Daniel 3:1-18 Death Over Idolatry

Patton Shinall

Daniel • Sermon • Submitted 2 years ago

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No matter how much the world pressures us to honor their gods, Christians must resolve to worship God alone.

Notes

Transcript

Intro

Perhaps more than any other time in most of our lives, it has never been more obvious that we are in a spiritual war.

There are two kingdoms. The Kingdom of Light and the Kingdom of Darkness.

And this spiritual war actually started with the first two people God ever created, Adam and eve.

After the Fall, God cursed the serpent, the Devil, and said I will put enmity between your offspring and hers.

The spiritual children of God and the spiritual children of Satan would always be at war.

Eventually God sent the true offspring Jesus Christ who crushed the head of the serpent through His death and resurrection on the cross.

And Jesus has sent us, His church into all the world to herald His Kingdom. To proclaim the good news of His gospel.

And from the very beginning the church has been doing exactly that.

And just like any war, when one Kingdom pushes against another kingdom, there is resistance.

When Paul and Silas went to Thessalonica, they went to the Synagogue and preached the gospel.

That Jesus died and rose again for our sins, and He is the King of kings and Lord of lords and to Him belongs the obedience of all people.

Shots were fired and the kingdom of darkness pushed back.

They created a mob and set the city in an uproar and dragged some Christians out before the city authorities saying “These men who have turned the world upside down have come here also!”

Turned the world upside down? How did they do that?

They are all acting against the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, Jesus.

This is foundational to our mission, our identity, and our very life.

God calls us to be the kind of people that turn the world upside down, the world is upside down, but its not because of us.

What have we lost as the American Church?

There is another king, Jesus!

That message, will turn the world upside down because it says everything belongs to Him.

And the world will war against us.

They have their gods, their saviors, and they are not interested in giving them up because they give them all the sinful desires of their dead, stony hearts.

And the way they wage war is by pressuring us.

Pressuring us to honor their gods. To relegate Christ to one God, one King among many.

But Jesus has told us to turn the world upside down. To disciple the nations to love and obey him.

And for a while we have been losing the battle in front of us.

How do we change that?

The answer is first things first.

It all starts with the glory of God.

No matter how much the world pressures us to honor their gods, Christians must resolve to worship God alone.

This is the message of Daniel 3:1-18.

The goal of our life and the goal of this church is the glory of God through Jesus Christ.

Its all about Him. That’s the mission.

That in all things we would refuse to conform to the world and love serve and proclaim another King, Jesus so that we might glorify God, and bear witness to the world that all men were created to worship Him alone.

In a word, the heart of every Christian and the heart of every church that wants to turn the world upside down for the glory of God must be: Death over idolatry.

And to have that heart, we must first refuse to honor all other God’s.

And second, worship God alone through Jesus Christ.

Let’s start with point number 1...

I. We Must Refuse to Honor All Other Gods

Daniel 3:1-2 King Nebuchadnezzar made an image of gold, whose height was sixty cubits and its breadth six cubits. He set it up on the plain of Dura, in the province of Babylon. Then King Nebuchadnezzar sent to gather the satraps, the prefects, and the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the justices, the magistrates, and all the officials of the provinces to come to the dedication of the image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up.

We don’t know how long after Nebuchadnezzar’s dream in chapter 2 this story takes place.

In that dream, Nebuchadnezzar saw the Kingdoms of Men represented by four metals in a great statue.

And these Kingdoms were crushed to dust and blown away by the wind never to be seen again by a stone not cut with human hands.

That stone was Christ, the King of a new Kingdom that crushes the kingdoms of men and grows to be a great mountain that fills the earth.

The dream was a prophecy that the Kingdom of Christ would dominate the world and never be destroyed.

And that is where we are now in human history. Jesus reigns as King of kings and Lord of lords at the right hand of the Father until all his enemies are a footstool under His feet (Psalm 110:1).

The nations are His inheritance and the ends of the earth are His possession (Psalm 2:8), and to Him belongs the obedience of the peoples (Genesis 49:10).

Through the gospel, God is reconciling all things to Himself in Heaven and on Earth, and day after day the Kingdom of Christ grows a little bit more and a little bit more, until one day by the power of God, His Kingdom will be a great mountain that fills the whole earth (Colossians 1:20; Daniel 2:35).

Well evidently, this dream did not sit well with Nebuchadnezzar. He confessed that God is the God of gods and the Lord of kings, but in his heart he refused to believe it (Daniel 2:47).

Even though God had said that the dream was certain and its interpretation was sure, refused to believe it.

He reused to bow down to the King of kings and Lord of lords Jesus Christ, and instead said, I’m going to make sure that my Kingdom is the one that lasts forever. I will be the King of kings and Lord of lords from this time forth forevermore.

So in defiance of the dream, Nebuchadnezzar made and image of gold.

You’ll remember that in the dream, Daniel said Nebuchadnezzar was the head of gold.

And so he makes this glorious statue 90’ tall and 9’ wide, probably trying to match the size of the statue in his dream that was strong and mighty and frightening.

But this statue is made entirely of gold.

Nebuchadnezzar was trying to say there will be no “after this.” His kingdom would never end, and instead of being broken, his kingdom would break all others including God’s.

And I want you to notice the emphasis Daniel puts on Nebuchadnezzar “setting up” this idol.

In this story, some form of this verb is used 9 times, and why that’s significant is because that word is the same word used in chapter 2 about what God sets up.

In Daniel’s prayer from 2:21, Daniel said God was the one who changes times and seasons and removes kings and sets up kings (Daniel 2:21).

And then in the interpretation of the dream in 2:44-45, it says that the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed and that this Kingdom would be set up forever.

By setting up this idol of gold, Nebuchadnezzar was saying two things.

For one he was saying that God is does not actually set up kings. He is not the Sovereign of all the universe.

The kingdom of gold, Nebuchadnezzar would stand forever.

But also, by setting up this image as a god that all people in Babylon were required to worship, Nebuchadnezzar was putting himself over God.

Oh, God thinks He can set up kings does He? Well, I can set up gods!!

This statue represented Nebuchadnezzar’s and all the people who bowed down and worshiped it absolute rebellion against God.

God was not the Only True God, and God was not the Only True King of the universe.

Verse 3...

Daniel 3:3-7 Then the satraps, the prefects, and the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the justices, the magistrates, and all the officials of the provinces gathered for the dedication of the image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. And they stood before the image that Nebuchadnezzar had set up. And the herald proclaimed aloud, “You are commanded, O peoples, nations, and languages, that when you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, bagpipe, and every kind of music, you are to fall down and worship the golden image that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up.

And whoever does not fall down and worship shall immediately be cast into a burning fiery furnace.” Therefore, as soon as all the peoples heard the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, bagpipe, and every kind of music, all the peoples, nations, and languages fell down and worshiped the golden image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up.

So Nebuchadnezzar calls all his powerful officials and has a herald proclaim to all peoples, nations, and languages that when they hear the music of Nebuchadnezzar’s idol, they are commanded to bow down and worship it, under the threat of death.

The three words peoples, nations, and languages all together, back to back, make it clear that no one in the entire Kingdom of Babylon was exempt from obeying Nebuchadnezzar’s command.

The goal of Nebuchadnezzar was to make his empire strong and hopefully ward off any future threat to his kingdom by uniting his kingdom under one religion.

Now what religion precisely isn’t exactly clear. It was probably the glory of Babylon as a whole, the worship of Nebuchadnezzar, the chief god of Babylon Marduk, and the power and glory of the Empire itself.

After all, Daniel tells us he was brought to the land of Shinar to serve Nebuchadnezzar and according to Genesis 11:2, this this was the same area the tower of Babel was built.

And you’ll remember their goal then was to build a city and a tower with its top in the heavens that they might make a name for themselves (Genesis 11:4).

They wanted to invade heaven and make themselves equal with God, just like Nebuchadnezzar wanted to do with his golden idol.

And the threat for anyone that did not fall down and worship the image was that they would be thrown into a burning fiery furnace.

But notice that Nebuchadnezzar didn’t outlaw all other religions.

He didn’t care what god you worshiped as long as his god was first.

All other gods had to take second place.

And this was a problem for three men who worshiped the One True God, and worshiped Him alone.

Daniel 3:8-12 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 hears the sound 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; they do not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused to bow down to Nebuchadnezzar’s god.

You’ll remember, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.

And Daniel uses their Babylonian names to highlight the faithfulness of Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. Ever since they came to Babylon, the Kingdom of Darkness was trying to press them into its mold, to the point where Nebuchadnezzar tried to give them a completely new identity rooted in the Babylonian gods and worldview.

And even after all that pressure, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego still refused to be conformed to the pattern of the World, stayed faithful to God and worshiped Him alone even in the face of death.

After Nebuchadnezzar made his decree, some Chaldeans came to him and maliciously accused Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego that they paid no attention to Nebuchadnezzar and refused to worship the God he had set up, in hope that Nebuchadnezzar would be so enraged that he would put them to death.

And this is where we start to see what God is saying to us in this story.

No matter how hard the world pressures us we can not honor or even give lip service to their gods

We cannot bow down and worship any idol no matter the cost.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were threatened with death, and a horrible death. Who wants to be burned alive in a fiery furnace?

But Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego did not have a choice. They could never worship another God because they were God’s holy people.

They belonged to Him.

And what is the greatest commandment for the people of God?

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind (Luke 10:27).

Why? Because the LORD our God, the LORD is one (Deut 6:4).

There is only one God, and to Him alone belongs all of our worship, praise, and adoration.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego said death in a fiery furnace would be better than idolatry.

And that’s because they loved God with all their heart and sought to bring every inch of their lives under obedience to His commands the first two of which, are given to us in Exodus 20:3-6.

Exodus 20:3-6 You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

In the first two commandments of the ten commandments God says you will have no other God’s before Him, He is the Most High God.

And not only that you will have no other gods, at all.

All of your life, love, adoration, and devotion belong to Him and Him alone.

God refuses to share His glory with another.

Just like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, the very thought of idolatry should be such an abomination to us that we would rather die than give His glory to another.

And I’ll be honest with you, I think this is the thing that is missing in the American church today.

We have made God our buddy. Someone that is common. A cosmic vending machine or a kindly old grandpa.

We do not fear God. And we do not worship Him as holy like the seraphim who even with their holiness cover their face and feet as they fly crying out Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts (Isaiah 6:3).

We might not make for ourselves statues of gold or silver, but we are more than happy to harbor idols in our own hearts.

Heart Idols

And listen, all of us are tempted with our own idols and we must do everything we can to guard against them.

An idol of the heart is a good thing that we make into a God-thing. An ultimate thing. Something you have to have for the fullness of life.

It can be comfort, approval, security, fulfillment, money, a perfect spouse, perfect kids. It can be anything that we make the ultimate thing.

And just like obeying God is how we worship Him, sin is how we worship false gods.

Sin is what we us to try and have the idol our hearts desperately crave.

That’s why when you have some besetting sin in your life, one you just can’t get rid of no matter how hard you try and say never again, it still comes back.

You have to deal with the root of your sin, not just the fruit.

Ask yourself, What are you trying to get out of your sin? What are you hoping it will give you?

That’s the idol of your heart that needs to be smashed into pieces.

But this passage in Daniel is not dealing with heart idols.

Yes, 100% we need to guard our hearts from the incipient ways we take the glory that belongs to God and give it to another.

Calvin said, because of sin, our hearts are like idol factories.

Which is why God says Guard your heart with all vigilance for from it flow the springs of life (Proverbs 4:23).

But this passage is about dealing with the idols of the world and the pressure the world puts on us to honor them.

World Idols

Here’s the uncomfortable truth. There is a real temptation to tip toe around the gods of the culture.

To play nice and not ruffle too many feathers. And listen, Christians shouldn’t be going out into the world trying to ruffle feathers for the sake of ruffling feathers.

But if we aren’t ruffling feathers in our commitment to Christ and gospel witness, we’re doing it wrong.

And the sad state of the American church today is a direct result that we are more afraid that we might offend the gods of the world than we are of offending the God of Heaven.

The reason the world has gotten so dark is that the church has forgotten God and put a basket over our light because we are afraid of the backlash that will come if we refuse to bow down to the world’s gods.

Well what are those gods? We don’t have some 90’ tall statue in the square or a great orchestra playing five times a day to tell us when we need to bow down and worship.

We could talk all day about certain small gods in the culture.

Social justice, A woman’s right to choose, Feminism, Climate, Politics both left and right, Science whatever that means anymore, Vaccines, Comfort, Money, Love, Homosexuality and Gender, all of these have been elevated to ultimate truths.

Gods who speak the world into being and give it shape and meaning.

But I actually want to go a level above that. All the different gods of the culture might seem disconnected, but their really not.

Henry Van Til said that culture is religion externalized.

That the heart of every culture is the cult of that culture. What our culture worships.

So what does our culture love? What do they value? What are the sacred cows you better never touch?

Well, we live in a secular humanist society.

Completely atheistic in practice believing that the universe came from nothing and we evolved by random evolutionary chance.

And because there is no god, we are god.

What the world believes there is no god over us, what they are really saying is that there is no god like us.

So the God of the world is not the GodMan Jesus Christ. Its the idol of Man. The ManGod.

The ManGod is the one that says what is true. The ManGod is the one that gives life meaning and ultimate purpose.

The Collective Man defines what is justice. What is good and evil. Right and wrong.

All the other gods of the culture are symptoms that like the tower of Babel, and like Nebuchadnezzar we think we can invade heaven and reign over the world as we see fit.

This is why Statism, the absolute and unquestioned submission to the government no matter their lies or tyranny, is the new religion.

If the Collective Man, the ManGod is God, then god incarnate is the Government. The embodiment of human autonomy and authority.

The centralization of human power to wage war against the God of Heaven, with the mantra of separation of church and state, which when that was written in a letter, not in the Constitution, it was about the government staying out of churches. Not God staying out of the government.

Well what does it look like to worship the ManGod. In Babylon it was easy, you bowed down when the music played. What about for us.

I think the simplest way to explain what worship looks like in the humanistic paganism we find ourselves in is Ephesians 2:1-3.

Ephesians 2:1-3 And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

This is what we as Christians have been redeemed from through the gospel of Jesus Christ.

False worship to this false god, bowing down to the ManGod looks like following the course of this world which follows Satan, the prince of the power of the air in rebellion against God and giving him the glory due His Name.

In our day, its a spiritual bowing down the world tries to pressure us into.

Its giving lip service to their gods or tip toeing around them.

It looks like going along with the world to get along with the world instead of holding fast to God’s Word alone as our highest authority.

Its being afraid of saying abortion is murder.

Its being afraid not to say Black Lives Matter because if you don’t give your pinch of incense to to the Social Justice revolution people might think you’re racist.

Its being afraid of bucking up against the Gender and sexual confusion of our day.

Of simply saying Homosexuality is a sin.

Transgenderism is a demonic lie invented to devour our children and lead them to reject God at a fundamental level by rejecting who God made them to be.

Or that God calls men to lead in the home, church and society and that it is a judgment from God when women and children rule over us.

that God made them male and female and called it very good and if we reject that we are really rejecting God himself and everything he created us to be.

All that is how you bow down to the gods of the culture. When the music plays follow the course of the world. Show your allegiance to the ManGod.

And here’s why it’s so tempting. Just like with shadrach, meschach, and Abednego, You can still keep your God. You can still be a Christian. Jesus just needs to be one among many.

Keep your beliefs private. Don’t try to bring Christ to bear on the world and how we live. Separation of church and state.

And the pressure the world uses can be social pressure or it can be imprisonment and death.

You had both with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Verse 7 said all the peoples, nations, and languages fell down and worshiped the golden image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up.

Its the course of the world because that is where everybody is going.

But as Christians we cannot follow them or even pretend to follow them. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego could have just bowed.

Could’ve just gone alone while saying themselves, I’m not worshiping this god, but I’ll just play it out and get on with my wife.

And that is the path, for the most part the American church has taken today.

But we must remember the first two commandments. You will have no other gods before me, you will not bow down to any graven images.

There is no option. We must refuse to honor all other Gods and Worship God alone through Christ no matter the cost.

II. We Must Worship God Alone through Christ

Daniel 3:13-15 Then Nebuchadnezzar in furious rage commanded that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego be brought. So they brought these men before the king. 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 hands?”

This is the lie the gods of the world preach. If you do not worship them, honor them, bow down to them, you will fall under their wrath, judgment, and condemnation.

You will be cast into a burning fiery furnace to suffer for your sins.

The wrath of the world comes down on Christians because their gods demand it.

They hate us because they hate Christ.

Jesus said A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you (John 15:20).

They crucified our Lord. The world hates us because we are not of the world, we are the body of Christ (John 15:19).

And all this brings us to the fundamental question that we need to settle in our minds.

Who will we fear? Will we fear God or will we fear men?

Who you fear, honor, revere, hold high, is who you will worship.

Proverbs 29:25 The fear of man lays a snare, but whoever trusts in the Lord is safe.

The lie is if you don’t worship the gods of the world, you will die.

But the truth is, the fear of man is a snare. Its a trap. Its what will actually lead to death, wrath, and a burning fiery furnace.

Jesus said...

Luke 12:4-5 I tell you, my friends, do not fear those who kill the body, and after that have nothing more that they can do. But I will warn you whom to fear: fear him who, after he has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him!

Here’s what’s amazing about this story.

Its like a grotesque, Frankenstein’s monster picture of the gospel.

Nebuchadnezzar set up a god and said everyone, all peoples, nations, and languages, must worship it or be thrown in a fiery furnace.

And he was even so bold as to say and what god can deliver anyone from my wrath?

Worship or die. That was the promise.

And the only thing that could save you as bowing down to the idol Nebuchadnezzar had set up.

Look at Philippians 2:6-11...

Philippians 2:6-11 [Christ Jesus] was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

The Bible tells us the wages of sin is death.

Nebuchadnezzar set up a golden image, God exalted Christ.

And just like Nebuchadnezzar’s golden image, if we refuse to bow down and worship the God of Heaven, God will throw us in His fiery furnace. Eternal conscious torment in Hell which is the second death.

And because all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, there is no one to deliver us from his hand.

We cannot save ourselves. We cannot be good enough, obey enough, or rely on our works in any way to forgive even one of our sins.

We are hopelessly lost.

But God is no petty tyrant like Nebuchadnezzar. He is a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

When no one else could deliver us from God’s hand, he delivered us. He sent His Son Jesus to die on the cross in our place for our sins.

The wrath God had against us and everyone that puts their faith in Christ was poured out on the Son of God so that we could be forgiven.

And if you want to be saved from your sins, you must repent of your sin and believe in Him. Trust in him. Follow Him.

He is the only way to avoid the fiery furnace of Hell, because God has highly exalted Him, He has set Him up, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, every people, nation, and language.

There is no other way to come to the Father. Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life. That is why we must worship God through Christ.

In Christ we see God’s perfect glory. His perfect holiness, love, righteousness, justice, wrath, mercy, grace, and forgiveness.

It is only through Christ that we can truly know God in such a way that we can give Him the glory due His Name.

When no one else could delver us, God by His grace delivered us and sending His own Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross and rise again three days later.

He saved us from the fiery furnace of His wrath, but the only way you can be saved, and you really could be saved, you could be saved today, this very moment, is if you bow down to Christ.

God promises, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved, delivered once and for all from the wrath that is to come.

And if we are saved, we are purchased by His blood.

We are not our own, we were bought with a price. All of our life, all of our love, all of our worship, all of our devotion belongs solely to God.

Which means, when the world pressures us to bow down to their gods, there is no question in our minds that we would rather die than give in even one time to worship their idols.

Daniel 3:16-18 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. 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.”

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answer the king and say, you’re wrong that there is no God that can deliver us from your hand.

Our God can. And He might. But even if he doesn’t, O king, know this, we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image you have set up.

In the face of a horrible death, one of the worst deaths you or I could ever imagine, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, saw God’s glory more valuable than their life, and would have died a hundred times over to keep from worshiping Nebuchadnezzar’s idol.

Whether God would deliver them or if he chose to glorify His Name by leaving them to be burned, they would never compromise their commitment to the Lord.

Live or die, they were going to be faithful to God.

They even say we have no need to answer you in this matter.

Nebuchadnezzar, there’s nothing to say. We are not going to worship your god. Kill us if you want. We are not budging.

We will love the Lord our God with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength and Him only will we serve (Matthew 4:10).

Here’s the problem with hypocrisy. I think a lot of Christians lie to themselves and say they would never worship another god if it meant life and death.

If those are the stakes, they would die for Christ.

But here’s the thing. Death is the ultimate price we could pay for our faith.

But how much is God’s glory actually worth if we are willing to die for Christ but we aren’t aren’t willing to pay the small sacrifices for following Jesus.

Oh, I have a high view of God and His glory. I would die for Him, but I don’t want to be fired, or rejected, or thought of as weird.

What you think of God’s glory, is not the ultimate price you would pay, its the lowest. That’s true godliness.

That’s really what you think about God and how important it is to worship Him and reject all other gods.

And if your view of God’s glory is way down here, it won’t take much to compromise your faith and conform to the world.

In contrast, the heart of the Christian is to worship God so much and to see Him so Holy in Christ, that when the world pressures us to go along to get along, to compromise our commitment to God’s Word or be silent in our witness to Christ, we say we have no need to answer you in this matter.

We’re not moving. We are God’s, and we are God’s no matter what.

We are going to worship Him alone and we will pay whatever price that takes.

Because listen, there are going to be times when we can convince ourselves that we have a good reason to put Jesus in the back seat at one point or another.

I mean look at Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

They were three of the most powerful people in Babylon.

Don’t you think they could have said, Look guys. We have an opportunity here. Look where God has put us. We know Babylon hates us and hates our people. What if God’s put us here to protect them?

Wouldn’t it be better to just give in a little bit? It might stink, but if the world snuffs us out then how will the nations ever come to God?

Isn’t that the same way the American church has rationalized conforming more and more to the world without realizing with every step they take they are leaving the glory of God behind?

We want to have a good witness, so let’s soften our edges and look a little bit more like the world here where we can.

Instead of saying nothing in our life is worth forsaking God. No matter what it takes by God’s grace and the power of the Holy Spirit all of our focus, energy, and effort is to bring all of our life into submission to Christ and if the world hates us for it, we will rejoice because we don’t live for this world.

Our reward is great in heaven.

Conclusion

So how do we worship God alone through Christ? How to we stay faithful to him and not fall into following the course of this world?

Through faith in the faithfulness of God.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God (Hebrews 12:1-2).

To persevere and worship God alone, we must fix our eyes on Christ.

He endured, and as our Great High Priest, he knows how to help us endure and give us grace to help in time of need (Hebrews 4:16).

And did not Jesus say John 16:33 I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.

And because Jesus overcame the world, Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us (Romans 8:35-37).

In Christ, we have overcome the world, and because we have overcome the world, there must be an absolute, whole-hearted, committed resolve to worship God alone through Jesus Christ.

A steel rod in our spine for God’s glory in everything no matter how much the world threatens us.

Without this resolve, true godliness will not be ours, and we will never be able to give God the glory due to His Name.

And if the very purpose of life is to glorify Him and enjoy Him forever, why would we have it any other way?

Death over idolatry no matter the cost.

Let’s Pray

Scripture Reading

Jeremiah 10:2-7; 10-11Thus says the Lord: “Learn not the way of the nations, nor be dismayed at the signs of the heavens because the nations are dismayed at them, for the customs of the peoples are vanity. A tree from the forest is cut down and worked with an axe by the hands of a craftsman. They decorate it with silver and gold; they fasten it with hammer and nails so that it cannot move. Their idols are like scarecrows in a cucumber field, and they cannot speak; they have to be carried, for they cannot walk. Do not be afraid of them, for they cannot do evil, neither is it in them to do good.” There is none like you, O Lord; you are great, and your name is great in might. Who would not fear you, O King of the nations? For this is your due; for among all the wise ones of the nations and in all their kingdoms there is none like you....But the Lord is the true God; he is the living God and the everlasting King. At his wrath the earth quakes, and the nations cannot endure his indignation. Thus shall you say to them: “The gods who did not make the heavens and the earth shall perish from the earth and from under the heavens.””

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