FAITH UNDER FIRE

(This is an abridged version of the sermon preached at Epworth Chapel, Baltimore on 8/11/13.)

 

Then King Nebuchadnezzar leaped to his feet in amazement and asked his advisers, “Weren’t there three men that we tied up and threw into the fire?”  They replied, “Certainly, Your Majesty.”  He said, “Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods.”  (Daniel 3:24-25) 

It has been said that faith is most clearly evident in our lives when it has been tested.  This speaks to the very nature of faith.  As the writer of the Book of Hebrews so clearly articulated, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not (yet) seen.” 

There is a certain mystery imbedded in the whole matter of faith, in that we cannot see it, and yet it is at work in our lives if we are in relationship with God.

The testing of our faith can come in any manner of ways.  Serious illness, financial distress, relational problems, death – will, at some points, come into all of our lives.  These are but a few of the ways that our faith can and will be tested.  Often, if the truth is really told today, our faith in God can also be tested in moments of our disappointment with God as we might be praying and waiting on a blessing in our life that has been long deferred and appears to be denied, or we might be enduring suffering so long that we wonder why God - who created us, loves us and cares for us - would allow such things to happen in our lives. 

And it is also the case that we might find that our faith is tested in the light of our faithfulness to God.  In other words, sometimes it our very faithfulness, that somehow serves as an entrée for Satan to enter into our lives and to test us.

And so it is in Scripture that we find the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.  These were three young men who were extremely faithful to God, and because of their faithfulness, they found themselves in the horns of a dilemma.

These young men were the cream of the crop, the pick of the litter, they were royalty.  They had the right stuff.  They had been trained in the most stringent ritualistic and dietary laws of their times.  They had been trained at the highest levels to become servants in King Nebuchenezzar’s court.

But problems began to arise.  You see, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego did not always adhere to the king’s rules.   They refused to worship the king's gods and his golden images.  You see, they knew that they had a higher authority than the king.

These young men realized who was at the head of, and center of, their lives.  They realized that their God was more powerful than the greatest and most powerful kings. 

Now we are reminded that King Nebuchadnezzar was the most powerful man in the known world.  In the year 586 BCE, he and his Babylonian army had toppled Jerusalem and forced God’s people into another land.  This is where in Psalm 137, the Israelite people asked Babylon and their king, “How can we sing the (our) Lord’s song in a strange land?”

King Nebuchadnezzar had gotten to the point where he felt that men and women should only bow down to him and his man-made images.  The king chose to play God, and to use God’s people for his own purposes.  But, these three Hebrew boys – Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego - made up in their minds that regardless of the consequences, they would remain faithful to their God –a God who they knew could make a way out of no way- a God who had blessed their ancestors, and who they knew would bless them, as well.

And also, Nebuchadnezzar gave the young men an ultimatum.  They were to either worship the king and his gods, or they would be thrown into a fiery furnace.  And because of their faithfulness to their God, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were cast into the fiery furnace.  The king not only threw them in, but he had the heat turned up on them.  Daniel tells us that the king made the fire seven times hotter than hot (as hot as it could get).

Indeed, if we live long enough, we will all encounter times of the testing of our faith like unto the fiery furnace.  One thing is certain, when we face such situations, regardless of our abilities, our education, our looks, our connections, there is no way that we can control and put out the fire by ourselves.  And what we also find in the fiery furnace situations of life is that too often, too many people – even people of faith -  have a tendency to turn to everything and everybody but Jesus, without recalling that Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life, and no one comes to God, except by me.”

There are a few things we can learn from Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and their experience in the fiery furnace that might help us on our journey.

First, we learn that they dared to be different.  By refusing to worship the king’s idol gods, the three Hebrew boys were going against the grain, they we going against what everybody else was doing.  They dared to be different.  They were in essence, refusing to follow the crowd, and give in to peer pressure.  They were refusing to try to keep up with the proverbial “Joneses.”

What we discover is that any time you dare to be different, you will face the real possibility of being ostracized and criticized.  You might even - as the apostle Paul declared - be persecuted and hard-pressed on every side when you stand up for what you believe to be right. 

These young men dared to be different, and they stood up in faith for what they knew to be the right thing to do.  They walked into their fiery furnace with their integrity intact because they knew no other way but the way of God.

Second, we discover in their experience that for people of faith, whenever we go through trials, we don’t go in and we don’t go through them alone.   In the Scripture text, we find that as Meshach, Shadrach and Abednego went into the fiery furnace and held on to their lives, a fourth man appeared walking in the midst of the fire. 

Three went into the fire, but four ended up in the fire. 

The good news starts in knowing that whatever our fiery furnace might be, God is already in the fire.  The Lord showed up in their fire.  As the saints of old would say, “He might not come when you want him, but the Lord is always right on time.  He’s an on-time God. 

Third and finally, we find in the story of the three Hebrew boys the fact that the Lord was not only in their fire, but God delivered them out of their fire.  The God we serve is a deliverer.  In the word it tells us that four were in the fire, but only three came out of the fire.  Why is this?

The Lord stayed in the fire because he knows that somebody else – you or I will be coming in at some point.  God knows that we will need deliverance from something.  I’m glad to tell you that we serve a God who stays in the fire, and waits there to deliver you and me when we go in.

So keep the faith, hold to God’s unchanging hand, and know that God will bring you out.

Thanks be to God who blesses people of faith in the midst of our fiery furnace realities of life.