DANIEL - Chapter 3
Daniel – Chapter 3
“THROUGH FAITH – QUENCHED THE VIOLENCE OF FIRE”
Pastor Carolyn Sissom
Sunday Evening, October 16, 2011
This is a powerful chapter of faith of three Hebrew men. Through their faith, they esteemed worship of the One True God greater than death at a tyrant’s hand.
In Hebrews 11:33, these men of faith are spoken, of, “Who through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, and quenched the violence of fire.”
When the three friends would not worship the gold statute, they stood before the King without defense.
3:14:
“Nebuchadnezzar spoke and said to them,
Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that you do not serve my gods,
nor worship the golden image which I have set up?”
They trusted themselves wholly to their God. (Vs. 16-18) “Shadrach, Meshack, and Abednego, answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful (do not need) l to answer you in this matter. If it be so, 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. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods, nor worship the golden image which you have set up.”
This is the same faith of Esther, “If I perish, I perish”.
There comes a time when we must stand in what we believe, whether we see God move for us or He does not, He is still God. If we perish, He is still God, and there is no other.
All of the heroes of Faith in Hebrews 11 won divine approval by means of their faith.
In chapter 2:47, Nebuchadnezzar declared: “Daniel’s “God was the God of gods, and Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets”. However, Nebuchadnezzar remained a polytheist, cleaving to the gods he had known from infancy rather than devote himself to the One True God. Babylon was full of idols. Those who forsake the only living God will set up many gods because each one is so unsatisfying. So. Nebuchadnezzar added Daniel’s God to his menagerie of gods.
Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar that he was king because the Lord had chosen him and ordained it to be so. “(2:37) “You O king are a king of kings; for the God of heaven has given you a kingdom, power, and strength and glory.” Even with this prophetic declaration, Nebuchadnezzar did not recognize the Lord as the One God.
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In Chapter 3:1, we learn the king built an image of gold. It was ninety feet high and nine feet wide. Scripture does not tell us of what or whom the image represented. Some speculate that it was an image of him or the image he saw in his dream.
(3:3) “The princes, the governors, captains, judges, treasurers, counselors, sheriffs, and all rules of the provinces were gathered together to dedicate the image that Nebuchadnezzar had set up; and they stood before it…A herald cried aloud, to you it is commanded, O people, nations, and languages, at the time you hear the sound of the cornet, flute, harp, sackbut, psaltery, dulcimer, and all kinds of music, you fall down and worship the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king as set up. Whoever will not fall down and worship shall at the same hour be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace.”
The Chaldeans came near and accused the Jews. In verse 13, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego are named. However, the accusation is against the entire Jewish race over which Nebuchadnezzar was king. We ran into these same Chaldeans described as the wisest men of Babylon in Chapters 1 & 2. Daniel saved them from having their heads chopped off by interpreting the King’s dream. Now we see the envy of the Chaldeans manifesting against the gifts of the Spirit which are in Daniel and his friends. The Chaldeans came from the vicinity between the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers (Mesopatania/Iraq).
Another witness that the Old Testament Saints did have the Holy Spirit indwelling. (4:8b) “Daniel came in before me…in whom is the Spirit of the Holy God.”
If the three friends had not made their stand in faith to Nebuchadnezzar, the entire Jewish race would have come under the declaration of death in a burning fiery furnace. We see satan’s plan then to destroy the entire Jewish race. Hitler was an extension of this edict when he killed so many Jews in the Holocaust and burned their bodies in ovens.
The identification of the three as men of Judah or some Jews, meaning ‘the foreign race’ help to build a picture of disaffection. They accuse them of paying no attention to the king. Stress is laid on the king’s goodness to the three and their disloyalty as well as their religious stance; they are portrayed as rejecting Nebuchadnezzar’s values. Yet he would not punish the three men unheard so he does have regard for them. His questions concentrated on the religious aspect. He still offered a chance for the accused to prove their loyalty, under duress.
3:15b: “Who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?
“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.”
3:19: Then Nebuchadnezzar full of fury…commanded that they should heat the furnace seven times hotter than it was usually heated. He commanded the mightiest men that were in his army to bind Shadrach, Meshack and Abednego and to cast them into the burning fiery furnace”
The maximum heat would mean not a trace should be left of the men, not even identifiable ashes. Burning human remains was reprehensible and so a crime for which the Lord himself brings justice. Amos 2:1: “Thus says the Lord, for three transgressions of Moab, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because he burned the bones of the king of Edom into lime. I will send a fire upon Moab, and it shall devour the palaces of Kirjoth; and Moab shall die with tumult, with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet.”
(3:22b) “The fire was exceeding hot; the flame of the fire killed the men that took up Shadrach, Meshack, and Abednego. These men were only the instruments of cruelty. Nebuchadnezzar’s was the greater sin. He himself is reserved for a further reckoning.
The King could see into the furnace through a stoke-hole or vent at the side. The three had been thrown in through an upper opening whence the heat shot out to kill their guards. Nebuchadnezzar alone saw the fourth figure.
3:25: “He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.”
Commentaries like to theorize about the fourth man. If the evil king said he looked like the Son of God, I would say it was the Son of God. His name is Jesus. The Aramaic word for “Son” here means “Son”; the angel of the Lord came down into the furnace. Nebuchadnezzar here says, “”Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent his angel, and delivered His servants that trusted in Him.”
Those that suffer for Christ have his gracious presence with them in their sufferings, even in the fiery furnace, even in the valley of the shadow of death, and even there we need fear no evil.
You gotta’ give it to Nebuchadnezzar; he now has enough fear of the Lord to call them out of the furnace. (3:26) “He spoke and said, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, you servants of the Most High God, come forth, and come here. Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, came forth out of the midst of the fire”
They had not received the least damage by the fire. There was not as much as a hair of their head singed. Their clothes did not change color, nor smell of fire, much less were their bodies scorched or blistered. THE FIRE HAD NO POWER OVER THEM. The power of the Son of God “quenched the violence of flames”.
The Chaldeans worshipped the fire, as a sort of image of the sun, so that, in restraining the fire now, God put contempt, not only upon their king, but upon their god too.
It seems that Nebuchadnezzar, the polytheist, now gives glory to the Most High God over another realm. In Chapter 2, he gave him glory as the God of gods, Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets. Now he worships God in another dimension. He makes another decree. “That every people, nation, and language, which speak anything amiss against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego shall be cut in pieces, and their houses shall be made a dunghill; because there is no other God that can deliver after this sort.”
He does not concede that there is no other God. He simply believes that the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego has the power over fire, God of gods, Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets.
Now you would think if the Lord had revealed Himself to anyone in this measure of power they would give up all other gods. Not so with this polytheist. He still continues to cover his basis by worshiping other gods.
In Chapter 4, we will see the Lord’s final dealing with this King whom he made great by destiny in the annals of God’s plan and purposes for the kingdoms of this world.
Preached by: Pastor Carolyn Sissom
Eastgate Ministries, Inc.
Scripture from K.J.V. – references from Matthew Henry and F. F. Bruce Bible Commentary- A. R. Millard – comments and conclusions are my own and not meant to reflect the views of those from whom I have gleaned.