Daniel Chapter 3 1993

you'll Chapter three as we continue our journey through the Bible between chapters two and three there is probably an interval of time some commentators suggest as short as two years others suggest a time of maybe about eleven years about 10 years after Nebuchadnezzar came into power there was a revolt against his reign which he put down personally and some believe that this event may have followed that revolt in that he was trying to re-establish himself as that power and that authority over the people and thus this great celebration with this giant image of gold there are some commentators that suggest there's as much as 21 years intervening between chapters 2 and 3 it is quite possible that the eleven year figure is the of course you know split the difference and you usually can come well you're closer to the truth probably always when you're in the middle you know you get an extreme and the truth usually lies somewhere in the middle it is possible that by the time this happened he had gone back and conquered Jerusalem had totally destroyed the city had left it in shambles and had brought Zedekiah as a captive back to Babylon and they usually attributed their victories to their gods and thus the stronger God was the one that gave victory in battle and if your God could not defend you in battle then he was a lesser or weaker God now you remember after Daniel had interpreted the vision Nebuchadnezzar made the proclamation concerning the god of Daniel there is no other God like the god of Daniel however history shows us that Nebuchadnezzar was a great devotee of Marduk the Babylonian God and many believe that this great idol that he had constructed in the plains of Dura was a image of Marduk the God of War the Babylonian God of War who Nebuchadnezzar had expressed tremendous devotion towards in some of the Babylonian records Nebuchadnezzar the King made an image of gold whose height was sixty cubits or ninety feet if you have an 18 inch cubit or 111 feet of you are using the 22 inch cubed and of six cubits breadth the number 60 and the number six does that sort of give you any clues to anything six is the number of man and we know that there is a man of sin that is going to come and he is going to make an image of himself that way they will put in the Holy of Holies of the rebuilt Temple in Jerusalem and all of the world will be commanded to worship this image and if anyone refuses to worship the image he will be put to death now the number of the man that him that hath wisdom understand the number is the number of a man in the number is 666 so in this sixty and six surely those spiritists pointing us toward the future so this image that Nebuchadnezzar made and demanded that everyone bow down to it with the threat of death for refusing to do so is a type of the image that will be made in the Tribulation Period the abomination of desolation that Daniel speaks about when they as they set this image of the Anti Christ in the Holy of Holies in Matthew 24 Jesus said and when you see the abomination of desolation that was spoken of by Daniel the prophet standing in the Holy Place them flee to the wilderness appear on the housetop don't even stop to get your jacket and so this is a type of never be good as it becomes the type of the Antichrist the image becomes the type of the image that will be put in the temple in the latter days that will when it is established will provoke the judgment of God the Great Tribulation Period upon the earth it is the abomination which causes the desolation of the earth in the Great Tribulation Period now he set this up in the plains of Dura which is about 12 miles outside of the city of Babylon the purpose being that standing there in the plain made of gold it was probably a wooden frame covered by gold but can you imagine it 90 feet high and nine feet wide it must have been a a colossus out there about nine stories high out there in that flat plain you'd be able to see it for miles the the shining gold of this great image that was there it is possible that this image represents a defiance of God on the part of Nebuchadnezzar and the dream that was interpreted by Daniel you remember that in Nebuchadnezzar's dream he saw this great Colossus this great image that had a head of gold chest of silver stomach of brass legs of iron feet of iron and clay and the interpretation of that dream was that you bout you Nebuchadnezzar are the head of gold but your kingdom is going to be replaced by the medo-persian the the chest of silver which will fall to the grease and it's over the governments that will rule over man and this could be a statement by Nebuchadnezzar saying Babylon will never fall the fact that he made it of all gold from head to toe could be a defiance of the interpretation of his dream and that he is in essence saying by this image the Babylonian Kingdom will last forever we as we move into the next chapter will see that God had to deal with the pride of Nebuchadnezzar and in dealing with the pride of Nebuchadnezzar in allowing him this madness the purpose was the madness would continue until he knew that it was God who established the kingdoms and set over the kingdoms those whom he would so it would appear that from the fact that it is of all gold that this is a defiance of God's declaration that the Babylonian kingdom was going to fall Nebuchadnezzar the King sent to gather together the princes and the governors and the captains and the judges the treasurers the counselors the sheriffs all of the rulers of the province to come to the dedication of the EM each which Nebuchadnezzar the King had set up so all of the important people of the kingdom this is this is a governmental kind of a extravaganza and all of the important people within the government thee in the United States that would include I guess just about over half the population now one did and it seems like so many people working for the government some way or the other and we have to pay their salaries to badger us then the princes and the governors the captains the judges treasurer's counselors sheriff's and all the rulers of the provinces were gathered together onto the dedication of this image that nebuchadnezzar the king had set up and they stood before the image that nebuchadnezzar had set up so you can you can see this great multitude of people around this image that stands tall there in the plain above everyone and then the herald cried to you it is commanded o people nations and languages universal that at what time you hear the sound of the cornet flute harp sackbut psaltery dulcimer and all kinds of music now among these instruments there are three of them with greek names and thus some of the Bible critics say well you know was written at a later period during the Grecian period because of the three Greek names of the instruments but so often when an instrument is taken from one nation to another it maintains its original name we have a lot of words that we have in English that come from other languages but they are they are borrowed from the other language because the product is came from that so they Coco that isn't an English word but we use it and we know what it means but it came from where Coco came from and so it's true of a lot of different products that we have cinnamon is not really a English word but it is a Malaysian word of belief and it just is because it comes from Malaysia and that's we take the name of the product or and and use it so with this three of the instruments probably originated in Greece and maintained there you know people who want to criticise the Bible will pick on the most ridiculous things and try and build a big case against the Bible but when you really begin to examine it with any kind of common sense the whole thing just breaks down now at the sound of all of this music it was ordered that they were to fall down and worship the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the King had set up if the image was of mardukas God then he is demanding that they all worship is God Marduk and whoso falleth not down and worship a--the shall the same hour be cast into the midst of the burning fiery furnace so you really don't have much of a choice you either worship or you are placed in the burning fiery furnace Nebuchadnezzar wasn't to be messed with you remember in the previous chapter where he had the dream and he ordered the fellows to interpret it and the threat was either you interpret it or you know you're gonna be killed and here either you worship or you're gonna be thrown in the burning fiery furnace he just not a fellow to be messed with therefore at that time when all the people heard the sound of the cornet flute harp sackbut psaltery and all kinds of music that all of the people the nations and the languages fell down and worshiped the golden image that nebuchadnezzar the king except what a what a glorious moment for nebuchadnezzar here he has made this great golden image and this multitude of people all over there in the plains of Dura bowing at the south and probably beautiful music and all so worship accompanied by glorious music aesthetically it was probably a very moving experience you know you can have solely experiences in worshiping God the people often misinterpret as spiritual experiences they touch your psyche they touch your soul it's moving we must be careful about psychic experiences and misinterpreting them as spiritual experiences there is something that is very awesome about a great Cathedral and the chanting choirs and the candles and the wrestling rows and the incense it touches our senses and you can you can have a very sense of of reverence and worship and off but it can be purely in the area of the senses rather than the area of the spirit in the same token the Pentecostals have all kinds of emotion the releasing of emotions through shouting and and and and waving their hands or through beat and so forth and and you can get into a real worked up emotional state that they interpret as a spiritual experience oh the Lord was really in in the place tonight you know it was so glorious you know they didn't even get a chance to preach it was just wonderful you know the way things just were so exciting and everybody was all excited but it can be a purely soulish experience rather than a spiritual experience it's touched you in a sensual or soulish way rather than in a spiritual way and this oftentimes happened and people misinterpret these soulish experiences for spiritual experiences now the Word of God is alive and powerful and it is sharper than a two-edged sword and it's able to divide asunder between the bone and the Morrow and the soul and the spirit now there is a very close tie between the soul and spirit between your emotions and your spirit there is a close tie and many times it is difficult to discern between what is so leash and what is truly spiritual the Word of God has that capacity and the Word of God will feed your spirit and that's why it's so important to have the Word of God because that's what ministers to the Spirit and it's able to divide asunder between what is so leash and what is spiritual and so this was no doubt a very soul ishii experience I mean this would be the beautiful music and all of these people bowing down to this colossal image there no doubt moving touching so leisurely very moving exciting but something went wrong to spoil the total effect where for at that time and and you see his reaction sort of pointed to the fact that it was solely you know there are a lot of people that have pseudo spiritual experiences or they do things on a pseudo spiritual level as well we are so spiritual you know we're gonna do this you know and and on a pseudo spiritual thing they excuse a lot of soul each activities a lot of a lot of things that are totally devilish and wrong attitudes that are wrong but they excuse them on the base of well we're we're setting spiritual standards and and then they they do these things that are that are absolutely wrong and and so leash and and the the reaction that a person has read II reveals the spirit of the person here he is the great leader of the worship of Marduk's demanding the world the worship is God but now these three Hebrew boys have violated his commandment so at that time there were certain Chaldeans who came there and they accused the Jews they spoke and said to the king Nebuchadnezzar O king live forever you King have made a decree that every man shall hear the sound of the cornet flute harp sackbut psaltery and dulcimer and all kinds of music shall fall down and worship the golden image and whoever does not fall down and worship that he should be cast into the middle of the burning fiery furnace now there are certain Jews whom you have set over the affairs of the province of Babylon you remember that when Daniel was promoted to this position of Honor then he requested that Nebuchadnezzar also set these fellows over the provinces and and and Nebuchadnezzar acceded to Daniel's request so there are these certain Jews who you have set over the affairs of the province of Babylon Shadrach Meshach and Abednego and these men O king have not regarded you and they do not serve your God's nor worship the golden image which you have set up then Nebuchadnezzar being spiritual said well that's you know too bad I'm sorry about that let's pray for them no in his rage and fury commanded to bring Shadrach Meshach and Abednego and so they brought these men before the king and Nebuchadnezzar spoke and said unto them is it true oh Sh a Drac Meshach and Abednego do you not serve my God's nor worship the golden image which I have set up now if you are ready then at what time you hear the sound of the cornet flute harp sackbut man they got this one in there several times then thing and all kinds of music that you fall down and worship the image which I have made then well if I'm gonna give you a second chance I'm gonna let the musicians play again I'm gonna give you another chance and if you will bow down and worship then you know fine it's all okay but if you worship not you shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning fiery furnace and now the challenge who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands the challenge in the end of the last chapter Nebuchadnezzar had acknowledged the god of Daniel that there is no God that he is a God of gods a Lord of Kings a revealer of Secrets but now he is challenging and saying who is that God who shall deliver you out of my hands so Shadrach Meshach and Abednego answered and said unto the king o Nebuchadnezzar we are not careful or hesitant to answer you in this matter if it be so in response to your challenge our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace our God is able in Romans chapter 4 as Paul gives to us the keys to Abraham's faith four keys first of all he considered not his own body he was about a hundred years old nor yet the deadness of Sarah's womb in other words the first step to faith is not looking at the human difficulties secondly he staggered not at the promise of God through unbelief many times we find ourselves staggering at the promises of God and because we stagger at the promises of God we decide to take things into our own hands we better do something about this because I don't know that God is able to defend me and thus I better build up my own defence I have found that if I determined to defend myself the Lord lets me and that's not good better that he defends me the third step being strong in the faith he gave glory to God in other words he started thanking the Lord for the son by faith though there was no evidence yet that he was gonna have a son I always like to sort of put myself in the picture to just find out how I would react and respond and I like to see myself walking from Hebron to bear Sheva seeing a tent out there and all kinds of herds and flocks being attended by a disturbance on the hillsides and this is quite an elaborate tent and sitting out under an oak is an old man and as I pass by he calls me over it says come on over and rest a bit you know and as I sit down with him he calls and he says Sara fix some tea and cookies honey we have some guests and so I talked to this old man and he seems to be a fascinating old man but as I'm talking with him all of a sudden he seems oblivious to my being there and he just starts worshiping the Lord Zolo Lord you're so good oh thank you thank you Lord you're so wonderful and then he talks to me some more and pretty soon he gets lost in this business of praising God again until finally my curiosity gets the best friend say oh man you seem to be awfully happy about something what's going on it's wonderful I'm gonna have a son you're gonna have a son you're pretty old aren't you oh yeah I'm about a hundred well how old's your wife about ninety you're gonna have a son who I can see why you're excited that is unusual how long you been married about 75 years or more well how many other children do you have oh we don't have any children she hasn't been able to have children yet but I'm gonna have a son oh I can understand oh that is glorious you mean God is giving you a son now that's marvelous how long has she been pregnant oh she's not pregnant yet wait a minute as we continue our journey towards mercy but we say well leave Melones happy you know faith the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen and being strong in the faith he gave glory to God but here's the key no being fully persuaded that what God had promised he was able to perform now that's that's what these young fellows are saying our God is able our God is able to deliver us from your burning fiery furnace you see that's that's the key to the faith we know that our God is able and secondly he will deliver us from you it may be by the fire maybe that will be cooked and and we're gonna be free from you he will deliver us from you and even if he doesn't deliver us we're still not gonna bow to your image now that's commitment and that's what we need that total complete commitment to what is right to the path of the Lord I'm gonna walk this path no matter what the cost I'm not going to compromise I'm not going to bow I'm not going to bow to the gods of the world I'm not going to bow to the fashions of the world I'm going to keep my heart steadfast towards God and that kind of a determinate how do you stop me like that you don't when Paul was in Lystra and they stoned him and dragged him out of town they thought he was dead and they dragged him out of town they stoned him and his companions were standing around weeping here he is laying the limp body of Paul this great warrior for Jesus Christ this fellow that such a capacity to persuade people concerning the truth here he is lying there limp body and they're weeping and they wondering you know what are we gonna do and pretty soon it sort of shakes himself and he says let's go back into town I didn't finish my sermon Bella's here are the disciples they have been threatened by the rulers don't preach anymore in the name of Jesus and and they've been very strictly threatened and so they're released they come back to their company and they say we let's gather together and pray what did they pray God give us the boldness to just continue to preach in the name of Jesus give us a bonus to do the thing that got us into trouble when they commanded them not to speak any more in the name of Jesus they said whether we are to obey God or man that's for you to judge but as for us we must obey God that's the kind of commitment these fellows had we're not gonna bow doesn't matter you can throw us in your furnace do what you want we're not going to bow and our God is able to deliver us out of your burning fiery furnace but even we know he's going to deliver us from you but if he doesn't deliver us we're still not gonna bow commitment oh how we needed then was Nebuchadnezzar full of fury the form of his face was changed no longer kind no longer in all sweet and understanding and well follows you know I'm gonna give you one more chance gonna sound the music in on man now his face is burning and so he spoke and he commanded that they should heat the furnace seven times won seven times more than it was want or used to be heated I'm really stoked the thing and he commanded the most mighty men that were in his army to bind Shadrach Meshach and Abednego and to cast them into the burning fiery furnace and these men were bound with their coats and their hose and their hats the other garments they were cast in the midst of the burning fiery furnace and therefore because the Kings commandment was urgent the furnace was so hot the flame of the fire slew those men that took up Shadrach Meshach and Abednego and then these three men Shadrach Meshach and Abednego fell down bound in the midst of the burning fiery furnace but then nebuchadnezzar the king was astonished he rose up in haste and he spoke and he said to his counselors did we not cast three men bound into the midst of the fire and the answered and scented him true Oh King and he answered and said lo I see four men loose no longer bound they are loose and they are walking in the midst of the fire for we threw in three I see four and they have no hurt our God is able to deliver you us from your burning fiery furnace they have no earth and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God Isiah in predicting the future difficulties that they were going to be facing as a nation they're being taken captive and all into Babylon the Lord is speaking to the people and he tells them that when they pass through the water it will not overflow them and the fire will not destroy them and here we find the fulfillment of that promise in Hebrews it talks about those men of faith who quenched the fires are survived the fires no doubt reference to these three Hebrew children you know it's an interesting thing that again those Bible critics who try to place the writing of Daniel sometime in the period of the Maccabee uns during the period of the Grecian Empire because he predicts the fall of Babylon to the medo-persians and the fall of the medo-persians to Greece and so they say it's impossible that he could have done that it was written by some other fellow who spurious Lee wrote the book and then put the name Daniel to it and so forth the the problem with this kind of pseudo scholarship critical of the inspiration of the Scriptures and of the divine authorship you can't just tamper with one part of the book without tampering with the whole because it the whole is one book and so if you say well Daniel was written by some spurious Hebrew during the time of the Maccabees and he puts the name Daniel to it and wrote history actually these events had already taken place so he is actually writing history if you if you take that tack then what do you do with the words of Jesus when Jesus attributes this to Daniel when he talks about when you see the abomination of desolation spoken of by Daniel the prophet and Jesus attributed to Daniel you see then you had to say well Jesus didn't know about this fellow that we discovered and and so the Bible stands as a whole you can't tamper with parts of it without disrupting the whole and so here again the three Hebrew children that the reference to the quenching of the fire in in the book of Hebrews that it stands as a whole to me the important lesson here is that the Lord was with them in the fire and the Lord will be with you in the fire as Christians we are not promised that we won't have persecution in fact we're a sort of promised that we will have in this world you will suffer tribulation I hate that promise but you will never suffer anything but what the Lord will be with you to share and to shield and to protect he's with you in the fire it's important that we become cognizant of that so often we feel we're alone Satan likes to throw that trip on us that you're fighting this alone you're all alone everybody's against you you know that everybody everyone generalized everyone hates you you know nobody loves you and he likes to ISIL it makes you feel like you're just all alone you're fighting this alone never never the Lord is with you he will not forsake you and when you go through the fire he'll be there the form of the fourth is like the Son of God one of the theophanies of the Old Testament the angel of the Lord there with him in the fire will find it again when Daniel is in the lion's den the Lord with him in that experience so then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the mouth of the burning fiery furnace he spoke and said Shadrach Meshach and Abednego ye servants of the Most High God oh he's learning what God is it that is able oh there is one in the Most High God come forth come hither then Shadrach Meshach and Abednego came forth from the midst of the fire and the princes and the governor's and the captains and the chief and the king's counselors being gathered together saw these men upon whose bodies the fire had no power nor was there a hair of their head singed neither wear their coats changed nor the smell of fire had passed out they went on sniffed them and not even the smell of smoke the Lord does a thorough job when he watches over us and keeps this oh I love it I love this story i beloved it from the time I was a little kid tell me the story of the three Hebrew children then Nebuchadnezzar spoke and he said blessed are okay now another proclamation from the king blessed be the god of Shadrach Meshach and Abednego you see God had intended that the nation of Israel be his witness to the Gentiles to the world they were to be a light unto the Gentiles the nation has now fallen the witness of God to the Gentile world has been conquered by the Gentile world but God will not leave himself without a witness and though the nation now is not a witness God will bear witness of himself to all of these remember they had all of the chief people from around the world that were there to see this witness of God to see how God will stand with those who will stand for him to see how God is able to deliver from the most adverse circumstances and they all came up they looked they these fellows were an amazement to everybody they were looking they were smelling not the smell of smoke there was not even a hair of their heads singed what a witness God gave him in self and Nebuchadnezzar acknowledges that he said blessed be the god of Shadrach Meshach and Abednego who has sent his angel and delivered his servants that trusted in and have changed the king's word and they've yielded their bodies that they might not serve nor worship any God except their own God acknowledging this is right these men stood for what was right and they've changed the Kings order therefore I make a decree that every people nation language which speak anything amiss against the god of shadrach meshach and abednego shall be cut in pieces now that isn't really God's purpose to destroy everyone that doesn't believe in him God is more gracious than the king but this is just the character of Navigant as you gotta know the guy this is just his character and so he's gonna force people you know cut in pieces their houses shall be made of dung yell because there is no other God that can deliver after this sort so then the king promoted Shadrach Meshach and Abednego in the province of Babylon so even promoted hired now the Bible tells us that there is a day of God's fiery judgment that is going to come upon the earth God destroyed the earth once by a flood but he gave a covenant that he would not destroy it by a flood again but he is going to destroy the earth by fire and the book of Revelation describes the events of the Great Tribulation Period this burning mountain of fire and and this fiery judgment of God that is going to come upon the earth when this great tribulation period comes and this judgment of God the great during this period God is going to seal a hundred and forty-four thousand people from Israel that he will preserve through the fire so that the three Hebrew children being preserved in this fire are a type of the hundred and forty-four thousand that God seals to take safely through the Great Tribulation Period so it's one of those types of the Old Testament of things to come they're a type of the 144,000 God seals and takes through the fire of the Great Tribulation Period question where was Daniel when all of this took place do you believe that Daniel bowed to the image not the Daniel I know not the Daniel who had purposed in his heart that he wasn't going to defile his body with the Kings meat now the Bible doesn't tell us where Daniel was probably he was in a far-off province you know taking care of the Kings matters but you can be for certain he wasn't there when this event took place Daniel becomes a beautiful type of the church that when the Great Tribulation takes place upon the earth will be removed will not have to go through the fire of the Great Tribulation but will actually be with the Lord in heaven the Lord's gonna catch us up to be with him there in heaven and so shall we ever be with the Lord when he comes back to the earth behold we'll be coming back with him he comes with ten thousand of his Saints but Daniel becomes a type of the church who escapes the great burning fiery furnace by being removed from the area at the time and so it becomes a type of of the Great Tribulation Period the image being the image that is established by the Antichrist the world is ordered to worship it God seals the hundred and forty-four thousand of the Jews takes them through the fire of the Great Tribulation Daniel the type of the church who has taken out to escape this fiery judgment of God and then he appears back in the scene again later on as we will come back to reign with the Lord over the earth so exciting wonderful chat Book of Daniel and next week we'll get into that portion of chapter 4 where Nebuchadnezzar learns an important lesson the hard way now there are important lessons that God wants us to learn and you can learn them the easy way or you can learn them a hard way you'll learn them one way or the other God is determined but whether you learn them the easy way or the hard way depends upon you W and Ezer learned an important lesson the hard way and we'll see that next week as we continue our study in Daniel father we thank you for your presence with us at all times in all places you said that you would never leave us or forsake us how grateful we are for that Lord we thank you for your faithfulness help us Lord that we might be faithful to you help us Lord that we might make our stand determined Lord not to bow to the worldly gods to the worldly standards the Lord that we will stand for you and we will worship you and you along in these days or band there's all kinds of pressure to modify our commitments help us Lord to have that same kind of resolve that we will not compromise in Jesus name we pray amen shall we stand when the pressure comes to bow as it may even this week remember the story of the eve three Hebrew children and know that if you bow you will burn but if you don't bow you can't burn the Lord will be with you and he'll see you through god bless you and watch over and keep you in his love may you have a wonderful week with the Lord just absorbing his goodness His grace in Jesus name our Father which our you

Channel: Chuck Smith TWFT

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Length: 51min 41sec (3101 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 13 2019