is what I call the libertarian excuse. We're not hurting anybody.

We're not hurting anybody. And number eight, if we get ourselves killed and some heathens take our positions, they won't help our people in exile. Eight excuses. There are probably a number of additional ones that could have come up, but that's what the Life Application Bible is, the possible way that they're thinking could have gone in order to get themselves out of the jam. But if they had delivered themselves, what would they have accomplished?

Think about that. They would have denied their faith, because their faith said, our God's able to do this. We know that. But if not, but if not, but if not.

Sometimes you and I come to that, but if not moment as well, where we have a decision to make. Our faith is being tested. Sometimes it's rather small. I don't know if anybody has ever had this necessarily, this particular one, literally in front of them. But we have tests all the time.

And we have idols today. A little different than what these guys had to deal with, but think about that. How's our idolatry and the idols that are around us today a little different from what these men had to deal with in a totally pagan culture of Babylon. Well, let me give you a little primer on what we might have to face today. And keep this in mind. Let's establish just a bit of a definition as to what idolatry is. I already quoted the two commandments, to not have any other gods before the true God, or not to bow down to a graven image. Essentially, what God is saying there is that, don't you dare ever put anything between you and me. And if you do, it's an idol.

Anything. Whether it's a graven image or an idea, whatever it is that comes between you and me, you and our relationship, and severs that as an idol. That's essentially what an idol is.

It can become a way of life. It can be literally a form of worship. But ultimately, it comes down to the orientation of our mind and our hearts. And if it's not totally oriented upon God, where are we? And what do we really have? What about today? Because we don't necessarily, unless you're a member of certain faiths, we don't pray to statues or idols or imagery.

I recognize that certain Christian faiths have that as an iconic part of their culture.

Others don't. Certainly we don't. And we don't have in the public square necessarily anything like what happened here in Babylon with some great image erected that everybody's commanded to worship. Unless it's a football team or something like that. But something like that. We have something else that's happening today in our society that is idolatry in another form. It's far more subtle in one sense. You ever heard the phrase of the word tolerance? To be tolerant today? We are shaped and trained and molded and sensitized to be tolerant in our culture today. And that phrase, as it comes out in so many different parts of our culture, is intended to mold the values and the behavior of this generation of people throughout the world. Tolerance is a big issue.

Tolerance of alternative faiths. Tolerance of different lifestyles.

I mean, we have it to the point today where even as nations like France, England, and America are under attack by radical elements of Islam, that our leaders will not come to the fore, in many cases, and use the terminology even to define exactly who has done this and what it is that is in front of us and we are facing. They will choose words that don't quite define exactly what is taking place, lest someone be offended, lest whatever. And that translates into so much of the agendas in the culture today, so much so that anyone that is desiring to hold to godly biblical values face daily pressures to tolerate and to accept things that were once considered sin. A gay agenda. Think about how your motives, your feelings, your perceptions have been altered already by the culture around us, the reporting, the pressures, the entertainment, and all that is around us on that particular issue and how much has changed on it today. The threats even. In a workplace, in school, and in the public square, if certain words are used or certain approaches are taken, certain things are said, what could happen? It could be the consequences. And how that has already begun to shape. Quite frankly, I find myself having to realize, hey, wait a minute, that approach, that story, that movie, that line, that is being used to shape right now how I view something that is sin. To make me a bit more understanding or tolerant. We see in terms of marriage under attack from so many different ways, couples living together unmarried, far more accepted in our culture today than it ever was.

That used to be called by different terms. I won't go into all the different ways it was called when I was growing up. But one thing it was known, it was something you didn't do, and it was called sin. It was wrong. But today it's accepted by not just the young, but people my age and even older for economic reasons and matters of convenience. Children born out of wedlock, far more accepted today, far more accepted because of the prevalence, and again because of toleration. How do we view that? Not that we hold anything against a child that is the innocent aspect of that, but the social cost of it is enormous in every corner of our culture today.

Its acceptance is something that is remarkable. Abortion the same way. We just passed the anniversary a week before this of the anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision by the Supreme Court to legalize abortion. And it usually gets less and less attention each year because it is such a prevalent part of our society. Drugs? Legalized now in certain states in the United States. Still illegal in other areas, but again, what's legal, and I'm referring to marijuana, of course, but it's the first big step in that direction. We live in a culture of violence as well that is crept into us that we are far more tolerant of and accept and don't have a sensitivity to what is actually we are watching, seeing, or is being, bombarding our senses.

And so, to hold to godly biblical values in the face of all of these pressures and its tolerance today is creating challenges for us because these are some of the representations of a culture that is idolatrous. And these matters, then, because of how we can buy into them, ultimately will separate us from God in one way, shape, or form in a relationship with us. These issues have become sacred issues in today's postmodern culture, and they are modern forms of idolatry that we are being pressured to bow down to, to accept, to be more tolerant, and to be more understanding of because of the cultural shifts that have taken place.

That's a culture at large that we are aware of and should be concerned about, but also to the point where we ask the question, what's it doing to our faith? What's it doing to our tolerance for sin and therefore impacting our relationship with God? Far more than we might realize, and it's up to each one of us to think about. Let me shift for a moment. Let me bring it down closer to home. This is something I've given a lot of thought to over recent years because in our Church of God culture, I think we have certain idols as well.

One of them is legalism. Legalism. Thinking in whatever shape, whatever form, thinking that our obedience merits grace and salvation.

Not that we don't obey. Not that we don't hold the true teaching and doctrine. But to think that that merits grace and that merits salvation runs counter to Scripture, but it becomes a and it has been ever since I've been a part of the Church. It's been a problem, and it is, frankly, it is a problem that happens among commandment-keeping people. And it is not germane to us. We're not the only group. Any religion, fundamentalist Christian religion, let's use that term, that seeks to keep the commandments of God will run the risk of legalism. That doesn't mean you don't keep the commandments. That means you understand what God's law is and how it acts upon us and what God is doing really with us. He is writing His law upon our hearts. But that means we obey from the heart, not from a strict legalistic approach that leads to other problems. It can be an idol, because if we think that what we do in any way, shape, or form merits grace and earns us anything in terms of a relationship with God or salvation, we're doing it ourselves. And to whatever degree we think we are doing it, becomes a barrier, becomes something that can get interjected between us and God and become an idol. It could be ourselves, even. It could be ourselves. And legalism leads to another idol called pride. Pride. The pride that I'm right. And you're wrong. We're right and they're wrong.

And I'm more right than you. And I'm more right than anyone else. And we're more right than anyone else. And let me show you why. And let me shake this in front of you and make you read this or understand this and we're more right. Doctrine is truth. Truth is truth. Truth is right.

But we don't get to the point of pride.

And that has been a problem. And it sometimes I think for us here it's less of a problem, but we need to recognize that at times. And because of that, there's a third idol that often has been our Achilles heel in the church of God. And that's men. Putting men on a pedestal.

Kind of like Nebuchadnezzar put a graven image on a pedestal and said, worship them. We've been prone to put men on a pedestal and worshiping them instead of God. It doesn't mean we honor and respect leaders, teachers, ministers. But not to the point of letting anything like that ever split the body of Jesus Christ. Because when that happens, we're right back into a big problem and it's part of something called idolatry.

And we don't want to do that. So we have our own idols and we need to understand that.

Keep them at bay and put it all in the right perspective.

In Deuteronomy 6 and verse 5, we are told we are to love God.

Deuteronomy 6 and verse 5, Moses says at this point, here, O Israel, the Lord, our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. We love each other. And Christ brought this in to show that we are to love each other as ourselves, or love our fellow man. But we are to love God. That's why He's a jealous God and why He doesn't want us to let anything come in between the worship of Him. We could worship doctrine if we wanted to.

Sometimes people have been prone to even do that in the past. We don't worship the Sabbath day.

We don't worship any teaching or any doctrine of the Bible. We worship God. And we come together on the Sabbath as we endeavor to keep it holy as we can, as God lives His life within us. And we worship God on the Sabbath, on the holy days. We don't worship the Sabbath. We don't worship doctrine. We obey doctrine because that's how we understand how we worship God and how we love God with all our heart, strength, soul, and might. Those are the means by which we do that. We keep the Sabbath holy in that sense so that we can come to know God.

God, get that orientation and the Sabbath and the holy days. In any part of God's law, it takes on far greater dimension, the true spiritual dimension of God being able then to write that on our hearts to where we obey from the heart. And ultimately, that's the best form of obedience, to love God and not let anything come in between us and that. And this is where Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were. And this is their view of God that they knew.

That they had come to worship God at that level, and as a result, they knew Him to be a God who could deliver them, who could fulfill His promises. Even when they had lived through an upheaval in their own country, their lives, and seen destruction and mayhem and captivity, they still, through it all, came out on the other end and they had faith in that God. A core faith that they would not compromise on, even to this point of life. And they had come to realize, but if not, we're still not going to do it. But if not, we're still going to have faith and we're going to be this way, these type of men. But if not, it didn't matter to them what was going to happen to their physical lives. They were going to obey God. That's a moment of truth. That is certainly faith in the moment.

And that is making God very, very real and His promise to them, to us, very, very real.

The great definition of faith that Hebrews 11 verse 1 gives us is that faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. The substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Embedded in that statement are two words that, when we focus on, helps us to understand a dimension of faith and that is substance and evidence.

Evidence, something you can see, something of substance that you can put your arms around, you can see it, tangible. These men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, had faith that had substance to it. It was not a week fly-by-night, once-a-week faith or faith of convenience. It was a substantive faith. The evidence was that they were saying to the man who held their life in their hands at the very moment when they felt literally the heat of the furnace that was going to snuff their life out in a breath. They would not bend on their values and their commitment. That was the evidence. For you and I, it is every moment where our faith is tested, shown to be what it is when we have a decision to make and we make it and we obey and we demonstrate obedience. We demonstrate confidence and our actions show that that's our evidence. Whatever it might be, that we're going to keep God's law, that we're going to keep the Sabbath, regardless of what the boss says, regardless of what might be offered otherwise. Or we're going to not steal when the temptation might be there. We're going to tell the truth completely and be honest, even if it is to our hurt. Go right down the list. Here's a question. If God's law is being written on our hearts under the terms of the New Covenant, is there any law? Is there any one of the 10 cardinal points of the law of God that we might be not letting God write on our heart? Think about that sometime. Put that down in your margin of notes and tuck that away and think about it. As God writes His law on our hearts, is there any one law or two that we kind of are resisting being written right there for whatever reason? Because of our culture, because of our stubbornness, because of our pride, because of our opinion, and therefore becomes a barrier between us and God? It's something to think about because that's what God's doing with us. And that's where our faith is continually being tested. They said, but if not, these three men, you know, faith has consequences. It really does. The decisions we make in this way of life have consequences.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego knew that God could deliver them.

They knew He was God. Now, how did they know that? Well, number one, we can assume that they read their Bible. They read their Scriptures, and they knew the promises, and they believed them. Very simple. Secondly, there was a personal example. Again, back to chapter one, they would not eat the food from the king's table. It was polluted, unclean. They wouldn't do it at risk of their lives, and God came through. So they had a personal example, which any one of us could name examples of God intervening in our own lives, working in our lives, and know that God has intervened for us. He's fought a battle for us. He's seen us through a time of difficulty. And that's the past, but this is now. And there's always going to be something next week or next month. We know that, and we hope that we have been prepared for that. But we always know that God can deliver us. We read our Bible, and we have personal experiences. We also know, as these three men knew, we know that God might not deliver us at times, as we might hope. And we live with that possibility, as they did. We live with it each day, when we are faced with decisions, regardless of what it might be. In our younger lives, as we are figuring out what we're going to do with ourselves, and a career, and jobs, and families, and husbands and wives, and selections about that, and the challenges that come up with children, and the younger phase of our life, where all these things are manifold. And we are being tested in many different ways. We tick them off the list in the sense that we choose wisely, we see blessings, and we continue to build a record or a resume of faith. But we commit to a way of life. And that way of life has certain costs built into it in this society that are going to shift us into certain directions that will give us great rewards if we apply ourselves. We don't ever want to get into the frame of mind of thinking that because God's way is as it is, in this culture today, it blocks us off, leads us into a dead-end street. That would be negative thinking, and that would be thinking that is not full of faith, because there are great rewards to this way of life.

Many, many great rewards. And yet, as we live through the phases and the ages of our life, children are going to come and grow up, leave, and we age, and our lives change, and other things, because of being older, perhaps, will come upon us. Or at times, maybe even unexpectedly, a crisis of health will come up, no matter how old we might be. And sickness and disease can test us. A child born with a disability, an unexpected, untimely illness that will test us and our faith and our confidence and our hope, and will test even at times how far we will go with God. And in those moments, any one of us can say, I know God can heal, I know God can deliver me, I know God can give me the strength, but if not, I'm still going to obey God, I'm still going to know Him, and I know that He will give me what it takes to endure and get through this trial. I was talking about hope in that sermon a few weeks ago. I went through Romans 5, and if you will, we'll just briefly turn there. In Romans 5 verse 3, because this is where Paul shows us that we will have challenges and trials, but there is a purpose in that. He says in Romans 5 in verse 1, Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we also have access by faith, and to this grace in which we stand and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations.

Hard to do, but Paul says we glory. We say, okay, thank you, God. And we grin and bear up under it.

The only way we can come to glory in that is by going through the steps that he now brings through, because he says we glory in these trials knowing that tribulation produces perseverance and perseverance character. We have to stay with it. We have to stay with God.

We have to stay with faith. That's what faith is doing. That's what Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were doing. They had a trial, and they stayed with it. They persevered. And as a result, in any trial, when we stay with it, we continue to pray, we continue to study, we continue to ask, God, what am I to learn? Show me. Teach me thy ways. That we eventually come to character, a stronger resolve, a stronger determination, a more buoyant, joyous outlook, knowing that God is with us through that particular time. That character then leads to hope, because we come out of that trial.

And we see that, and we look back on that. And hope doesn't disappoint because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts. Obviously, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were expressing something that we all have to come to as well, because we can say we have the hope that God is going to deliver us. But if not, we're still not going to cave in, bail out, take it into our own hands, use an excuse that we might come up with to justify bowing down to an image or bailing out of a trial. We're going to stay with God. We're not going to get angry. We're not going to get bitter. We're not going to walk away from God. We're going to stay with Him and see where He's going to take us and see what it is that we are to learn. That's where these three men were, and that's where we are in any trial. The story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, as I said, is one of the great ones. It sometimes becomes a bit trivialized as we tell it for a child in a little child storybook or a Sabbath school-type lesson or whatever. I don't mean to trivialize that. But it's one of these stories that's profound in what we are to take away from that, to live our lives. Here's one concluding lesson. To walk with God, to have a relationship with God, to walk with God, we sometimes have to walk through fire. 1 Timothy 1 Peter 4. To walk with God, we sometimes have to walk through fire. 1 Peter 4, verse 12.

Beloved, do not think it strange, he says, concerning the fiery trial, which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you. But rejoice to the extent. There again, Peter picks up the same theme that Paul did back in Romans 5. Don't think it strange. Rejoice! We'd much rather have a stress-free, problem-free life. I, as much as any one of us. But rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ's sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy. So don't think it strange. To walk with God, we sometimes have to walk through fire. Let's go back to Daniel 3.

We didn't finish the story, as I'm sure some of you have already noted.

Isn't he going to read the best part? What happens to these guys? Daniel 3.

Well, the story goes on. Nebuchadnezzar just went ballistic, and he threw them in.

They're bound up, and he heats it up seven times, it says in the story. It wasn't hot enough.

Throw on some more coal. He wasn't being very ecologically friendly, was he, at that point?

Certain EPA standards, I'm sure, were being violated there.

Verse 21, they were bound in their coats, trousers, turbans, and other garments, and cast in the midst of the burning fiery furnace. And because it was so urgent, and the heat was so much, even the man who threw them in got burned, got burned up.

Daniel 3. Some of you, I hear pages still turning.

Daniel 3. Okay.

And these three men in verse 23, "...Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego fell down bound into the midst of the burning fiery furnace." Then King Nebuchadnezzar was astonished, and he rose in haste, and he spoke, saying to his counselors, "...Did we not cast three men bound into the midst of the fire?" And they answered, and they said, "...True O king! Look," he answered, "...I say four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they're not hurt, and the farm of the fourth is like the Son of God." The fourth man in the fire. Was it God? Or like the Son of God?

We could discuss that until midnight.

The point is, they were protected, and there was a divine being there with them.

Perhaps it was the pre-incarnate Christ. Perhaps it was an angelic being.

The point is, they were protected, they were spared, and there was a fourth person there.

To walk with God, we sometimes have to walk through fire.

Now, you know, our walk with God takes many different paths in our life.

Often we're strolling with God through down a nice garden path. Well-tended, level, no big rocks to crawl over, no trees in front of it. It's broad, and it's open.

Sometimes our walk with God is in broad, sunlit uplands, and the way is clear, and it's pleasant, and it's a calm, pleasant spring day in our walk with God.

Sometimes our walk with God is down a yellow brick road. And you know that a yellow brick road had certain challenges and obstacles that came up, and certain decisions that had to be made. No matter where we are at any given time in our walk with God, let's make sure that every pathway, every walk, every phase prepares us for the day when we might have to walk through a time of trial. That everyone prepares us for our future, and for perhaps a more challenging time, no matter how pleasant it might be at any given moment in our life. Because that particular walk with God, through the valley of the shadow of death, as the Psalm says, will have its own interesting challenges. To walk with God, we sometimes will have to walk through fire. A second takeaway from this story is this. When you look in Daniel 3 and you go down to verse 26, Nebuchadnezzar says, went near the mouth of the furnace and he spoke, hey guys, servants of the most high God, come out, come here.

And then it says they all came out. Now think about this. When they were thrown in, they were bound up. They had to be thrown in, which means they couldn't even fall in, or hop up and fall in. They were thrown in. Now they're told, come out, and they come out. They come out, and it tells us here in verse 27 that on their 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. They hadn't been touched, but you have to assume that they came out on their own power. The ropes were gone. The fetters.

What had bound them up was gone, and they stood before the king.

I think there's a lesson there. Sometimes the ropes that bind us in our life can only be burned off and removed in a severe trial that might be a bit fiery, a bit unpleasant for us. What kind of ropes bind us? Sin. That's a chain that binds us. Fear, doubt, insecurity. What are your chains? What are the ropes that bind you emotionally, bind you up spiritually, and keep you from walking with God or having a life that can be of service to God and to your fellow man? There are many that are put on us by environment, society, our own choosing.

And sometimes it might take a fiery trial to release us from that bondage. It's a wonderful story.

It's a story that needs no other stories to emphasize and to be told to illustrate it because of the imagery and the depth of what we are being taught right here.

These three men had faith in the moment. They believed God just as you and I have faith, and we believe God. And they said to Nebuchadnezzar, look, the God we serve can deliver us.

He's a great God. He's a loving, kind, merciful God. He's a God of judgment.

He's a God of exactness, of expectation, but He's my God. And He's able to deliver me through this time and through any trial. But if not, the consequences of obedience and worshiping that God, I'm going to continue to do it. And that's faith. That's faith in the moment.

And these are questions and these are illustrations for all of us to consider about our faith.

But if not...