Faithfulness in the Fire: Trusting God Through Trials

So, in the Bible, in the book of Daniel, we see, you don't have to turn there, I'm just going to read this. There's no scripture to go on the screen. But the book of Daniel, chapter 1, starts out, In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, and that name, Nebuchadnezzar, has the word Chad in the middle of it. So if you don't want to call him Nebuchadnezzar, just say King Chad. I mean, if people can get Jen out of Jennifer, and Dave out of David, and Peggy out of Margaret, I can get Chad out of Nebuchadnezzar. Anyway, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it, and the Lord gave Jehoiakim, king of Judah, into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar with some of the vessels of the house of God, and he brought them to the land of Shinar, to the house of his God, and placed the vessels in the treasury of his God. And then the king commanded, I should have made Dylan read this part, his chief eunuch, to bring some of the people of Israel, both of the royal family and of the nobility, youths without blemish of good appearance and skillful in all wisdom, endowed with knowledge, understanding, learning, and competent, to stand in the king's palace, and to teach them the literature and language of the Chaldeans. The king assigned them a daily portion of the food that the king ate, and of the wine that he drank. They were to be educated for three years, and at the end of that time they were to stand before the king. Among these were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah of the tribe of Judah. And the chief of the eunuchs gave them names. Daniel, he called Belteshazzar. Hananiah, he called Shadrach. Mishael, he called Meshach. And Azariah, he called Abednego. [00:01:30]

But Daniel resolved that he would not defile himself with the king's food or with the wine that he drank. Therefore, he asked the chief of the eunuchs to allow him not to defile himself. And God gave Daniel favor and the compassion in the sight of the chief of the eunuchs. And the chief of the eunuchs said to Daniel, I fear my lord, the king, who assigned your food and your drink, for why should he see that you were in worse condition than the youths who were of your own aid? So you would endanger my head with the king. [00:03:20]

Then Daniel said to the steward whom the chief of the eunuchs had assigned over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, Test your servants for ten days. Let us be given vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then let our appearance and the appearance of the youth who eat the king's food be observed by you and deal with your servants according to what you see. So he listened to them in this matter and tested them for ten days. And at the end of ten days it was seen that they were better in appearance and fatter in flesh than the youths who ate the king's food. See, eating vegetables can make you fatter. [00:03:54]

In all visions and dreams, at the end of the time when the king had commanded that they should be brought in, the chief of the eunuchs brought them in before Nebuchadnezzar. That's Chad. And the king spoke with them, and among all of them, none was found like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. Therefore they stood before the king, and in every matter of the wisdom, of wisdom and understanding about which the king inquired of them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and enchanters that were in all of his kingdom. And Daniel was there until the first year of King Cyrus. [00:04:51]

Your brain needs to be, your body needs to be fed. You need to be ready to learn. So this is what the king wanted. He wanted these guys to be ready to learn, but they didn't want to defile themselves with the food because, remember, children of Israel, prior to God coming and fulfilling the law, were given strict restrictions on what they could and couldn't eat. And so rather than do what the king wanted, they asked permission to be faithful to what God had commanded them. [00:06:01]

Therefore, at that time, certain Chaldeans came forward and maliciously accused the Jews. They declared to King Nebuchadnezzar, O king, live forever. You, O king, have made a decree that every man who is here, hears the sounds of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, bagpipe, 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, and they do not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up. [00:08:30]

It's like having your wingman, your person who's there to advise you, who you trust implicitly, not do what you want them to do. So King Nebuchadnezzar is bummed out. Actually, in verse 13 of chapter 3, it says, The Nebuchadnezzar in a furious rage, he wasn't just annoyed, he wasn't moderately bothered, he was furious that these guys wouldn't do what he had commanded them to do. [00:09:40]

There's no one in here that has never faced a trouble or a trial or been under the gun. We've all had pressure. We've all had things that we didn't think we could overcome. And the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego reminds us that we are never alone. As Tanya read earlier, there was a fourth man in the fire. Jesus has always been the fourth man in the fire. Always. There's never a place that we go. There's never a thing that we go through that God is not there faithfully with us. [00:10:22]

Even though I know the Bible will never leave us, and the Bible tells us that God will never leave us or forsake us, how often do we think that God has left us and forsaken us? Well, my challenge for you this morning, the first thing is that we need to understand that faithfulness begins, faithfulness to God and from God begins before we're in the fire. [00:12:30]

But that faithfulness that we committed to requires a daily commitment to remain faithful to that commitment. We get to choose faithfulness. And if I can faithfully remain dedicated to my wife and our marriage for 22 years, then I should be able to remain faithful to God by recommitting myself every morning to be faithful. That faithfulness to God is a decision. And we have to make that decision before things get tough. Because God has promised his faithfulness to us that he will never leave us or forsake us. His faithfulness lasts through generations. [00:13:50]

So these guys had decided, remember, they'd been taken from their home. And they decided that even though they had the wealth of the kingdom available to them as far as eating and drinking and being married, that they were going to stay faithful to God. They decided before they were in big trouble to be faithful to God. So when the time came to show in a big way by not bowing the knee to this golden statue that they were going to be faithful, their faithfulness began before the fire. [00:16:14]

So my challenge to you this morning for this part is to build your faith now so that you're not scrambling to try to figure things out when you are in the fire. Because when you were in the fire, it is very difficult to be conscientious, to be like, oh yeah, God is faithful to me. I should be faithful to him. [00:16:49]

Well, let me go back to 14. Nebuchadnezzar answered and said to them, Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that you do not serve my gods or worship the golden image that I have set up? Now, if you are ready, when you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, 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 hand? Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and 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, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. [00:17:21]

And here you have these guys, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, says, if this be so. If you throw us in the fire, 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. I've had a child talk back to me this morning, and I did not like it. I don't have the power to say, off with the head. King Nebuchadnezzar did. [00:19:02]

be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up. Even if you don't, even if he doesn't, their commitment was to be made to remain faithful to God. [00:20:02]

Second, point number two, we learn that faithfulness is proven in the fire. Verse 19. Then Nebuchadnezzar was filled with fury, and the expression on his face was changed against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. You ever had somebody so angry at you that you could see it on their face? That happens to me all the time. And he ordered the furnace be heated seven times more than it was usually heated. Again, I don't know how you calculate. All right, fellows, normally this is 87 degrees Celsius. I want you to multiply 87 times 7 and make it that hot. I don't know how hot 87 degrees Celsius is, but I think 100 Celsius is boiling. So 87 is probably hot. But, so they said make it seven times hotter than it usually is. So I'm going to guess this was really, really hot. How do I know that? Because in verse 20 it says, He ordered some of the mighty men of his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and cast them into the burning, fiery furnace. [00:20:48]

Then these men were bound in their cloaks, their tunics, their hats, and their garments, everything they had, and they were thrown into the burning, fiery furnace. Because, because the flames of the fire, the flames of the fire, the flames of the fire killed those men who took up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell bound into the fiery furnace. It was so hot, so hot, so hot, so hot, so hot, that the guys who were charged with chucking these guys in the fire were killed themselves, and they weren't even in the fire. [00:22:17]

God did not prevent the fire from happening. But he honored their faith in him, knowing that even if they went in the fire, he would deliver in them. But if he didn't, their faithfulness was still to God. This is the kind of faith that proves, when it's under pressure, that it's genuine. [00:23:05]

But Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego proved to the king, both before and when they were thrown in the fire, that their faithfulness to God was genuine. That's how we can prove that our faith is genuine, when the pressure is on. What we have to understand is that trial and tribulation do not produce faith. They do not destroy faith. They refine it. [00:24:38]

He was astonished and rose up in haste, and declared to his counselors, Did we not cast three men bound into the fire? They answered and said, Yes, said to the king. True, O king. He answered, But I see four men, unbound, walking in the midst of the fire, and they are not hurt, and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods. Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the door of the fiery furnace, and declared, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out and come here. [00:25:52]

Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came out from the fire, and the satraps, and the prefects, and the governors, and the king's counselors gathered together, and saw that the fire had not had any power over the bodies of those men. Come out. Here's a fire, seven times hotter than it normally was. These guys get chucked in there, and the guys who are chucking them in there are killed because of the fire is so hot. King sees them. He's astonished. He says, Come on down. They come out. They weren't burned. Their clothes weren't burned. The only thing that was burned was the bounds that held them. Not a hair on their head. [00:26:25]

But here's what we don't think about. The fire itself was the place where Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego had an encounter with God. It wasn't outside the fire. Before, they didn't know he was going to show up. They just knew that if they didn't bow, they were going to get chucked in there. And if they got chucked in there, God might deliver them, but he might not. And even if he didn't, it wouldn't matter to them because they were going to remain in faith. It was only when they were in the fire that God showed up in a physical way where they had a real encounter with him. Because the text says that they weren't just like laying there in the fire going. They were walking around in the fire. They were active in the fire. They were with God in the fire. [00:29:09]

When you are in the fire, when you were in the trial, the trouble, the tribulation, that is the place where you are most likely to experience the presence of God. And I don't mean Jesus is going to show up and be like, hey, buddy, how's it going? But God is never more real than when you need him the most. I can think of multiple times when God was so there, I could almost see him. [00:30:03]

When you are in the fire, God is there. In the book of Psalms, it says, where can I flee from your presence? Wherever I go, you're there. If I'm in the loftiest mountain, if I'm in the lowest valley, if I'm at the bottom of the sea, you are there. [00:31:28]

If you are faithful to God, he will get you through it. If you're not faithful to God, he'll get you through it. God is faithful. Remember, our faithfulness isn't built in the fire. But what is your fire? And are you trusting God with that situation? God helps us through the good and he gets us through the bad. [00:32:24]

So choose to be faithful to God and know and honor the fact that he will get you through whatever it is you're going through. [00:33:18]