Daniel 3 When the state plays god

We usually call this story “Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego in the burning fiery furnace.”  But really it is “Nebuchadnezzar and the giant statue – part 2!”  Remember part 1 – Nebuchadnezzar had a powerful, frightening dream about a huge statue with a head of gold, and feet of iron and clay; the only person who could tell Nebuchadnezzar what he had dreamed and what it meant, was Daniel. And what it meant was that he, Nebuchadnezzar, was that head of gold, but that God's kingdom will eventually destroy all empires...  Nebuchadnezzar was at first, very impressed and awestruck. “Surely your God is the God of gods and the Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries, for you were able to reveal this mystery.” (2. 47)

But that didn't last long.  Soon, "You are the head of Gold" became an opportunity too good to miss. So the king began again to obsess about his own importance. Never mind the coming kingdom of God that would fill the whole earth and remove all trace of human kingdoms, Nebuchadnezzar was the Head of Gold! 

1. He cherry-picked the bits he wanted from the word God had given him.  There were bits he wanted to hear.  And there were bits that were more convenient to ignore.   Many of us do the same.  We want to hear about God's love,  grace,  forgiveness and healing; spiritual blessings, being God's sons and having a destiny; but not about repentance, following the One who had no place to lay his head, persecution or treating others as better than ourselves
2. He had received blessing, encouragement, some healing as Daniel interpreted his dream for him.  But that hadn't led to a change in him. He had been blessed.  But he hadn't changed. He is still the same mad, self-obsessed guy!  And some of us do that: we receive the good things God wants to give us – his healing, his approval, his promise. But we don't respond by changing our lives.
3. In fact, Nebuchadnezzar uses  the help God has given him, to move further away from God.  Having gained strength and encouragement by being told he was the head of Gold,  he used the very gifts God had given him – the healing and hope – to go further away from God's plan.  And a few of us will do that. We will take what God has given us, a voice, a skill, and turn it against God himself.  

God is gracious. He does heal. He does forgive. He does speak. He does give us a new destiny, purpose, identity & dignity! But he doesn't do that  simply so  that we can build a bigger, better life for ourselves!

So Nebuchadnezzar sets up an image 2.67 m wide and 26.7 m tall. It was massive – like the statue in the dream. And like the statue in the dream, it was either cast of gold or overlaid with gold.  Like the statue in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream it meant the empire itself.  This was “Babylon-fest” with the statue, and the gatherings of people, and the music, a huge rally in support of Nebuchadnezzar’s worldwide empire.  What it speaks of is a world where the state – or the economy or any other human institution – takes the place of God.  Let me give you some examples of that happening in history.  
1. Octavian, later called Augustus,  the first Roman Emperor, took the title “son of the Divine Caesar”.  A hundred years later the emperor Domitian was called “Dominus et deus” or “Master and God”.  The historic creed, “Jesus is Lord” was a radical thing because the Romans claimed “Caesar is Lord”.
2. Around 1785, The “Triangular rout” taking British goods to Africa, African slaves to the West Indies, and West Indian sugar back to Britain, accounted for 80% of Britain's trade, and people said abolition of the slave trade would ruin Britain.  For that reason, abolishing the slave trade took over 25 years of campaigning, led in parliament by a wee man called William Wilberforce, a Christian.
3. In 1936, Adolf Hitler merged most protestant churches in Germany into the Reich Church. This did not have the Christian cross as its symbol but the swastika. The Bible was replaced by “Mein Kampf” which was placed on the altar. By it was a sword. Only Nazis were allowed to preach.
4. At a dinner in the 1960's a young maths student was invited to have coffee with a select group of professors and one of them advised him if he wanted to get on in the scientific world, “give up these childish ideas of God, they will only disadvantage you among your peers.”  That young man was John Lennox, who went on to become professor of Mathematics at Oxford. Many in social work, education, medicine, and business have found that Christian faith and conscience creates problems in the the institutions they work for.   
So any of us who have power, have to be very careful that we don't allow the seat of that power – be tit a church, a family, a classroom, a trade union of a government – to take the place of God, to demand absolute allegiance. Humanity's deepest curse has ever been its own hatred of God and true goodness. (Wallace)    
Shadrach, Meshach & Abed-nego certainly did not feel able to worship the image.  They – and we can guess Daniel and other Jews likewise – simply stayed at home.  Nebuchadnezzar's regime wasn't so obsessed and controlling that it wanted to pry on people's private lives, so all was well until some people denounced them.  Presumably they weren't the only ones but they were the ones who were named and made an example of.  They show us the Miracle of Resistance. The emperor, though angry, was trying to be nice to them, to give them another chance.   “is it true that you have refused to worship the statue?  Well, that can all be in the past; I'm prepared to overlook it if you start  worshipping along with everyone else.  But if you don't you will be thrown into the furnace.”   Their answer, in verses 17f, is wonderful: “If it 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 which you have set up.”   That's the faith for a miracle.  It was God at work in the three men, God's Spirit shaping and sustaining their character – as he wants to shape and sustain our character, so that we too can show the miracle of resistance when institutions  try to take the place of God and demand our total allegiance.

No wonder the king was so outraged at that stand.  Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego, were still Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, and they were not prepared to give way.  The king orders he furnace heated seven times hotter than usual, the guards who had to throw the three into the fire were burned to death in the process, and the three were joined by a fourth person, who somehow glowed brighter than that white-hot fire; a supernatural being, God's angel.   And they walked around in that place of horror, watched by Nebuchadnezzar and his advisors, until the King called them to come out, and they came, unharmed, not even smelling of smoke.  The Miracle of Rescue.   God is able.  God does work the miracles of rescue.  See Isaiah 43.

And for Nebuchadnezzar, the miracle of resistance rattled him and upset him, but the miracle of rescue that he saw, moved him to a change of heart.  He acknowledges that God “sent his angel and delivered his servants, who trusted in him, and set at nought the king's command.”   And in typical Babylonian fashion he not only praises the Lord but orders that anyone who says anything against the Lord is to be torn limb from limb and his home reduced to rubble. “For no other god can save in this way.”(v. 29) Nebuchadnezzar recognises that there is a greater king than himself.   That's the Miracle of Repentance.  It's a turn-around, a change of mind.  It's what happened to a young Jew called Saul who was on the road to Damascus with an arrest warrant for the local Christians. Jesus met him, and he became one of these Christians himself.  Jesus is Lord.  Jesus is King.  And when he announces his Kingdom, he tells us to “repent and believe the Good news.”

Nebuchadnezzar was far from perfect.  Next week we will be looking at another story of Nebuchadnezzar’s life that shows he was still messed up.  God understands we are not perfect.  But he calls us to repent, to change our minds and believe the good news, knowing full well that if we do, we won't be perfect next Sunday.

God does work the miracles of rescue.  But he will not rescue us from the need to make responsible, adult decisions.  In our broken, messed up world, we need to make right, good moral decisions about who will have our loyalty and allegiance. and our worship.  If you are a follower of Jesus, I want to give you the opportunity today, to pray for the miracle of resistance, of the Holy Spirit forming your character so that you can witness for Jesus in our broken world.  And if you are not yet a follower of Jesus,  I want to invite you to experience the miracle of repentance and conversion – to hand your life over to God and let him make of it what he wants to.

© Gilmour Lilly September 2016