No God Like Yahweh

the following message by Alistair beg is made available by truth for life for more information visit us online at truthfortheworld.org Daniel chapter 3 is probably the best known of all the passages in Daniel and we read from verse 1 King Nebuchadnezzar made an image of gold whose height was sixty cubits that's about 90 feet high and it's bread six cubits about nine feet wide he set it up on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon then King Nebuchadnezzar sent to gather the satraps the prefect sand the governors the counselors the treasurer's the justices the magistrates and all the officials of the provinces to come to the dedication of the image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up then the satraps the prefect and the governors the counselors the treasurer's the justices the magistrates and all the officials of the provinces gathered for the dedication of the image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up and they stood before the image that Nebuchadnezzar had set up and The Herald proclaimed aloud you're commanded all peoples nations and languages that when you hear the sound of the horn pipe lyre Trigon harp bagpipe and every kind of music you're to fall down and worship the golden image that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up and whoever does not fall down and worship shall immediately be cast into a burning fiery furnace therefore as soon as all the peoples heard the sound of the horn pipe lyre Trigon heart bagpipe and every kind of music all the peoples nations and languages fell down and worshipped the golden image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up there for at that time certain Chaldeans came forward and maliciously accused the Jews they declared to King Nebuchadnezzar Oh King live forever you O king have made a decree that every man who hears the sound of the horn pipe lyre Trigon harp bike pipe and every kind of music shall fall down and worship the golden image and whoever does not fall down and worship shall be cast into a burning fiery furnace there are certain Jews whom you have appointed over the affairs of the province of Babylon Shadrach Meshach and Abednego these men O king pay no attention to you they do not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have said ah then Nebuchadnezzar and furious rage commanded that Shadrach Meshach and Abednego be brought so they brought these men before the King Nebuchadnezzar answered and said to them is it true Shadrach Meshach and Abednego that you do not serve my gods or worship the golden image that I have set up now if you're ready when you hear the sound of the horn pipe lyre Trigon bark bagpipe and every kind of music to fall down and worship the image that I have made well and good but if you do not worship you shall immediately be cast into a burning fiery furnace and who is the God who will deliver you out of my hands Shadrach Meshach and Abednego answered and said to the king or Nebuchadnezzar we have no need to answer you in this matter if this 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 okay that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have said ah I think I'll stop there assuming that you have been doing your homework and if not that you will do it before you go to bed tonight the balance of the story is there for us to learn so just a brief prayer Lord guide my words and our thoughts and fulfill your purposes as we turn to your word together now in Jesus name Amen well this morning we ended at the end of chapter 2 with the four is Israelite men being promoted as a result of all that had taken place as Daniel had been privileged under God to give to Nebuchadnezzar both his dream and the interpretation of the dream and it appeared at the end of chapter 2 that Nebuchadnezzar had really made a big change we left him falling on his face paying homage to Daniel and ensuring that they are promoted and are in an even more privileged position than they were at the end of chapter one then we come to chapter three and we immediately read that King Nebuchadnezzar Naser made an image of gold and it is described here he also we're told set it up in the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon in other words he set it up on the plain in China as we noticed in Chapter one which is where the Tower of Babel had been constructed all those years before where man had to his own self-aggrandizement said we will be able to raise a testimony to ourselves to our power and our control and God had come and scattered them and the story had continued from there well here you are all these years later and our man Nebuchadnezzar has decided that he's going to go ahead and do this I suggested to you this morning that the response of Nebuchadnezzar was as the response of others in being confronted by the miraculous intervention of God that he was charmed by it but that he was not changed by it matthew henry says strong convictions often come short of sound conversions and it would appear that the response of nebuchadnezzar had dissipated at least over time perhaps there was in his heart a desire in the aftermath of the events of chapter 2 to really consider this God of Abraham and Meshach and Abednego but the time lag between the end of chapter 2 in the beginning of chapter 3 is probably somewhere in the region of nine years so nine years have elapsed and in that time a Lord has taken place and now we find that Nebuchadnezzar who had been described as the head of gold in the statue in his dream has presumably decided well I like that part about me being the head of gold I did not like the part about how my kingdom was going to be collapsed and superseded by another Kingdom and so it would appear that in his endeavor to stand as aware against the word of revelation against the word of prophecy that had been given him by Daniel that he pretty well takes matters into his own hands and he says and so I will erect this great statue of my own and I will I will raise it there as a symbol essentially of the power of Babylon and that's why in the unfolding story of the Bible you have both Babylon and Jerusalem appearing again and again Babylon represents man in all of us proud defiance against God Jerusalem representing God and his revelation and the submission of people to his law and to his rule and so when he does this he is taking his stand firmly on the site of that which is in opposition to God and he is seeking us had been done before in the Tower of Babel to make a name for himself now there is something that is inevitably repetitious about these narratives isn't there we're already beginning to see it that in Chapter 1 the stand-out of Daniel and his friends has addressed the need that the exiles had to be assured of the fact that God is in control and that there is no need for them to compromise in their circumstances in Chapter 2 as we saw this morning they were being reminded of the fact that the God of heaven deposes kings and sets up kings and he does so to the end that man might know that his kingdom will outlast them all now here in chapter 3 in the context of once again the stranglehold of Babylon on the people of God as regret is represented in these three men the message that comes to the readers of the book is that this sovereign God is able to deliver his people from the furnace and whether he does or doesn't they mustn't serve foreign gods even if refusing to serve these foreign gods should result in their death and it is that which is here for us in the balance of this of this wreck versus three to six and we'll have to move through again quickly there they're big chunks of narrative and they're in verses 3 to 6 the program is organized I try to point out to you the repetition in set up set up set up I hope you didn't think I just had gone crazy when when repetition takes place in the Bible it is there purposefully there's no underlining in the Bible there's no change of font there's no big yellow marker or anything so one of the ways in which the author conveys emphasis is by repetition and so nine times that I could count it tells us that Nebuchadnezzar set this up he set it up he set it up he set it up and there's a kind of irony in a way in which the writer conveys the story describing twice and short succession the satraps the prefect the governors the counselors the treasurer's the justices and the magistrates and then when you just caught your breath he does it all over again and I think there is a matter or the there is a literary element in this you see for those of you who do English and who do creative writing and do stories and things you can learn even from this as well the Bible is an amazing book on multiple fronts and so what is being done here if you get this picture of the satraps the magician's the enchanters there's the death you can see them all coming out in line and he summons them all and here they all arrive and he sets before them this great image that he himself has set up and then the Herald makes the proclamation you are commanded all peoples nations and languages that when you hear the cacophony of sound that is going to come not least evolved from the bagpipes you are to fall down and worship the golden image that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up it's amazing isn't it and you should know that if you don't fall down and worship you're gonna fall down in a fiery furnace because that's the way this works if you hear this and you don't fall down then this will be your portion now the people who were listening to this knew that this was no idle threat death by cremation was part and parcel of the babylonian strategy Jeremiah 29 that says the Lord of hosts the God of Israel concerning a hab the son of Kolya and Zedekiah the son of Messiah who are prophesying a lie to you in my name behold I will deliver them into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and he shall strike them down before your eyes because of them this cursed shall be used by all the exiles from Judah and Babylon and the Lord will make you like Zedekiah and a hab whom the king of Babylon roasted in the fire so this is no funny little anecdotal material this is a dead serious deal I have had this amazing monument put up and I want universal submission to this monument this is for all the peoples all the languages all the nations if you know your Bible you know how that ends don't you that it will be all the people all the languages all the nations that are represented before the throne of Almighty God declaring that he is God and that there is no other but enroute to that final den among you find that God in all of his opposite man and all of his opposition to God again and again and again raises these monuments to which he wants Universal acclamation what a what a what a world and at that time the three fellows incidentally of Daniel remained at the Kings Court as her verse 49 of chapter 2 ends I assume that's why he's not present Pleasant on the plain of Dura but I don't know but it is interesting that he's not here Shadrach Meshach and Abednego here on their own presumably the writer wanted us to know that he was staying there in the king's court so that when we just now like we're saying I wonder where he is somebody would say well he's probably still in the Kings corpse is probably just exactly what we were supposed to know but his three friends are in it up to their necks and what are they going to do a pathetic picture isn't it in verse 7 when the people's heard the sound of the horn and the pipe and everything and they all bowed down and worshipped the golden image that the King had set up made me think of Paul Simon and all the people bowed and prayed to the neon God they had made and you see pictures all around the world of great Suede's of humanity bowing down at various shrines and places often with great sincerity of heart but not bowing down at the place where God keeps all of his appointments at the cross of his son the Lord Jesus Christ every other bowing down to any other altar into any other place is to bow down in the realm of false religion and emptiness and ultimate poverty of spirit it is a solemn picture in verse 7 and they all bowed down verse 8 is pivotal at that time certain coldians came forward and maliciously accused the Jews here we go again and in verses 9 to 12 they tell the king what he already knew they rehearse for him the facts of the matter and so they say that these characters whom you have appointed verse 12 over the affairs of the province in other words there's a little dig in that I'm sure these are your boys you're the one who gave them the great job presumably there's a measure of animosity and jealousy contained in that there often is and then these these people pay no attention to you they don't serve your gods or worship the image you have set up well actually they were paying attention to him weren't they they recognized that they were the beneficiaries of his generosity and the promotion's that he'd enjoy but it was true that they were not going to bow down to this golden image had been established and so in verse 13 Nebuchadnezzar who is enraged by this has the three of them brought in and he starts by asking him is it true that you don't serve My gods or worship the golden image that I've set up the notion is he's incredulous are you guys I mean is this true everybody bows down to this image that's what I've said must happen now let me give you another chance he says in verse 15 I'm gonna get them I'm gonna get the orchestra out again for one more goal we'll get all the boys out the bagpipes in the Trigon and the lyre and all this cacophony of sound the symphony will begin again and we'll play the music and I'm giving you a chance to fall down and worship the image I have made if you do it that's all well and good but if you don't then immediately you will be cast into this fiery furnace now this is where the first readers of this book must have just been biting their fingernails at this point after all they couldn't turn the page it was a scroll presumably somebody was reading it for them and they didn't know what happened next and the fellow took a big breath maybe had a drink of water which is a jolly good idea and so he said if you do this you'll be fine if you don't you're going in a fiery furnace the people are like well what happened what happened what did they do that's I wish somehow that's I mean this only sort of superficially but in some ways I wish that I hadn't known the Bible from when I was so tiny because it you know I learned the end of the stories long before you know now before I should but anyway so so they would be wondering what what are they going to do there's no it's not a foregone conclusion and Shadrach and Meshach and Abednego answered the king that was quite remarkable isn't it basically what they say to him is God is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace that's pretty gutsy you've got to say on what basis did they say that is there do we have anything in the record of the Bible so far where God has been delivering people from Fiery Furnaces not that I know so basically they're saying our God who is a powerful God is able to do whatever he chooses to do throughout the history of the Bible the extraordinary phenomenal activity of God is actually fairly limited when you think about it that's what makes it so compelling when it happens you have it for example with with Moses and the time of the Exodus you have it in the the prophets in their early prophetic ministry you have it here in Daniel and the time of the Exile and then you have it in Jesus and His apostles but really apart from those four periods of time this this the story the unfolding story of the history of God's dealings is not marked by all of these dramatic things consistently and continually about in this case it is our God is able to deliver us but we want you to know that if he need doesn't do it we're not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image you have set off now let's just ask let's pause and ask the question at this point so we could ask it later but let's ask it now would you have bowed down to this image would you have done it I'll be dead honest think about it it was only a kind of one-off deal what's the problem with just once the statues a joke we know it's a joke if we bow down we're not really bowing down we get bowed down but we're not really bowing down we're far from home no one will know our mothers will never find out they're not actually asking us to renounce God we don't have to give a speech we don't have to say anything we'll just slip in with a cloud crowd we'll just be in there most people wouldn't really know and after all he's been very nice to us I mean we've got a pretty nice house he gave us that we've got a nice job I would only harm our conscience for a wee while the plenty of other people are bowing down why wouldn't we bow down if we bow down we won't die and if we don't die then we'll be able to be useful to God and God wants us to be useful to him therefore it would seem Shedrick a good idea to bow down and bow down real fast because if you don't apparently but they don't do any of that why because they believe God and they believe that what God said in his law he actually meant you shall not make for yourself a carved image or any likeness of anything that is in the heaven above or that is in the earth beneath or that is in the water under the earth you shall not bow down to them or serve them for I the Lord your God am a jealous God that was the beginning and the end of it it wasn't a matter of pragmatism it wasn't that they would be able to benefit in any way from it they said we're not going to do it because we're not supposed to do it that was it and we're going to trust God that when he calls us to obedience he will take care of us in our obedience and if that means that we die in a furnace we die in a furnace if it means he intervenes dramatically then we'll deal with that when it happens but for now King you judge for yourself whether it's right for us to obey you or to obey God we're going to obey God we will not bow down to your great Monument and then of course you know what happens the megalomaniac is completely consumed with fury and with rage and he has the furnace heated seven times more what does that mean well you know it means simply this that he got it as hard as he could get it that's what it means it wasn't as if they needed it any harder to kill them but making it as hard as he could it made the miracle even better than it would have been if it hadn't been his heart because people they said well it wasn't that hard you know but I did a little research and I found that furnaces in Babylon at that time were used for the firing of bricks the fuel was charcoal which which given the needed draught could produce temperatures as high as nine hundred a thousand degrees centigrade the furnace probably looked like a railway tunnel blocked at one end with an entrance of the other with shafts in the uprights so that not only would they support the dome but at the same time they would serve as ventilation shafts and if we're in any doubt about how hard it was the mighty man who were called upon to bind Shadrach Meshach and Abednego and cast them into the burning fiery furnace and as they were doing so these men themselves were burned in the process so the miraculous nature of what happens is absolutely undeniable incidentally for those of you who think that you've got a duty somehow or another to explain anyway the miraculous in the Bible it's not a good idea most of the attempts I've ever found to explain why miracles are not miracles make the miracles bigger than they ever we're in the first place I remember reading Willy Bartley I think it was describing how Jesus was not actually walking on the water it just looked like he was walking on the water because this boat was just very very close to the shore and it was actually floating in about four inches of water or something like that you see and and I read that and I said man that's in even bigger miracle than Jesus walking on the water you'd have this big heavy boat in four inches of water with twelve guys in it and it floats that is absolutely ridiculous why not just go with what it says he was the king of kings and the Lord of lords is able to do what he does and that's exactly what happens here and in the encounter there is the mystery of the fourth figure King Nebuchadnezzar is urgently involved in what has taken our place he rises up in haste verse 24 he asks his counselors did we not cast three men bound into the fire the answered and said to the king yes he said but I see four men unbound walking in the midst of the fire and they're not hurt and the appearances of the fourth is like a son of the gods was great striking isn't it they tied them all up and they threw them all in another now they're walking around and they're not bound and they're in the presence of a fourth well who was the fourth well there's a lot of ink spilled over this one and people can get in a raging argument about whether it is a pre-incarnate manifestation of Jesus the second person of the Trinity or whether it is in fact an angel and angelic visitor I'm inclined to think of it in terms of an angel not because I don't believe that that wouldn't happen or doesn't happen elsewhere but just in terms of what is there before us and I've explained to you as I finish in a moment why why that is and Nebuchadnezzar came near to the door of the burning fiery furnace and he says I want you to come out and come here and out they came and then here we go the satraps the prefix the governors the Kings counselors here they all are gathered together and saw that the fire had not in any power of the bodies of these men it's it's really terrific isn't it the ones who have come to testify against them who thought they had finished with them in having them thrown into the furnace now are the first to testify to the miraculous event that has taken place they are the ones who verify the drama that has unfolded not a hair of their heads were singed their cloaks were harmed there was no smell of fire and come near them if you ever had a bar you barbecue and got up in the morning and you took the same sweater and he said wow there's no way in the world that you can be that close to a fireplace and not smell of the fire but there was nothing of that aren't on them and so Nebuchadnezzar answered and said blessed be the god of Shadrach Meshach and Abednego who has sent his angel and delivered his servants who trusted in him and set aside the Kings command and yielded up their bodies that's wonderful isn't it look at what God has done remember what Jesus said as he sent his followers out not a hair of your head will perish the guard who had delivered his people from Egypt who had brought them into the bondage of this exile is the one who has now delivered his servants in this extremity he doesn't deliver them from the fire he delivers them in the fire and this angel who delivered them saved them but they would one day die an inevitable death when Jesus Saves we will ultimately never die I like the notion of the angel doing what the angel does at the behest of God making us think of what God is going to do in the person of his son the angel joined them in the furnace but the angel did not do as Jesus did namely give his life to save them what was it that these three characters had done verses 28 and 29 tell us now in the words of Nebuchadnezzar himself he says listen you fellows you who have been on the receiving end of this angelic intervention you have this evade me by obeying God you have yielded up your bodies rather than settling for my command in other words they have chosen to suffer affliction with the people of God rather than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season and so he makes another decree verse 29 any people nation or language that speaks anything against the god of shadrach meshach and abednego will be torn limb from limb and their houses laid to ruins for there is no other God who is able to rescue in this way and once again it ends with the promotion of the three individuals question at the end of the chapter in light of the beginning of the next chapter did never get neither get it at this point I don't think so because when you read the record you realize that he was impressed by the miraculous he was impressed by their faithfulness isn't that what you find people say well I read that book about something and so on it was quite a remarkable book why would you like to read the Bible on I would like to read the Bible or they attend a funeral service and they're impressed by the way in which the people give testimony to their understanding of God's promises in Jesus and what do they say when they leave oh I admire your faith I admire your faithfulness well can I talk to you about you having faith no I have no interest in that at all it's not unusual for people to be as Nebuchadnezzar was here and one of the questions that I find myself asking and perhaps you did to him of this I will end is did he dismantle this big monument or did he just leave it there if he had been truly repentant the best thing he could possibly have done was take this sucker down and everybody would have said Nebuchadnezzar has been so transformed by the faithfulness of the servants of the Living God that he is now for all time turned his back on all the idol worship of his heritage and so on and he's become a servant of the Living God I don't think so because when you go into chapter 4 you find him in his proud arrogant perspective sitting out on his balcony playing Oh blue eyes I did it my way this way that's you read chapter 4 for homework for next month next Sunday morning all being well to think I did all that and may I say not in a shy way oh no not all Nebuchadnezzar I did it I did it my way isn't it amazing how how close people can come to the miraculous intervention of God in a circumstance in a life and turn around and walk right outside the door again I say to you again tonight as I said to you this morning you may be charmed by the gospel and yet unchanged by it you may be brought to conviction and yet remain unconverted you may be tonight under the hearing of God's Word what I would refer to as an unconverted believer your Orthodox in your intellectual appraisal of who Jesus is but you have never as yet taken the I Dalek structure and crashed it down saying the dearest idol I have known whatare that idol be help me to tear it from its throne and worship only thee I will come back to this all being well next time you know the having said that I just continue to talk for a moment because it just when you think about this story again in the New Testament and you think about first Peter and you realize Peter says to his his readers he says don't be surprised at the fiery trial that is coming upon you and I don't think there's much doubt that he had in mind that picture here from Daniel chapter 3 and in the words of Jesus himself when he spoke concerning these things he said the son of man who send His angels and they will gather out of his kingdom all causes of sin and all lawbreakers and throw them into the fiery furnace in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth then the righteous will shine like the Sun in the kingdom of their father in other words who is the god says Nebuchadnezzar who can rescue you from this furnace the inference being there is no God and the answer is yes there is and he is the only one who can rescue us well Jesus ended that by saying here as ears to hear let him hear father we want to be able to navigate our way through these things in a way that does not do disservice to the wonder of the record it doesn't play fast and loose with the way in which the story unfolds we do long Lord that you might form in ours in these days where secularism pushes back again and again against the cause of Christ in the realm of Education in the arena of ethical policy in the matters of Public Welfare Lord the court of public opinion is increasingly a fiery furnace just to say the things that we are saying and reading now Lord prepare us for days like this kind of day so that we might be able to find our confidence in you a God who is able to do exceedingly abundantly art and all that we can ask and ever imagine that we're able to affirm the fact that in all things you work for the good of those who love you who have been called according to your purposes preserve your people Lord in our day and fillers with an increased sense of faith and confidence in you that we might serve you for we pray in your son's name Amen this message was brought to you from truth for life where the learning is for living to learn more about truth for life with alistair beg visit us online at truth for

Channel: Alistair Begg

Views: 17,465

Rating: 4.9018407 out of 5

Keywords: Alistair Begg, Christian Living, Faithfulness of God, Obedience, Redemptive History

Id: TdN1Nd6HjpU

Length: 36min 26sec (2186 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 28 2015