Daniel 3:1-29---The Gospel at Work: Faith in the Furnace
April 21, 2013
1.
Introduction
a. We are looking at the challenges of living faithfully in a pluralistic, relativistic culture that presses
against the Christian faith
i. These challenges can be seen most readily through our jobs, school—all the competing interests
of our lives straining on our faith
ii. Daniel is the guidebook for living faithfully in a challenging, foreign culture that pushes you to
succeed
iii. Daniel 3 shows us 2 of the primary ways in which our faith is challenged or tested and also a
couple of the ways in which non-Christians take issue with Christianity.
2. Tolerance (The Statue)
a. The predominant modern view is that holding to a monotheistic, one-truth belief system, such as
Christianity, will necessarily lead you to being pushy, totalitarian. Christianity is seen as narrow-minded
and intolerant.
b. But in this story, it’s actually Nebuchadnezzar, the “tolerant” pluralist who is intolerant.
i. V. 12 and v. 14—the three Hebrew men are being compelled to worship the statue along with
their God. Nebuchadnezzar is being intolerant of their faith position.
ii. When you say “you can’t believe that you have the one and only truth” you’re actually making a
truth statement: “you MUST believe that there are many truths, gods, etc.”
1. This, in and of itself, is an intolerant faith position
c. Christianity, because of the Gospel, logically cannot be intolerant. Why? Because on the cross Jesus bled,
hung, died for people who directly opposed him (they disagreed with him and yet he died for them)
i. The gospel humbles us (by being convicted of our own sin and limitations) to be tolerant of
those who disagree with us.
ii. “Tolerance isn't about not having beliefs. It's about how your beliefs lead you to treat people
who disagree with you.” –Tim Keller
d. Application: the strain of a pluralistic society, our jobs, our families, our school, etc. is not that they
demand we renounce our faith—but that we hold up these things as equals with our faith
i. Nebuchadnezzar never said they couldn’t worship God, just that they must also worship his
statue
ii. The great deception is not that we abandon our faith, but that we simply dilute it by putting
faith and god-like value in other pursuits of our lives.
3. Suffering (The Furnace)
a. The predominant view is that suffering of innocent people proves that a loving God can’t exist. Suffering
presents a problem in believing in God.
b. How do we reconcile a loving, all-powerful God with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego’s experience?
i. The text says that when Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were thrown into the furnace for not
worshipping the statue, there was a fourth person among them that “looks like a son of the
gods” (see also: Joshua 5 “commander of the Lord’s army” to Joshua, Exodus 3:2 angel of the
Lord in the burning bush)
1. This angel commands worship (unlike other angels who deflect worship)
2. This angel is the Son of the Lord (pre-incarnate Jesus)
ii. Answer: we have the only God who goes into the furnace with us during our times of suffering
1. God can’t be blamed for suffering because he’s the only god who himself suffered!
2. “[Christ] the god-man suffers too, with patience. Evil and death can no longer be
entirely imputed to him since he suffers and dies. The night on Golgotha is so
important in the history of man only because, in its shadows, the divinity ostensibly
abandoned its traditional privilege, and lived through to the end, despair included, the
agony of death.” –Albert Camus
3. Notice that Nebuchadnezzar is amazed at the fact that “no other god can save in this
way”—he’s amazed at the manner by which God saves his people—that he’s a God who
goes into the furnace to feel the heat.
4. Jonathan Edwards: Jesus was sweating in the Garden of Gesthamene before his death
because the door of the furnace was opening and he felt the heat he would have to
endure to save all of mankind
c. If you don’t know the suffering God, then you have a much harder time explaining suffering, death, loss
(because this is really just the way of the world—people die, the weak suffer, etc.—and you can chalk it
up to evolutionary progress and therefore have no right to have a problem with suffering unless you
believe there is a God who cares about suffering and seeks to end it—and started to end it by his own
suffering on the cross and through death.)
d. If you don’t see a suffering God in Jesus on the cross, if this doesn’t help you personally endure
suffering, then you’re worshipping an impersonal God (Nebuchadnezzar in v. 29---he is not fully
converted because he holds that this is their god, but not mine)
i. Frances Gunther Death Be Not Proud: I did not for one thing feel that God has personally
singled out either him or us for any specific act, either of animosity or generosity. In a way I did
not feel that God was personally involved at all. I have all my life had a spontaneous, instinctive
sense of the reality of God, in faith, beyond ordinary belief. I have always prayed to God and
talked things over with Him, in church and out of church, when perplexed, or very sad, or also
very happy. During Johnny’s long illness, I prayed continually to God, naturally. God was always
there. He sat beside us during the doctors’ consultations, as we waited the long vigils outside
the operating room, as we rejoiced in the miracle of a brief recover, as we agonized when hope
ebbed away, and the doctors confessed there was no longer anything they could do. They were
helpless, and we were helpless, and in His way, God, standing by us in our hour of need, God in
His infinite wisdom and mercy and loving kindness, God in all His omnipotence, was helpless
too.
e. Application: your jobs, families, school, vocation, career, etc. will eventually put you through “the
furnace”—who will you go into the furnace with? Jesus basically says “Because of your selfishness, your
sin, your desire to be your own lord, I went to the ultimate furnace for you! You’re that beautiful to me
that I would burn for you so that when you suffer you know that I too am personally still with you”
4. Conclusion
a. Practical application: how did the three men object to the intolerant pressures of a pluralistic society?
How did they encounter God in the face of absolute suffering? What was their response when faced
with the furnace?
i. V. 18—“but even if he does not…” Is this doubt? No!
ii. It’s faith in God rather than faith in our agenda for God. They believed they would be rescued,
but, if not, they still wouldn’t bend—this is because the object of their faith was God rather
than worrying about the strength of their faith.
b. At some point in our lives, we will go into furnaces. The statues we build and worship in our lives
through trying to be recognized, trying to get acclaim, trying to be important, trying to be known are
incapable of going in to the furnace with us. Only God, as we see Jesus going to the cross and dying for
us, is capable of saving us in this way.