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“When the Heat's On”
Daniel 3:4-6, 16-18
IPC, July 26, 2009

Our world is in constant flux and change.  We have seen incredible technological advances in recent years and we are truly an information society now.  Research is only a mouse-click away.  As I visit folks in the hospitals, I am blown away by the strides that have been made in medical care.  It is amazing what doctors can accomplish through robotic surgery. 

While there are advances on many fronts, we are also a society that sees a crumbling family structure.  We have seen the influence of the church wane in many areas of our own country, even though the Gospel is flourishing in parts of South America and Africa.  You’ve seen the old list of major problems in the public schools in the 1940s.  Among the bad things, were cigarette smoking on campus and breaking in line.  Now, it’s drugs, assaults and shootings.  Yes, things have really changed. 

How can you operate as a Christian in such an environment?  I heard someone say that you cannot go through life without compromising—or can you? 

The Apostle Paul told the Corinthian believers: (I Cor. 11:1) “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.”  Sounds like Paul is on an ego-trip, doesn’t it?  Seems like he is saying, watch my life and you’ll become more like Jesus Christ.  It sounds like that is reserved for Super-Christians only.  

Probably not.  I read that “most of us live such sub-normal lives, that when someone lives the ‘normal’ Christian life, we think that they’re fanatics.”  Normal Christians believe the Bible (from cover to cover) and actually implement it into their lives. 

You probably remember the story of King Nebuchadnezzar’s ego-trip he embarked on in Daniel chapter 3.  His advisors talked him into building a 90 foot tall golden image and to command all the citizenry to bow down and worship it.  Dan. 3:4-6 “And the herald proclaimed aloud, ‘You are commanded, O peoples, nations, & languages, that when you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, bagpipe, & every kind of music, you are to fall down & worship the golden image that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up.  And whoever does not fall down & worship shall immediately be cast into a burning fiery furnace.”  (You probably recognize what most of the musical instruments are, but a trigon is a triangle that you strike with a mallet or steel rod.) 

Now there are three Jewish young men in the kingdom called Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.  Good solid Bible names.  However, I don’t think any of our parents have named their kids after them.  I’ve told you the story of the young pastor who couldn’t remember these guys’ names so he wrote them on a piece of paper and safety pinned it to the inside of his blazer.  From the pulpit, he gets to their names during his sermon and he draws a blank, so he pulls his coat opened and proudly proclaims… “Those three great men of faith Hart, Schaffner and Marx.”  Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were arrested for failing to bow down to the pagan idol.  Verses 16-18 “Shadrach, Meshach, & Abednego answered & said to the king, ‘O 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, & he will deliver us from your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.’”  I would say that the heat was on for these three guys.   

What do we need when the “heat” is on?

A henpecked husband was at his psychiatrist.  He reported, “I had a nightmare.  I dreamed I was marooned on a desert island with twelve beautiful women.”  The psychiatrist replied, “That doesn’t sound like a nightmare to me.”  The timid husband said, “Have you ever tried cooking and cleaning for 12 women?”  The first character trait we need is… 

1. Courage.

In Acts 14, Paul and Barnabas are in the city of Lystra and they healed a crippled man and the town’s folk thought that they were Greek gods Zeus and Hermes.  Of course, Paul denied it.  Notice what happened in verses 19 and 20: “But Jews came from Antioch & Iconium, & having persuaded the crowds, they stoned Paul & dragged him out of the city, supposing that he was dead. But when the disciples gathered about him, he rose up & entered the city, & on the next day he went on with Barnabas to Derbe.”  I read that and think, “If I had come to, I think I would have headed in a direction OTHER than back into the town where I had just been stoned.  Paul had incredible courage, or brain damage from the stoning.  Just kidding. 

In Acts 26, Paul appears before King Herod Agrippa II.  King Agrippa was a self-proclaimed hater of Jesus Christ but Paul had the courage to speak to him about his faith.   

George Smith was a test pilot in the 1950s when the sound barrier was first broken.  He was at 35000 feet in 1955 when his instrument panel locked up and the plane went into a nosedive.  Smith ejected the plane at 7000 feet at a speed of Mach 1.05 or 777 mph.  He survived but was afraid to return to flying.  While in the hospital a nurse encouraged him by saying, “Courage is knowing the worst and discovering that in God’s world, the very worst can’t hurt you.”  Smith returned to flying. 

Someone asked what nationality Adam and Eve were and the reply was, “They were Russian.  They had nothing to wear, only an apple to eat, but they were living in Paradise.”  The second character trait we need to display when the heat is on is… 

2. Joy.

Paul again.  This time it’s Acts 16.  Paul is with Silas this time and they were in Philippi.  A young slave girl is following them around whose owners used her as a fortune teller.  Paul cast out a demon in the girl, which rendered her psychic powers useless.  Naturally, it hacked off her owners who incited a crowd to attack Paul and Silas.  They stripped them, beat them, flogged them and threw them into prison, where they were in chains and stocks.  And to think that we often think that WE’RE having a bad day!  At midnight they are singing and God sent an earthquake to free them from jail, but they didn’t escape.  Instead, they present Evangelism Explosion to their jailer, baptized him and his family at the jail (I wonder what mode of baptism Paul used.  I don’t believe there were any rivers running through jails.)   

Paul had an attitude of joy.  What do we do when life throws us a curve ball?  We complain.  We may even become hostile and bitter at life’s situations. 

The middle school student was taking an American History Exam and was given a list of dates.  When asked what happened in 1809, he wrote down, Abraham Lincoln was born.  What happened in 1812?  The kid drew a blank and then wrote, “Lincoln celebrated his third birthday.”  No amount of the next characteristic would give this boy credit for that lame, but clever answer, and that is FAITH. 

3. Faith

Supermarket tabloids like the National Enquirer post some bizarre headlines to get you to buy their trash.  Headlines like “Research Scientists Have Learned Dinosaurs Honked Like Buicks,” “Cow Mattresses Help Cows Produce More Milk;” “Woman Gives Birth to a Two Year Old Baby;” “WWII Bomber Found on the Moon” and “Eve was a Space Alien.”  It is amazing what some folks will buy and believe except when it comes to God. 

Paul is once again in Acts 27.  This time he is being transferred via ship to Rome to see Caesar when they encountered a bad storm.  In verse 25 (KJV), Paul says, “Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer: for I believe God, that it shall be even as it was told me.”  Paul was just a “good Southerner” who believes in God, motherhood, apple pie and NASCAR.  He didn’t say that he just believed IN God, but the object of his faith was the Lord.  We know that everyone has faith to some degree—faith in something—maybe a lot of faith in something.  But that faith is only effective for salvation if the OBJECT OF FAITH is the right object. 

The INS agent had a trick for determining illegal aliens, I mean “undocumented guests.”  He would ask, “Nationality?”  If they said American, he would ask, “Do you know the words to the ‘Star-Spangled Banner?’  If the answer was no he would say, “You’re an American all right, go in.”  We Americans are a dedicated bunch.  Hence, the fourth characteristic… 

4. Consecration.

Two guys were stranded on a raft in the ocean for days and it looked hopeless.  One began to pray, “Oh, Lord, I’ve led a worthless life.  I’ve been unkind to my wife and neglected my kids.  If You’ll only save me, I promise…”  At that moment the other man shouted, “Hold it! I think I see land.”   

Back to Daniel and Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.  Talk about commitment.  Nebuchadnezzar made a gold image 90 feet tall and decreed that all would bow before it whenever the instruments blared out.  Everyone fell down to worship but these three guys.  Nebuchadnezzar’s threatened to make them into Crispy Critters and asked this question in Daniel 3:15 “And who is the god who will deliver you out of my hands?”  Let me repeat their answer in verses 16-18: “O 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 fiery furnace, & 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 or worship the golden image that you have set up.”  Notice the words, “but if not…”  They were saying, “No matter what it costs us, we are going to serve our God.” 

How dedicated are we?  Famous pianist, the late Arthur Rubinstein, once said, “If I miss one day of practice, I notice; if I miss two days, the critics notice, but if I miss three days, the audience notices.”  That is commitment. 

A man purchased a new hunting dog who was supposed to be an excellent tracker.  He was anxious to see how the dog would perform, so they set out to track a bear.  The dog soon stopped, sniffed and headed off in a new direction, heading toward a deer.  The dog stopped again and darted off onto the scent of a rabbit.  And so on.  The breathless hunter finally caught up with his dog who was triumphantly barking down the hole of a field mouse.  Many of us Christians start off with a high resolve to keep Christ first, and we fizzle out.  We live life like the man whose feet are firmly planted in “mid-air.” 

Whenever I hold an Inquirers’ Weekend for prospective members, I emphasize the five questions of membership.  However, it often surprises me how well some folks “flesh out” question #4, which is: Do you promise to support the church in its worship and work to the best of your ability?  Some folks think that the support intention is “to the best of their convenience” or “only during Christmas and Easter” or “only if nothing better is going on.” 

These three Hebrew young men, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were willing to march into a hellish furnace for their beliefs.  They were definitely a “NO COMPROMISE” zone.  For many of us, we live lives like we watch television with a missing or broken remote control.  The program may not be any good, but we’re too lazy to get up and change it. 

Paul declared (Phil. 1:21) “For to me, to live is Christ & to die is gain.”  I think King Agrippa probably sensed that kind of faith of Paul’s in Acts 26.  You kill Paul and he is with Jesus.  You don’t kill Paul, he keeps on preaching.  Either way, Paul wins! 

Our culture is not attuned to the ways of our God.  And, in many ways, modern culture is diametrically opposed to the claims of Christ.  Yet, we have become Christ-followers—those, who Scripture says, are “strangers and foreigners” in this world. (Eph. 2:19) That our “citizenship is in heaven.”  (Phil. 3:20) We know that there are outside enemies that attempt to hinder us from standing for Christ?  However, what about the inside enemies that war within us?  Are we truly finished with sin?  Are we really willing to get rid of it? 

When James Calvert, the 19^th Century missionary to the Fiji Islands, set out to minister to the cannibals of those islands, the captain of the transporting ship tried to dissuade him from going.  “You’ll lose your life and the lives of those with you, if you go among such savages.”  Calvert replied, “We died before we came here.” 

Gal. 2:20 “I have been crucified with Christ.  It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me & gave himself for me.”  A life of no compromise—all for Jesus—all the time.  Please pray with me. 

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In Christ,
Bill Bratley - Pastor