God Delivers

now if you are ready, when you hear the sound of the horn, just like everyone else, and the pipe, and the lyre, and the trigon, the harp, the bagpipe, and every kind of music, fall down and worship the image that I have made, it will be well and good. But if you do not worship, then you shall immediately be cast into the burning fire. Who is able to deliver you?

He's made a command, he's given his consequence, And, and, and what's fascinating here is we, we, we see he's being consistent and we see here, he's introducing already the second theme. But before we go to that second theme of deliverance, I want to kind of step back and just think about worship for a second with you. If, if for these three young men, they know they cannot bow down to this image. There is no other God, but Yahweh, there's only one God worthy of worship. And there we cannot make an image of him. And we should ask, why? Why can we not make an image of him? Well, whatever image we try to make, it's not going to represent him well. We're going to misrepresent God with every image we make, but even more so, we have to realize God has already provided an image. You and I, human beings. That's the grand declaration of Genesis 1. We are the images of God. We are meant to know him, reflect him, bring him praise, bring him honor, represent him in this world, bring about his rule and goodness and order to creation. We're designed for worship. We have to just appreciate that that's one of the most fundamental truths about who God has made us to be those who are practicing and participating fully in worship constantly as his image bearers. You see, for a human to worship another image is not only defaming God because that image doesn't really represent God, it's actually dehumanizing us. We're denying something essential about who we are by choosing to bring about some other image. To think God has made his image, well, then those images, well, we're going to start making images. That's backwards and sideways at the same time. There's a theological term for that. It's called woppy job. God has invited us into this very honorable position to be his image, to worship him. That's why it's out of bounds for us make images. Now, as we look throughout the text, we're going to see two words associated with worship. One is fall down, the other is serve. I want to think about those two words for a little bit as we think about worship. Bowing down is the right response to the right God. Matthew 28, the disciples fall down before Jesus and worship him before the Great Commission. Philippians 2, Paul declares every knee shall bow Before Jesus, in Revelation 5, all living creatures bow down and worship the Lamb who is worthy of worship. There's a way in which everyone will be forced to worship, but it's not by threat of a fiery furnace. It's by just seeing our Creator for who He is in His glory and holiness. There's not gonna be any debate about it, any question about it. There's a way in which when we see him as he is, there's no other response but to bow down. I wrestled with this. I remember from C.S. Lewis in his screw tape letters, he kind of pretended, all right, what would a demon say to another demon, kind of looking at the nature of sin. And one of them always stood out to me, and it was the demon talking to their demon.

Make them think their posture in prayer doesn't matter.

All right, C.S. Lewis isn't, you know, in our canon. But what a... We see that in Scripture, posture doesn't seem to matter. Throughout Scripture, we see bowing down, and... I'm just gonna share... I was convicted. I don't know the last time I bowed down before God was. I don't know the last time I actually bit my knees down as I was wrestling with this. And I gather, is this because I'm lazy? Yes. Is it because I'm arrogant? Yes. It certainly isn't because I've become to some respectable behavior or position that I shouldn't bow my knees anymore. No. The more someone grows closer to Christ, the more quick they should be to bow their knees, right? The more we know who God is, the more eager we should be to bow down before Him. That posture, I think, helps the heart. A stiff neck doesn't help the heart. But a posture of bowing down and kneeling down and prostration before the Lord, I believe, is a way in which God helps us train our own hearts towards Him. The second heart word for, for related to worship is serve, which is actually just another word for worship throughout much of scripture. As we look ahead, I want it to be clear. We're all serving. That's how I know we're all worshiping. We're all serving something. We're all spending our time and energy investing in something. And if, when you, when you look at where you're spending most of your time, check your calendars, have your cell phone tell you how much time you're spending doing what you're doing. And your money, those are your key resources. You can start identifying where your worship is, who you worship, how you worship. We're always worshiping. We need to be very clear. The way we're investing ourselves in direction and commitment is revealing who we're worshiping. The question is, are we coming together and worshiping God? This right now is a corporate worship service and the whole point of this is that we come together and there's a way in which we're being trained together to center God's word and sing his word and hear his word together and pray his word. But this is two hours, less than. How much are we worshiping outside of this that has more effect on our heart? How are we serving the God who we're supposed to be worshiping? If we step back into the text, verses one to 15, the key idea here is worship has been commanded and threatened, they've been accused. We hear the king, he's doubling down, he's making clear, you will have to worship. Who can deliver you out of my hands? Well, that is a significant question that's going to direct our second half. Deliverance is the second half of our text. And the first thing we see is a confession of the God who can and will deliver. The confession of the God who can and will deliver. Listen to what Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered in verses 16 to 18.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter.

This is the king of Babylon. That's pretty bold. He did ask, is it true? I believe the answer to that question is we have no need to answer you. We answer to someone else when it comes to who we worship and how we worship. Remember, he gave an ultimatum with two conditional statements, if, if. Notice their answer is presented in two conditional statements, if and if. Verse 17, if this be so, that is, if we must be thrown into the fiery furnace, if this be so, your punishment will go through.

Our God, whom we serve, is able to deliver us from the burning, fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king.

He asked the question. Who can deliver you? If you're going to throw us in that fiery furnace, we are confessing our God, Yahweh. He is able to deliver us from the fiery furnace. He will deliver us out of your hand. They go further.

But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.

If we aren't thrown in the fire first, we're not going to worship these false gods Now Let's linger here verse 17 Our God whom we serve our God whom we worship He's able to deliver. He will deliver. I Have to assume these three young men have have heard of Yahweh and what he did in Egypt What Josh read earlier from Exodus 15, the grand song of declaration of God who delivered Israel out of slavery and punishment and death, out of Egypt, through the Red Sea and into His promised land. There's a deliverance from the place of slavery and into the place of promised land and to worship. They will only worship and serve this God who is able to deliver. Now, the king, King Nebuchadnezzar, this question, who can deliver you out of my hand? What a question. If we go back to verse 1, he's made an image. Go back to verse 15, the image that I made. He has great confidence in what he's going to do with his own hands. He hired artisans to do this, but what he's going to produce. He has great confidence in his hands and how powerful they are. Notice these three U's have a great confidence in God and what He's able to do. The king's hands were created by Yahweh. The king's hands were elevated to have royal power by Yahweh. God can do with the king's hands whatever God wants to do. If God wants to play quit hitting yourself game with king Nebuchadnezzar's hands, He can do it. The kind of power that the King assumes in his hands is so ridiculous in light of God almighty. God is able to deliver and God will deliver. There's a confession of his power and his will with these three young men. Our God can do it. Now verse 18 is just a further commitment. Know this King, that if you do not throw us in the fire and furnace, we will not ever bow down to your We will not ever bow down to your worship. Now, this is a bold moment. My reading is by saying, oh king, there is still a sense in which they're not trying to protest everything the king does. Again, chapter one, Daniel and these three men did not protest everything the king did. They drew lines on what God had commanded and what God had not commanded, but this is a line. God said you can't worship another God, you cannot worship an image. These three men show incredible faith. And I don't believe it was developed right here in this moment, I believe they've been training for this by knowing God and seeking to know him more. So we have a showdown. The king's hand or God's hand. What was going to happen? Who's mightier? The king is asked, what kind of God is going to deliver you to my hands? And they're saying, our God is greater than your hand. They confessed God is able and will. Our second point under confession, a confession of the God who has delivered. That's verses 19 to 27. There's a few scenes here connected. Notice back in 13, he had furious rage. Then in 19, he was filled with fury. He's gotten more angry. It goes from being accused, he's heard an accusation, they're not obeying, to now they've just said, we don't care what you do, we're not obeying. So he's filled with fury. The expression of his face changed. He commands, these men must be bound, thrown in the fire, and let's turn it up seven times hotter. We see somewhat of an impulsivity. You know, there's an impulsivity of the king. We saw earlier where Daniel asked him to do why the haste. There's an impulse. There's a hastiness. What happens in verses 18 to 23 is He gets so angry, he turns the fire up, and the furnace would be a big kind of building with an opening where he could see the fire, and then where the smoke comes out on top, and well, they're gonna take him to the top. And it got so hot, our text says, verse 20,

because the king's order was so urgent, the furnace overheated, and the flame of the fire killed those men who took Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to the top.

It was so hot, the guys were supposed to take them and drop them in. They died from the fire without even getting into it, just close enough. So what's going to happen? Those emotions are important. He was furious, enraged. He was filled with fury. Now that he's done what he promised to do with the threat, he has taken these men, bound and thrown in the fire. Notice verse 24 introduces another emotion.

Then King Nebuchadnezzar was astonished.

He's amazed and rose up in haste. He says to his counselors, how many guys we throw in there? Wasn't it just three that we threw in there? They answered and said, yes, King, It's true, O king, there was only three. Verse 25, Nebuchadnezzar says, but I see four. The king is seeing something that's changed his emotion, his posture, everything about him. Now notice verse 25, it's amazing what the king sees. He has a hard time even believing it at first. He has to ask the counselors, we only threw three, but I see four. If you remember, the king had a great amount of trust in his hands earlier. The tension now is, is he gonna trust his hands or his eyes? His hands made an idol. His hand said, no one can deliver anyone out of my hands. But now his eyes say, uh-oh, something's going on in this furnace. What's gonna happen? And notice, four men, unbound, walking in the fire, not hurt, and the fourth one appears like a son of the God. There's five miracles if we really take account here. There's four, not three. They're unbound. Nothing else is going to burn on these men. Sorry, it gets revealed a little later, but only the bindings are done. They don't get burned up. So the fourth person must have unbound them. They're walking around and they're not hurt. And going back to that fourth one, he looks like a son of God, or the son of the gods. This is incredible because the king declared you must worship or be burned in the fire. And they said, no, our God will deliver us. And now he's seeing something that he doesn't understand. Well, let's try to answer that burning question everyone has. Who is this fourth person? There's two declarations about this fourth figure, which will be great for you to discuss as fodder over lunch today. Verse 25, the king describes him as appearing like a son of the gods. All right, son of the gods probably has more of a pagan background. I don't believe this is kind of the first, you know, fruits of a Christian Trinitarian theology of father, God, the father, God, the son, God, the Holy Spirit. I don't believe this is a first confession of that. Some have said this is a Christophany, that is an appearance of Christ before the Incarnation, maybe an appearance of the Holy Spirit. As if, you know, the specific point being a person of the Trinity present there with them. Possible. I don't know if we should gather that from the Declaration of the Sons of God, though. In verse 28, the king will say, the angels An angel from God has saved them. Angels function differently with the pagan religion of the Babylonian world versus the true God. Daniel also says in Daniel 6.22 that it was an angel of the Lord that kept the lion's mouth shut. So those two stories are parallel, so we think they probably are functioning similar. So you have either, it is a appearance of Jesus, that's kind of the most common option on this side of God's presence, or it's an angel of the Lord executing God's will, which angels do come and proclaim the message of God and exercise the power of God for his purposes. Those are the two primary positions, feel free to choose. I believe he's an angel, but if I'm wrong, well, I look forward to being in heaven and corrected that day. I want us to pull back and just see the clear declaration. The king thinks there's no one who can do anything about what he's declared. God's presence, either via angel or God himself, has done what these men have said he would do. He's protected them. He's cared for them. He didn't protect him from going into the fire. He was simply making his presence known therein. the fire. God is able to deliver. Verse 26.

Then King Nebuchadnezzar came near the door of the burning fire furnace and declared, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out and come here.

We see that there's an understanding. He's starting to recognize I've been wrong about what I said about who can deliver. I've been wrong about the command towards these three young men.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came out of the fire, and the satraps, and the prefects, and the governors, and the king's counselors gathered together.

And they saw, again, the eyes are important here. He saw the four men. Now they all see

the fire had not had any power over their bodies. The hair of their heads was not singed. Their cloaks were not harmed. No smell of fire had come upon them.

That's quite a miracle, isn't it? To be that close to a fire and not have any smell of smoke. There seems to be a recognition. You are the Most High God. Because you are able to deliver. The confession, the most high God, the service most high God, you come out. And again, this is not that far off from what he said in the previous section or the previous chapter, the God of gods. There is a confession of the greatness of God. But this is what's I think sad about in this section. He in no way associates himself with this God. Your God is the most high God. Your God was able to do what you said he could do. Your God delivered you. He has a distance to God. There's a confession, but it is in no way related to repentance. There's a confession of the most high God, the one, the highest God, no, the only true God. There's an acknowledgement, but not a belief from what we can see. other than he believes he was wrong at some point. He calls a group of officials together, they see all that has happened and nothing was harmed. And finally, our last point, praise to the God who delivers. Verse 28, Nebuchadnezzar answered, having seen the fourth man, having seen their unharmed, having now seen there's not a smell, there's nothing of fire about them,

King Nebuchadnezzar answered and said, blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

Our last section had a prayer of praise and thanksgiving of Daniel that started with blessed. There's a way in which we bless God, and it's a word of praise. There is a word of praise on the king's mouth to the one God, the God who's delivered, the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And then it was there, verse 28,

who sent his angel and delivered his servants, those who trusted him, and set aside the king's command and yielded up their bodies rather than serve and worship any god except their own.

That's an incredible acknowledgement. You know, the king somewhat acknowledged that he was wrong. These guys ignored what I said, they worshiped their god, But again, notice how distant he is from that God. He's acknowledging that God has power, but he's, it's their God who did this for them. Then verse 29,

therefore I make a decree, any people, nation or language that speaks anything against the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego shall be torn limb from limb and their houses laid in ruins.

This king likes to make orders regarding worship. It opens with saying, you have to bow down to this image or else you'll be thrown in the fiery furnace. Now he's saying, if anyone says anything against their God, they'll be torn limb from limb and their house laid in ruins. The reason why is what should stand out.

For there is no other God who's able to rescue in this way.

He's had to say something regarding the worship or honor. He's created a blasphemy law for the God who alone can deliver this way. Going back to verse 15, he asked the question,

and who is the God who will deliver you out of my hands?

Well, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they answer him. What's kind of amazing is now the king has even given his own answer. This God, the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, he alone can rescue in this way. To reflect upon the change that does happen and the change that doesn't happen, there's two warnings, I think, as we consider in Abagoneser. We need to think about those who have a zealous commitment to a false god who cannot deliver. There are millions of people around the world who are zealously religiously falling down before an idol, an image, a false God. The Muslims, Mormons, Hindus, Jehovah's Witnesses, many others are religiously committed to falling down and serving a God who will not save them. And that should burden us. It should burden us for the glory of God. It should burden us for them made in the image of God. It should burden us that they have such fervor and zeal for God who cannot deliver them. They must hear of Jesus who alone can save them from their sins. There should be a burden for the kind of religious emphasis that many have that is false and will not save them. That's a problem out there. The second warning is for those who have made a profession of faith of the true God who can deliver, but do not worship him. See, these two things have to go together. The God who's worthy of worship is the God who can deliver you. And the God who delivers you, delivers you to worship him. Those two have to go together. We're not saved from sin to keep sinning. We're saved from sin to now come into the presence of God and worship Him and know Him and make Him known. This is the problem in here. Have we made a profession of faith and been slow to bend the knee? Have we been slow to really make a commitment to know Him and to seek to pray to Him and know Him in His glory? There's a way in which we can too often easily think, I want to know his grace, but not his glory. No, there's no way to know Jesus in his grace without his glory, or his glory without his grace. Are we professing a deliverance without really worshiping? Church, as we conclude, who is worthy of worship? Only him is able to save. God our Father. Son and Holy Spirit. We cannot lose sight of how connected this is in that Jesus is the one who will forever be praised as the Lamb of God because He alone has saved us from our sin. What's really amazing, we think about the fullness of the Gospel. God created us in this incredible position as His image bearers. What an honor position we have. And we forsook him and decided to worship anything and everything but God. It isn't that God has said, worship me or else with a threat, you'll go into the fire furnace. No, he's just. If we remain in sin, he will bring his judgment. We've exchanged his glory for something less glorious. We might not have golden statues, but we're always worshiping something. Now, when we think about the command of Nebuchadnezzar, he tries to threaten people into worshiping an image. When we think about our God, Yahweh, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, He does not threaten us into worship. He doesn't use some kind of militant brute force to say, worship me or else. What's amazing about the God who delivers is He woos us with love. He comes down to us to show us how much He loves us. Jesus Christ came to be like us. To show us He loves us by laying His life down for us. He loves us by dying for us even while we were sinners, worshiping other gods. He woos us with His love towards us and invites us into His love. He calls us to himself with mercy and kindness. What a powerful love he has. It opens up our eyes and our hearts and changes us. But there is no worshipper. You'll die. No, if you remain in your sin, you will be judged. The invitation is repent. Come to the God who is truly worthy of worship. Come to the God who is worthy of worship and can deliver you out of your sin so that you can know Him and worship Him. He's so kind to meet us where we are in our false worship. He's so kind to die for us while we're false worshipers. He is so kind to then draw us up to know Him more truly and clearly. There is no threat. There's a warning. If you remain in sin, you will die and face the God who is just, and there is worse than a fiery furnace waiting. There's a warning. It's just what's gonna happen. But here's the invitation. Believe in Jesus Christ today, who died for you, to forgive you, to deliver you. He is able to deliver you. He is worthy of your worship. Will you pray with me? Father, we come before you, thankful that you've made yourself known as the one glorious God that we long to see. Lord, forgive us for treating worship as something pedestrian or something we have to stop living life to go do. Lord, pray that we would see worship as something we're doing all the time. And this is the time we come together and get built up and trained, ready to worship more faithfully. Lord, we pray you would help us to trust you the deliverer. You would help us to trust you as the one who's worthy of worship. You would help us to know how to obey your good, clear commands of how to worship. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.