Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

How many of us will openly admit this morning to being worriers?

You have a plan in your head but then you start to think about the doomsday scenarios and play the “what if” game time after time and this wrecking ball of worry begins to destroy your mind and consume your thoughts.

Maybe you’re not in this situation currently, but have you been in the past?

According to Pew Research, when asked about their previous day, 55% of Americans said that they felt stressed and 45% said that they felt worried a lot in 2018.

Over half of those polled said that they felt stressed and nearly half felt worried during their last 24 hours.

I’m not an expert or a psychologist, but in knowing people of all generations, I think those numbers are pretty accurate if not low.

We are a nation of worriers, generally speaking.

We play out the worst case scenarios time after time in our head and we meditate on that worry and unfortunately we allow it to ruin our entire lives much of the time.

Maybe you don’t fall into this category.

Maybe you’re an anomaly of sorts.

However, have you ever asked yourself one of these questions:

What if my nightmare comes true?

What if the health report comes back negative?

What if mom is about to pass away?

What if I had done this differently or said this instead?

We go through these things and we ask ourselves these what if questions on a near daily basis, do we not?

The question that we must ask ourselves this morning is, if my worst fear becomes my reality, is God still enough?

Sometimes we don’t like to talk about our fears, doubts or struggles, but let’s do exactly that today.

If my health fails me, is God still enough?

If my family falls apart, is God still enough?

If my ministry flatlines, is God still enough?

If my job gets cut, is God still enough?

If I don’t make the team, is God still enough?

If my suffering continues, is God still enough?

We want to say that we would be quick to say, “yes, of course He is!” in all of these situations and we know that He is, however in the heat of the moment it can be difficult to do so.

A lot of times we believe the lie that God will reward us with a worry-free life if we simply do what He instructs of us.

This has been a lie that people have bought into for centuries and the fact of the matter is that God does not promise us a trouble-free life.

In fact, the greatest assurance that we have as Christians is not that we live a trouble free life or a persecution less one, but instead that we know that even if these things do come our way, He will be there with us.

Christians will be confronted with Idols (1-7)

As the apostle Paul stated in , “For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.”

This is the last time that we hear of Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego in the book of Daniel, and what we find is that these men are men of conviction, courage and commitment.

We see that they have “courage under fire” and they are men of amazing faith in the Lord.

We do not know for sure how much time transpired between and , but we do see that Daniel is not present in this passage of Scripture.

Does this mean that Daniel bowed before the idol and did not have faith in God?

Of course not!

Most commentators believe that Daniel was either out of town conducting business for the king (after all, shows us that Daniel was promoted within the king’s court) while his 3 friends were still doing administrative matters in Babylon.

Regardless of his location, though, Daniel certainly would have stood firm with his friends when it came to this situation.

What we see in the text is that Nebuchadnezzar constructed a huge image of gold.

Scholars are divided about what this image was, perhaps it was an image of the king himself or perhaps it was of the chief Babylonian god, Marduk.

Either way, this image was ginormous!

90 feet by 9 feet is a large statue in the 21st century and especially in the ancient world.

Large statues were not uncommon in the ancient world, though.

We know of several great architectural achievements in the ancient world include the pyramids, the Great Spinhx (240 ft high), the Colossus of Rhodes (105 ft high), the statue of Zeus (40 ft high) and the lighthouse of Alexandria.

There were several large statues that were constructed in the ancient world and they were done so in order to showcase the power and wealth of these leaders/nations as well as to honor the gods.

As Driver notes, “Oriental monarchs have always prided themselves on the immense quantities of the precious metals in their possession.”

- Does this sound familiar to us today?

We might not build statues of false gods and force people to worship them, but we still like to build fancy monuments in order to show off the power and wealth of our nation.

We see that this particular statue was 90 feet tall and on the plain of Dura.

Several scholars debate as to where in proximity to the city of Babylon this statue was built.

Likely, it was build a little ways away from the city so that the people could not have been able to see it until its dedication day.

The dedication day was a huge ordeal in the kingdom as we see that the officials were assembled to come and worship before it.

We see the specific titles of these people and the point is that they were being summoned out to this plain to have their loyalty tested before the king.

Think of the pressure being placed upon the Hebrews in this setting.

The leaders of the kingdom are gathered together and the king himself is there to essentially witness everyone bow before his mighty statue.

These men would have been stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Have you ever been in such a situation?

Maybe you are being told to do something that you know is wrong and everyone is watching to see how you respond.

What would you do in such a situation?

Would you go with the flow and ask for repentance later?

I’ve certainly done that a time or two.

Or would you stand up for what you know is right?

What we see in verses 4-6 is that there was a sort of national response or a decree during this dedication that stated that everyone must fall down and worship this image or else… be thrown into a blazing furnace.

We see that there will be pleasant music during this occasion as well as we see the words like horn, flute, lyre, harp and pipes in verse 5.

As we know with music today, it certainly adds to the worship experience.

We could sing every song acapella, however we don’t.

We use pianos, keyboards, organs, trumpets and dare I say, guitars in worship services around the world today.

Why do we do this?

Does a piano make Amazing Grace sound better than a guitar does?

No.

We do it because it aids in the worship.

It provides extra music instrumentation that we would otherwise be lacking.

The same principle exists here.

These musical elements are added and they might influence others to worship or help those who are worshipping to do so without distraction.

The demand was to fall down and worship this image - this is something that no God-honoring Jew could do.

Verse 6 gives us the penalty for defying this command as anyone who would not worship would be thrown into the blazing furnace.

The fire in this furnace was probably already ablaze as the herald declares this punishment.

records that king Nebuchadnezzar burned 2 men to death named Zedekiah and Ahab.

He was daring someone to defy his power and authority.

The furnace would have been a horrifying way to die but it also was a convenient option for the king.

Why, you may ask?

Because a furnace would have been necessary for making this large, golden, statue.

It is noted that the temperatures in these kilns could reach as high as 1800 degrees Fahrenheit - a note that we will discuss in greater detail later.

Finally, verse 7 shows us that the people finally did in fact worship whenever the music sounded.

There were some exceptions to this, though, as 3 young men defied the most powerful man in the world.

While we might not be confronted with a 90 foot tall golden statue or a blazing furnace, we know full and well that we are confronted on a daily basis to fall down and worship idols.

Some of them will come towards us in private, but others will be in public for all to see.

What do we do in these situations?

Sadly, many idols are seen as good things, and we can fail to view them as the idol that they truly are.

For example, who would say that your hobby or passion is an idol?

Not many of us would willingly admit to that, however we know that these things can distract us from worshipping God and serving Him.

We must not be deceived: God’s people will be confronted with the idols of this world.

We know this will happen and we must respond in a faithful manner.

Christians will be Criticized by the world (8-12)

Honoring God and obeying God are not always popular choices, are they?

Sometimes doing so will get us in trouble with others, possibly even with family and friends!

However, we know that we are to obey God rather than people as Peter writes in .

What we see in verse 8 is that the moment of truth was upon these men and they stood firm on the Word of God instead of bending the knee to the king.

There was no vocal outcry about how this command was dumb or against their religion, they simply quietly stood up for their beliefs.

I think there’s a reminder in that for us as well, is there not?