Faithful in the Night: Worship in the Night

[00:00:00] I’m Toby pastor and elder here. Let’s pray.

[00:00:11] Father, we we, we, we feel privileged that we can come before you and know that you are here with us as we open your word. And as we think about what you might be saying to us this morning. I pray that you’ve ready our hearts. I pray that you would use me as I speak, uh, and that you would be glorified In Jesus’ name, amen.

[00:00:36] Elizabeth Elliot’s book through the gates of splendour, Remini reminisces on her life as a missionary in the, uh, Ecuadorian rainforest. And it tells the story and the aftermath of her husband’s death at the spears of the people that they, she was trying, they were trying to reach and incredibly five, five of the missionaries were killed.

[00:01:00] And incredibly, she went back to that tribe and lived with them for a few more years and tr began to translate the Bible into their language. And many of them came to know Jesus. 40 years later, after visiting the location again and recounting and reflecting on those years on the death of her husband and the aftermath of it all, she wrote an epilogue to the book.

[00:01:25] And in the epilogue to the book, she wrote, God is God.

[00:01:32] If he is God, he is worthy of my worship and my service. What an incredible thing to say.

[00:01:44] What faith he’s worthy of my worship in the face of everything that she’d been through. How can she have such confidence? We’re, uh, we’re in the first section of Daniel Daniel’s split into two sections, first six chapters, and then the, the latest six chapters. The first six deal with the narrative of Daniel and his three friends.

[00:02:06] They’re judeans. They were living in Jerusalem. They were taken out of Jerusalem and brought to Babylon, which is like the mighty powerful empire at the time. Uh, we see it first in Genesis 11, the Tower of Babel, that the epiphany of the kingdom of man as opposed to the kingdom of God. So Daniel and his mates, uh, at, I’m gonna say that the three friends and Daniel and his mates a lot ’cause they have really long names.

[00:02:34] So they’ve been taken out of Jerusalem and Jerusalem was the promised land of God. It was the place that supported and encouraged their faith in the one God. And they’ve been taken from that and they’ve been taken from their home and their land and they’ve been brought to a foreign land with, uh, different gods of all different kinds and this new place that has no support of their faith in the one God.

[00:03:00] So Daniel is the narrative of how, how these people then live faithfully in the night, in the darkness of Babylon as they learn how to live for their God in a world that does not support their faith. And this week in chapter three, we come up against two complications.

[00:03:24] Babylon are throwing at them two complications, forced idolatry, and a threat of suffering. So in the face of, in the face of other things calling for their hearts idolatry and in the face of pain and persecution and exile, and even life challenges, suffering, what is worthy of worship?

[00:03:50] Is Yahweh really worth worshipping ? And if so, if he is worth worshipping , how do they know? How can you be sure that you’ve got it right? So the two complications that have been been thrown out at these three friends is forced idolatry and a threat of suffering. So we’re gonna go through the story under those two headings and we’ll pull some things out as we go.

[00:04:15] Forced idolatry, verse one to 15, thread of suffering, verse 15 to 30. We’ll start with the first one, forced idolatry. Chapter three of Daniel starts in verse one with King Nebuchadnezzar, uh, erecting a big statue a big golden statue. And he calls all of the employees and all of the government officials of Babylon to, to a place called Dura, which is most likely just outside the main city to come and, and dedicate this golden statue, this big plin.

[00:04:50] And they go. And then at this dedication, there’s a proclamation, a herald. This verse four, a herald says that everybody has to worship this statue. They have to worship this golden image. And when I say everybody, Babylon is a kingdom that has been quickly expanding over time. And more and more people from surrounding nations are being taken into Babylon.

[00:05:19] Some people might even be choosing to go to Babylon because of its power, and its wealth and its security. And there, so there are people from all over the place present in Babylon, and it says, nations and peoples of every language. And Nebuchadnezzar says all of them, nations and people of every language have to bow down, have to worship this image.

[00:05:42] Now, why, why in the world would he do that? What, why would he get them to worship a, a golden image that he’s set up? Two, two reasons. Firstly, Babylon is naturally becoming a pluralistic society. That is that there are people from each and every direction. They’re bringing their own guards, they’re bringing their own ideology with them.

[00:06:12] And with that comes certain expectation. If left unmanaged, there’ll be certain expectation from one people group and a completely different set of expectations from another people group. So if Nebuchadnezzar can just get them all to worship the same thing, then he can manage the expectation. He’s got an easier job on his hands.

[00:06:34] It’s quite clever. But the second reason and and maybe more important is that by managing what they worship, he can manage how they live. I’m reading the Fellowship of the Ring at the moment for the first time, by the way. Sorry. It’s, I like it. Tom, Tom’s big Lord of the Rings fan. Tom. Yeah. Uh, anyway, in Lord of the Rings beginning of the fellowship, there’s um, there’s an explanation of the one ring and its power, the power that it has over people, how it controls and manipulates them.

[00:07:15] And it becomes the thing that the beholder wants most in their life. And then it forms them, it reorganises their priorities and decisions. It’s the perfect allegory of, of an idol, a golden image that subtly changes the heart of those who have it. And it starts with love or worship. The, the person who holds the ring very quickly starts calling it my precious, and then it leads them to live a certain way.

[00:07:51] Gandalf in his wisdom, doesn’t touch, it doesn’t go anywhere. It doesn’t rejects any relationship to the ring knowing its power. James KA Smith, in his book, you Are What You Love. He explains that everybody worships something. Everybody worships something, and it’s usually, he says, it’s usually the thing that you love most in the world.

[00:08:17] In ancient Mesopotamia, they would generally put an image to that thing, a statue or a, an animal or a river or a moon, or whatever it is. Uh, we don’t tend in our society to put images to things that we worship as much anymore. But the principle still remains What you love most in the world, has your worship, has your allegiance, has your heart and your desires.

[00:08:42] And that could be anything. It could be children, work location success, security, a partner, a dream, whatever it is that the love for that thing forms you. And it changes how you live and how you prioritise and how you decide what to do with your life. And it could be obvious, could be obvious, but it could also be really subtle.

[00:09:08] It could be subconscious.

[00:09:14] In summary of that idea, James KA Smith says so the book’s called You are What You Love, but in the book he says, you are what you worship because what you worship shapes you and forms you and orders your priorize priorities in your decisions. So why did Nebuchadnezzar want to force everyone to bow to an image of gold?

[00:09:41] Maybe to manage expectations, but also maybe to control the people in his kingdom. If he can organise what these people worship, then he can form them. He can control their priorities and decisions. He can build the empire that he wants to build. If people worship this image, then they’re on their way to becoming exactly what Nebuchadnezzar wants.

[00:10:02] And if they don’t, well who’ll kill those ones, clear them out, put them into the furnace, and that’s where Shadrach, Micha and Abednego find themselves. And I think the right question to be asking is, well, what is worthy? What is worthy of my worship?

[00:10:29] Is Yahweh really worth worshipping

[00:10:36] And if so, how? How, how do they know? How does Shire, MHA and Edna go? No. And how can we be sure that we’ve got it right?

[00:10:46] Now just notice we’ll go a little bit deeper into the text. Notice that the language of image, the, the word for image is used 11 times in this chapter, which is more, I’m pretty sure is more than any other book in the Old Testament.

[00:11:05] There has been so much speculation about what the, what the image of gold is. This that says it’s some kind of king or something. Most people, lot, lots of people say it’s an image of the king. Uh, maybe it’s the statue in chapter two in the dream. Maybe it’s an image of mauk, the Babylonian God. Maybe it’s an image of the nation of Babylon in general.

[00:11:26] We are not told, we’re not, we we’re told it’s dimensions that it’s really thin and really high. That’s, that’s it. We’re not told, but he keeps call, they keep calling it an image. Why would you call it an image if you don’t tell us? What’s an image of.

[00:11:42] But maybe, maybe that’s telling us something. Maybe the ambiguity is actually really helpful here.

[00:11:53] Because the point, the point is that God’s people in Babylon are being pressured to love and trust and value something other than God himself. And it is, this isn’t just by, uh, Nebuchadnezzar by the way. This isn’t just by the king. This is also all the nations and people’s, every language knelt down before this.

[00:12:11] And then you get, um, some astrologers who come forward and they denounce the Jews and they tell the king Nebuchadnezzar that, that Shadrach micha in the bed and go aren’t doing it. So it’s not just by the king, it’s everybody else around them worshipping this ambiguous image too. Coworkers and neighbours.

[00:12:29] Maybe it’s the people they see every morning and nod to in the evening. And it’s not just the people, it’s also the music, the sweet sound of the zipper. What is a zipper?

[00:12:45] But what are they worsening? Well, the, the ambiguity of what the image is raises the very question, well, what is the image? What is the image? Keep saying image. What is it?

[00:13:01] What is this thing that everyone’s kneeling before? What is it an image of? What is this thing that there, there’s political pressure and social pressure and musical pressure to worship, and then I think for the reader, the line gets drawn well, what do we assume it is? What might the image be as I read it?

[00:13:27] What would the image be for me? What am I being led to love and trust and value more than God right now? And then suddenly the whole story becomes very relatable and we see the pressures around us, our coworkers and neighbours loving their careers above all else and looks like it’s working out for them.

[00:13:50] Maybe it’s the people we see every morning and nod to in the evening who have the body that I want, the beauty that I envy. It’s not just the people, it’s the music too. The sweet sound of the zha. Or more. More for us, maybe the lyrics of a song that makes us feel passionate about finding a loved one who will fix all my problems.

[00:14:11] What would the image be for me? What would the image be for you? What am I being led to? Love and trust and value more than God. Right now, all around us are Babylonian golden images, and I think that’s why the word image is so vague in the text, because it’s asking us to check ourselves and then it gives, gives us a picture then of three friends who have decided that God is worthy of their hearts above anyone else, above anything else, especially above the images that are forcing and begging them to worship them.

[00:14:58] And then there’s also a threat of suffering. So the second, second heading, verse 15 to 30, right in the heart of this chapter there’s a question to the three friends. Nebuchadnezzar comes, he talks to them, you know, the astrologers has dobbed them in, and Nebuchadnezzar gets really angry.

[00:15:14] He keeps getting really angry. And he comes and he, he talks to them and he says he gives them a choice again to worship the image. Or die. And he says, because what? God will be able to rescue you from my hands.

[00:15:37] Then verse 16, uh, there are, there are two things that, that the three friends say in response. Two things. They say if you throw us into the five. Yahweh will rescue us. They believe that God has the power over Nebuchadnezzar, over this image of God. They believe that God can rescue them, but then they say, but even if, even if he doesn’t, he still gets my worship.

[00:16:10] Even if God doesn’t put the fire out. Even if he doesn’t pluck us out or prevent you from putting us in, I will not worship your Gods. He can get us out, but even if he doesn’t, he still has my worship. He still has my heart. And then Nebuchadnezzar gets really angry again, classic Nebuchadnezzar. And he, he ordered the furnace to be heated really hot.

[00:16:39] And he gets these three friends thrown into the fire and the people who throw them in die. That’s how hot it is. And in Nebuchadnezzar sits there, satisfied what God can rescue you from my hands.

[00:16:54] And by all odds, verse 23. When we get to verse 23, it looks like Nebuchadnezzar has won.

[00:17:03] They’re thrown in the fire. The God they firmly believed in did not pluck them out. He did not prevent them from being thrown into the fire. He did not stop the suffering by not allowing it to happen. Instead, when we get to the next verse, we realise that he meets them in fire. Verse 24, king Netezza leaked to his feet in amazement.

[00:17:34] Weren’t there three men in there? Yes. Well, look, I, I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth man looks like what? A son of the gods. God stepped in with them. It is from within the fire that God protected his people.

[00:18:09] Now, uh, Shadrach, MHA and Abednego are actually protected within the fire right in, in their case, they’re prevented from the pain of the fire. They come out unburnt, singed, not even with the smell of smoke on them. Verse 27. It’s a miracle. It’s incredible.

[00:18:35] That isn’t always the case though. We don’t always come out unceded. We, we see this even within scripture. We see Job didn’t come out. Singed Ruth and Naomi Joseph, they didn’t come out singed Paul in the New Testament. He didn’t, he talked about his imprisonment and his suffering in his letters, shipwreck and lashings and imprisonment.

[00:18:59] And many of the New Testament letters are actually written to people who are experiencing persecution or mistreatment or death of loved ones. And then you look through church history and you see martyrdom is real. And then even on an everyday level, we don’t always experience the freedom from pain.

[00:19:18] And in the case of Elizabeth Elliot’s story, her husband was not prevented from death. We don’t always come out singed. But this is why, this is why verse 18 is so important to the story, so important to the story because the verse 18, that the fact that they were prevented from suffering the fact that they were, they came out singed, is not the reason that they worship Yahweh.

[00:19:55] Their protection from being burned is not the reason they’re refusing to worship the idol.

[00:20:04] And I, when we don’t come out UNC Sined, when we do experience the hardship and persecution and death and sickness and brokenness, I think the idols in our lives seem so much more golden.

[00:20:24] So much more tempting. Our coworkers, our neighbours, and the people that we see every morning and nod to in the evening all seem to have, have it a little bit better than me. But the three friends here, they show that their worship of God is not based on their prevention of pain.

[00:20:47] So they say in verse 18, if you throw us into the fire, Yahweh will rescue us. But even if he doesn’t, he still gets my worship. They didn’t know what was gonna happen before it happened. They didn’t know that an angel would appear in the fire and unbind them and let ’em live. Their worship of God, their refusal to, their refusal to worship.

[00:21:15] The image does not come from the assumption of a life free from suffering. It does not come it, it comes from understanding who God is. Their worship of God comes from understanding who God is. They, they would’ve known, they would’ve known the promises of God all throughout the Torah. They would know God’s faithfulness to stick out those promises.

[00:21:42] We are not gonna get into those the promises and the, the how many there are. It’s amazing. But what the promises show is God’s character is God’s love and his presence. They show who God is and God is the one who meets us in the fire.

[00:22:04] And we see this throughout scripture. He stepped into the furnace in Daniel three, Psalm 23 talks about how he’s present in the valley of the shadow of death. Jesus’ own promise in Matthew 28 is that he’ll be with us to the very end of the age. Paul’s interaction with Jesus on the road to Damascus shows Jesus’, uh, presence with those who are being persecuted.

[00:22:26] Why do you persecute me? And the sending of the spirit means he’s always with us. And all of those stories have different outcomes. We have a God who meets us in the suffering regardless of the outcome.

[00:22:42] But then we also have a God who goes into the suffering for us. In, in Matthew 13, Jesus himself describes the judgement for sin as a fiery furnace. It’s the same phrasing in the Greek fiery fairness, and that’s the chosen example of what sin deserves. And none of us are sinless. No one is righteous, not one.

[00:23:16] But then Peter in his first letter says, Jesus himself bore our sins in his body on the cross.

[00:23:31] Jesus entered that fiery furnace for us. As an objective truth, he bore our sins in his body on the cross so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness. By his wounds, we have been healed. The truth of the gospel is that Jesus Christ entered into the suffering of sin that he willingly, though painfully went into the furnace for us so that we will live.

[00:24:06] And as, as we look to Jesus and we remind one another of this, then we will grow to know the depths of the riches of his grace and his love for us.

[00:24:20] And if those pools to worship any other gods come up, any other things come up from, from kings or coworkers and neighbours, from the people we see every morning and nod to in the evening, or the sweet sound of the zipper, they’re calling us to worship other gods, then we can remember that, that nothing else, nothing else.

[00:24:39] No other image, no idol, no other love or precious will step into the fire for us. Nothing could ever do this for us. In fact. Nebuchadnezzar and the ambiguous image of gold is demanding you to give yourself to it. Come and kneel before it and bow to it and worship it, and whatever that is in our life, it, it is calling and is pressuring and it’s demanding your attention and your affection to give yourself to it, to pour yourself out for it.

[00:25:19] But we have a God who gave himself for us, who poured himself out for us so that we would be saved. Yahweh is not another, never Canez demanding that you sacrificed yourself to his kingdom or die. He’s the God who sacrificed himself so that you will live in his kingdom.

[00:25:45] And when we see salvation, we see a love that runs so deep that he was willing to suffer the furnace for us, and it’s holy bounds are who he is. And you can pair that to any idol, any image, any other love. And we will learn to say, if I go into the fire, Yahweh will rescue.

[00:26:12] But even if he doesn’t, he still gets my worship because just like Nebuchadnezzar in, in verse 29, he admits there is no other God who can save in this way.

[00:26:34] Elizabeth Elliot at the end of her epilogue said, God is God af after everything that she’d been through. God is God. If He is God, he’s worthy of my worship and my service, and it’s an incredible thing to say. He is worthy of my worship in the face of all I’ve been through. How can she have such confidence?

[00:27:00] We don’t start our Christian journey with the faith of Shadrach, me, Shaq, and Abednego.

[00:27:11] But the more we experience the fire and find God working in the midst, and the more we remember what he went through so that we can live free, then the more our trust will deepen in who he is and the more we’ll understand the promises and their fulfilment in Christ and what that shows about who God is.

[00:27:29] And that’s really the answer to these questions. What is worthy of my worship? Is Yahweh really worth worshipping ? And if so, how do we know? How can we be sure that we’ve got it right? Well, it’s all to do with who he is. Seem perfectly in Jesus who went into the furnace for us. No image compares. No one saves like Yahweh.

[00:27:55] So let’s worship him ’cause of who he is and because we can now freely lay aside the idols and learn to trust him, amen.