Sermons
Vander Kam on Daniel 3:16-18
Sermons
Vander Kam on Daniel 3:16-18Daniel 3:16-18 – "Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego answered and said to the king, 'O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to give you an answer concerning this. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire; and He will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But even if He does not, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up." (New American Standard Bible)
Beloved in the Lord: there are so many ways in which we are able to look upon the Scriptures, and it is always well that we look at it from various points of view. And you are also able to say concerning the Bible that it is indeed a many splendored thing, that it is indeed a many splendored book. That you are able to define it as a book and you are also able to define it as a library. It has been defined in both ways. Here you have given to you something the like of which this world has not seen before nor since, even though there are ever so many religions that have their own religious rites and their religious writings, that nevertheless nothing compares to this.
And when you look at it from various points of view then you are also able to see for example, that there is no Shakespeare or any other poet that has ever been lifted to the lofty heights of Psalm 23. That there is no prose in this world, by anyone, that has ever been so great as that which we find for example, in Isaiah 40 or Romans 8. It is simply something that is beyond all human understanding, how you can have a book that has so much, that has everything in it, everything that you need, and all the things that are given here in such wonderful order. That is the way in which we have received the Scriptures.
And then when it comes to the teaching of the Bible, then we find indeed that there are many things that are difficult. We find very many difficult passages for example, in the prophets and also in the writings of the apostles. But nevertheless, the message of salvation is something that is so crystal clear; so crystal clear that nobody is ever going to be able to excuse himself by saying, "I was not able to understand it." No, it is clear enough to everybody, everybody is going to be able to understand the way of salvation, even though it is something that philosophers have not been able to think out. Once more, when you look at the historical part of the Bible, then you find that it is most interesting. There are those, you know, who believe that the Bible is dull, that it is not very interesting at all; but they have never read the Scriptures properly.
Now, I well remember for example, there is no novelist that has ever come with a plot like you find in the life of Joseph. The man who has been sold by his own brothers into slavery, a man who is sold in order to get rid of him, and now finally he is at the very top in Egypt and is also used by his God to keep his own family alive.
I well remember when our children were small, and I was reading at the table, through Esther. And that a chorus arose when I finished the chapter and said, "Keep reading, daddy, keep reading." It is so interesting, it is so gripping, and that is the way in which we have to see the Scriptures.
And so it is also with this situation in Daniel. There are parts of Daniel, in the last part, that are indeed very difficult, in the apocryphal part of Daniel. That apocalyptic part that is there is indeed difficult to understand, but the history that is given us in the first part of Daniel is most beautiful. And so we have it also here.
We speak to you tonight on, The Stand of Daniel's Friends. They are characterized as his friends because of the fact that otherwise they would not have been known. They have been known only because of the fact that he took up the cudgels for them, and therefore they were elected, were appointed to such places of honor as they have received; Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.
The Stand of Daniel's Friends: Noticing in the first place, the temptation; secondly, the basis; and finally, the result.
Now it is a real temptation beloved, whereby they are faced here in this land of Babylon. They have already been placed in a very high position. Daniel is next to the king because of the fact that he has interpreted the dream, the dream that he has had in chapter 2. And of that dream there you also read the impossible, that he says to his wise men, "Tell me what I dreamt, I don't know, I can't remember. It is departed from me, I can't remember what I dreamt, so you tell me." And these wise men say, "Now this is something that nobody has ever demanded." Nobody has ever required that, interpretation of dreams, yes, but not to tell you what you dreamt. Then he said, "Well then, you're going to lose your life!" I want to know; that is the only way that it is also going to become clear whether you are the wise men, the truly wise men, yes or no, whether you are able to tell me what I dreamt.
And then finally Daniel comes and says this, "What did you dream? Aw, now it comes to me." And for that he is going to be appointed as one of the heads of the whole country of Babylon. And he sees to it that Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego have the places of prominence in the provinces of Babylon.
Daniel himself has stood there already at the very earliest as we noticed two weeks ago. And then seemingly it is a trivial matter, but nevertheless it is not so trivial because it deals with those kinds of things that dealt with their religion. And that was this, that he was not going to eat of the dainties of the king of Babylon's table, because of the fact that it was not clean. And he was going to observe all of the rules and regulations of the Jews, even in this far away Babylon. And he stood, and he stood there over against all the others, and prevailed. That was the stand that Daniel himself took.
And now his three friends are placed in that crucible. And they are placed in a crucible of an entirely different nature. Because now Nebuchadnezzar has set up an image, an image that is enormous. And there stand these three, they are standing there and are immediately evidence, they do not bow, they will not bow to it. Now they owe so much already to this man, to this Nebuchadnezzar. He has appointed them to a place of prominence. They are there also able to do ever so much for their own people, for the people of Israel that are in bondage in Babylon. They have been blessed so much and now they have to be very careful that they don't lose everything; that is the temptation. That if they give in a little bit here; and, after all, they will also be able to be used for much good for the kingdom of God. You've heard the argument!
And this is the kind of a thing beloved, before which they stand, that is the kind of a temptation that they had. That if they will now bow to this image; and they won't do it wholeheartedly anyway; they will only go through the motions. And then it isn't so bad, is it! Only go through the motions, let this man Nebuchadnezzar be satisfied. And if he is satisfied, all right.
But no; they stand there amid all of the others that are there worshipping. All these people have been brought from all the distant provinces, all these rulers and also these petty ambassadors, have all been brought to this place at this time, in order that they may bring honor to this Nebuchadnezzar. It is finally going to be a statue that is going to represent himself. And these men say, "We will not do so. We are not going to bow before this image. We bow only before the God of Israel." That is the very first commandment that comes to us: "Thou shalt have no other gods before me;" and we're going to hold to that.
It is lonely here; they stand all alone there in Babylon, they are young men; fifteen, sixteen, seventeen years old. They are standing here over against these hordes, over against the king who has power over life and death, and they say, "We will not bow! We will not bow to this." The temptation is great, because by means of it they will also be able to get further place in the kingdom of Babylon. They will further themselves in the king's graces, and as a result of that, will also be able to give ever so much more blessings for the people of Israel that are now here in Babylon as captives.
But they throw it all aside, and they will not do this, they will not bow to this image. Oh, it is something very strident and it is something that is very bald; "Bow down to this image!" They say, "No, we mayn't do that!" And here there's nobody to see us, there are no parents here, there is no one here that knows us, but our God does, and we simply will not do that. "I give you another chance," says Nebuchadnezzar, "so that now when you hear the sounds of the music the next time;" and they said, "No, you don't have to do that, we won't do it anyway."
They're strong, the temptation is there, no doubt, and the temptation is strong, but they are strong in their faith, these men of whom nothing else is known really. Nothing else is known concerning them in all of sacred history. They come on the scene for just a moment and then they vanish again; these friends of Daniel. And here they are, and they stand here in the plain of Dura, and all these other officials are lying face down before that image, and here stand these three Hebrews and they will not bend. They believe in God, Maker of heaven and earth. "Thou shalt have no other gods before me." And no graven image; you may not worship Him that way, but you certainly may not worship that image. That is their stand. Amid all temptations they stand, and it is unequivocal, it is a stand that they take very positively, they simply will not do so.
Secondly, notice the basis. When we look upon the basis beloved, upon which it rests, that we are to realize that here you are dealing with something that has often escaped the people who are reading this chapter. And it is this, that they do not know whether God is going to save them, yes or no. And they say that, "if it be so, our God, whom we serve, is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire, and He will deliver us out of your hand, oh King. But even if He does not, let it be known to you, oh king, we will not bow."
They don't know whether He is going to save them; He can, He is able to, but they don't know. That's the point! That is really the heart of the text. That shows to us that the basis of their stand is going to be this, that it is faith in that God whom they serve, they are young men who have been instructed well. They have been instructed since infancy, they have been instructed in all the Jews' religion. And that is so necessary now that they are no longer in their own land; there is no longer tabernacle or temple. There is no longer priest or rabbi, but here they are in this foreign land of Babylon; everything is strange, and here comes that king who has given them a place of honor far above many of the other captives that he has, and here they throw it all overboard and they say, "We will not bow!"
On the basis of this, I don't know whether our God will rescue us, He can do it, buy maybe He doesn't want to; maybe He's not going to. And therefore the temptation becomes so much greater, of course. Then you realize that the basis upon which it rests is simply that of pure faith. Pure faith in this, pure commitment to their God, to the God whom they serve, complete commitment to Him. That is the only basis on which they are able to stand. They will not give in, he will give them a second chance; they didn't do it the first time, and these others now tell the king, "Now well, let them have one more opportunity, and they say never mind, never mind, cause we're not going to do it anyway." You don't have to give us a second chance, because it is going to have the same results. We are not going to bow. Now this is something that rages, that causes him to be enraged. He simply isn't able to understand this, that people can be so stubborn, and that they cannot be talked into it, that you can't negotiate, that you can't reason with them. What are these young fellows doing; throwing everything to the winds! Because that's what they are going to do. And we don't know whether our God will rescue us or not. But even if He doesn't, then we still will not bow before that image.
Now that is the true stand that they take, and that is the basis beloved, that is based upon that which is given us throughout the Old Testament. Where they are instructed; read the books of Moses, read Deuteronomy, how they are they are to be instructed. "That when thou sittest in thy house, and when thou risest up, and when thou liest down, and when thou enterest in, and when thou goest out; wherever, at all times; have this frontlet between your eyes, have it on the doorposts of your houses, have it as wristlets on your hands. The Word of God; our God is one Lord. And what doth the Lord require of thee! That's what you have to do. That's the way every child in Israel was instructed. And Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego have gone through that instruction, and it has paid off.
Because now here in that foreign Babylon, here they stand; and they are far removed from all those who would be able to help them at the present time, who would be able to support them. There is no support; there is only this infuriated king who wants to make that oven seven times more dangerous, seven times hotter. Which is utter folly, but nevertheless that's what he does which is what you do when you're enraged, and when you have lost all reason, all sense; that's what he does.
Because it is going to be an awful penalty to pay. The penalty is going to be this, that they are going to be cremated alive. That is the penalty. It is not this, of a few years incarceration; it is not this, that they are going to be removed from their position, not this, that it is going to be a physical torture. But rather this, that it is going to be the utmost, that which is inhumane, that only a beast would be able to think up; and that is to cremate a person while he is alive; throw him into this fiery furnace. And they say, "But nevertheless, we will not bow. When our God says, 'Thou shalt have no other gods before me,' He means it. And we believe it, and as a result of that, we will not bow. Give us another opportunity? No, it's going to have the same results; never mind. Go on with the business, go on with it; because we stand firm on this basis."
Now when you see that kind of a basis for faith, that kind of a basis for a stand to take, then you realize once more that the word from the writer to the Hebrews comes to mind again, "that ye have not yet resisted unto blood," he says to the people of his day. They are already complaining, "Oh, it's difficult, huh! It's getting harder and harder you know, to be a Christian." They are against you on every side. And so there were also those whom he was writing to, those Hebrews, that were in the dispersion. But nevertheless, he says, "You have not yet resisted unto blood." It isn't that bad. And here these three men, these three young men, very young; they stand here before all Babylon, and they stand here before the whole world; and they called upon Nebuchadnezzar to throw them into the flames, rather than to recant one of the things that they have confessed.
Guido de Bres, when he writes the Belgic Confession, wrote his letter to the king, an apology; not an apology in the sense in which we use it today, but an apology in this way, that he is making it clear to him; and he says in that apology; we will give our bodies to the fire, our tongues to knives, rather than to recant. That's what these men do. That's pretty strong language, very strong language.
You wonder how many there would be in the population of the present day, who would be able to say, to stand there and say this. With death, an inhuman death staring them in the face, and yet to say, "Here I stand, you don't have to give me another trial, you don't have to give me another chance. Here I stand! God help me!"
That has been the history of the church, that has been the history of the heroes in the church; that was the history of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, friends of Daniel.
And finally, notice also, the result. Now the result beloved, of course, is well known to us, but at the same time you must also realize what the result might be. And the result as they look upon it might well be this, that it would be martyrhood, that they would be martyred, martyred for the cause of their God. That's what you had to look for. That's what they looked for at this time because, who is going to be able to help them at a time like this? And Nebuchadnezzar throws out that challenge and he says, "And who is the God that is going to be able to save you out of my hand?"
He has made those ovens so hot that the fire destroys even those who are going to bring Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to the ovens. He has made it too hot. But now they are going to be cast into the fire, but then they may be martyrs. And if they are martyrs for the sake of their God, that is already quite a step ahead. See, there is a whole chapter in the history of the church, of martyrs, a long chapter. We are not too familiar with that anymore, and we would do well to familiarize ourselves with it. All those who paid with their lives for the Gospel of Jesus Christ, that we might have it today. And their number is legion; they are ever so many. From the days of Polycarp unto the days of Martin Luther, there have been ever so many that have laid down their lives for the God in whom they have trusted for Jesus Christ. And these men are ready to do so, and they think that that is going to be the situation. They don't know whether their God is going to help them or not, whether He is going to rescue them. But if they are martyred, they are already going to have a tremendous impact upon that whole nation of Babylon. They are going to have a tremendous impact upon all of Israel; that will hear of these three worthies, that they have stood for their God, and that would be given to us even to the present day.
So even martyrdom would have been something that might be the result, and that might be a result that would have far reaching importance. The result however, was otherwise. They are cast into that oven, and they hardly reached it and they are bound up in their clothes. And a point is made of that in this chapter; that they were bound up in their clothes; they kept their clothes on. Yah, and that is shown us so that you will also see later on the miraculous way in which they have been saved, because not even the smell of fire is on their clothing. But the fire is hot, and that fire does do something and that is that it burns the cords whereby they are bound. And as they fall into that fire, yah, they begin walking around. And now the king sees it. There he sees, these same three men walking. "Men, didn't we throw three in there? But I see four. Where did he come from? And he looks like one of the gods." Now this man is superstitious, Nebuchadnezzar is beside himself, beside himself.
The result of their stand is already becoming apparent. The result of their stand is something that is already having an impact, an impact on the heart of Nebuchadnezzar. Here he sees one of the gods, as he says, walking with these three men through the fire. And it's not hurting them. This is unimaginable! The Bible draws a plot, better than any novelist has ever done. And here He shows that He is able, able to watch over them, He is able to keep them. Aw, He is able to; they said to the king before that, whether He wants to or not, we don't know. But He wanted to, and He kept them in safety. And now they are walking there with the Son of God.
Now this is the result, the result is immediate, and they are walking now with the Son of God, which they never would have done otherwise. But here in that flaming, fiery furnace, here where they are to be cremated and their ashes will be gone, everything is going to be gone; yet they walk about. And I see one of the gods, says Nebuchadnezzar. Now, come out, come out, he says. Come out, walk out of it. Because now you are free. That's the result!
This is not my text, but at the end of the chapter there is; Nebuchadnezzar responded and said, "Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who has sent His angel and delivered His servants who put their trust in Him. Violating the king's commandment, and yielding up their bodies so as not to serve or worship any god except their own God. Therefore, I make a decree that any people, nation or tongue that speaks anything offensive against the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego shall be torn limb from limb." This king always goes to the extreme. He is going to make it clear, they are going to be torn limb from limb, and their houses reduced to a rubbish heap in as much as there is no other God who is able to deliver in this way. That's the result.
It has a tremendous impact in Babylon; it has a tremendous impact on Nebuchadnezzar. This man now begins to realize, he is not God. He begins to realize there is a God in Israel. How often the prophet has said that in the past to let them know that there is a God in Israel. Yah, let them know it, that there is a God in Christianity, that there is a God in the midst of His people. Let them know it. And hereby they see it, by the stand that they have taken, and He does not put it to shame. But He rewards them, and rewards them so abundantly; much more than they could ever have expected. Those are the things that come to them, and that come to us as a result. Because, as Paul says, and I have referred to that many times; "These things have been written for the benefit of those upon whom the end of the ages have come; for us."
These things have been written for our benefit. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego stand before the king of Babylon who says, "I'm going to kill you, I'm going to burn you up!" And they said, "Go ahead, we will not serve any other god. Our God loves, our God we serve, to our God we give complete allegiance; our commitment is to Him alone." And He rewarded them. Amen.
We give Thee thanks heavenly Father, for the grace and for the mercy Thou hast shown us. We thank Thee for the lovingkindness Thou hast revealed to us in Christ Jesus. We thank Thee for the Word wherein Thou hast spoken. Grant that that Word may be applied unto our every heart. That thus we may grow in Thy grace, in Thy knowledge, that thus we may be ever be brought nearer to Thee. Bless us further, bless us in all that we do, bless the young people as they meet, grant Thy grace abundantly. Forgive our sins and hear us, in Jesus' Name. Amen.
Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE, © 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
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