The W. A. Criswell Sermon Library

Introduction

These three captains rising from one noble commitment to another. In chapter 112 of Daniel, the pulse to eat and water to drink. In chapter 2:17, given to prayer with Daniel for a Revelation. In chapter 3, singled out for death a flaming furnace because of their religious connection.

I. The Threat and the Refusal.

1. In Daniel 3:6, a bow down or burn. In Daniel 3:16-18, not careful to answer; not bow down.

1) Duty, conscience, God above personal safety:

- Not intimidated by fear of death; I saw the martyr.
- A deep sense of devine law (Exodus 20:4 & 5).
- Nothing in heaven above, nor likeness on earth below.
- No image of a virgin, nor crucifix or object likeness.

2) Idols set up on plains of our life:

- Public display.
- Fasting.
- Private in our hearts.
- Demands.

Are a few ways for a Christian to respond. Compromise well, or a hurting conscience 17:5-18. As these three "no" King, life or death. Compare to first Adam, he failed at the forbidden fruit. Second Adam, Milton's Paradise Regained, concluded with the story of the crucifixion and resurrection of our Lord. But the great puritan poet closed it with the temptation of our Lord, when he brought paradise back to a fallen race, in saying "no" to the tempter three times.

3) A Religion of Christ, a cross of commitment in Matthew 16:24 & 25:

- No religious victory without its element of sacrifice.
- Losing friends, possession, money, advancement.
- It is well to those strength of the furnace.
- Many do not work; they want an easy life--they rather face the raging battles--a solder of the cross.
II. If God Failed to Deliver from the Furnace, believed God able; but if did not, cast into the Fire.

1. To answer--a kind of faith that only God can bestow--I have God's help. Then a reward is to be faithful; but if not, thine would be faithful anyway. Did not point their loyalty upon their deliverance.

1) When God does not intervene, no one but has a drastic experience that challenges faith to obliterate it. Always assured that God is present. God is good, but now we have a sign of existence. So remote are ways so undistinquishable, it is better off than if we did not know.

- Compare to Epicureans. Gods indifferent. After some shattering experiences, I thought that I had faith. But now, I do not know if I have faith in anything. Inexorably--death, health, sickness; business failures, child, hope, fail. Religion good on Sunday, does not work during the week.

2. When God seemingly hides Himself.

1) Maurice Hindus

3. But the magnificent fact, humans such in these exact circumstances, have cried out in faith in the unseen God. Then Martin Luther, in his loneliness, on his way to the Diet of Worms to appear before King Charles V and the Roman Prelate and all the Princes around, Martin Luther said, "My cause shall be commended to the Lord, for he lives and reigns who preserves the children in the furnace from the Babylonian king.”

- Compare the martyrs, some have said and I have read; and just by reading, I have read that the martyrs who face the stake and the fire and the faggot and the flame, that the martyrs were so given to God, that when they were burned they didn't feel it. They drowned their tears and sufferings in hymns of praise and songs of exaltation.

III. Their Faith in a Final Deliverance.

1. In Daniel 3:17, maybe not out of a furnace, but out of the hand of the king, if this body burned, the ashes, where the king is unable to reach them, to touch, or to torment them. When you read the text, if you are not exceedingly careful, you'll not see it--you won't even know it is there--the reason the young men say that we are clinging to God whether it costs us our life or not, is because we believe in a life that is yet to come.

In John 12:24 & 25 and Hebrews 11:24-27, they did not judge the situations by the king's thrust or by the heat of the furnace, or by this love of their life, but by the everlasting God and the stand which God had promised. And when the sounds of the flute, the harp, the dulcimer, psaltery and the other instruments of the music of the glorified, it braced the wrath of the infuriated tyrant because they saved Him who is invincible.

- Compare the martyrs because they believed in an afterlife in heaven.

- Compare Paul in 1 Corinthians 15:19.

2. If we do right, it is God's responsibility to see us through. With the consequences, we have nothing to do--leave that to Him--it is ours to do right, it’s for God to keep His promises. Abraham in Genesis 22:1 and following and Hebrews 11:17-19 it is for us to obey, it is for God to help and keep His promises. Isaac was to be slain, then God will raise him from the dead. Here God John 8:56--Genesis 23.