But
Even If God Doesn’t . . . Foundations for our Faith
Dan 3
I just read in
yesterday’s Inquirer that the death
rate in
I think that’s where
the book of Daniel is written to. God is
speaking to his people in the midst of death, defeat, and very troubled times.
I want to speak to
some of us who go through the tough realities of disappointment, when it seems
God doesn’t answer. We’re disappointed
with God.
The Context and the Crime (1-12)
A grand occasion, as indicated by the long
list of public officials—all who are in the government of the entire empire
were summoned, from imperial high officials to local agents. It was an international empire, representing
different ethnic, political and language groups of the known world.
Imagine the hype and fanfare at this royal,
national event (e.g., presidential inauguration)
Two major literary emphases:
Made of gold, 7 times. [text highlights]
This is the work of
It seems it was both a personal idol, this is
about
Religion and royalty welded together: to defy
would be religious apostasy and political defiance.
So when the astrologers came to tell the king
that three Jews have refused to bow down, this was a direct insult to the king
Imagine the scene, the entire government is
before
He must make an example of them. He certainly wouldn’t tolerate this defiance
from anyone, but especially from foreigners!
He should not lose face over these captives.
The Confrontation (13-18)
The king’s dare is directed not just at SMA,
but also at their God, “What god will be able to rescue you from my hand?” (v.
15)
SMA reply, “We don’t have to defend
ourselves, we don’t have to tell you what God will rescue us. You’re questioning our God, but we feel no
need to defend Him before you. There is
a God who can rescue us, if he wants.”
They have their own if/if not scenario (Seow)
|
Nebuchadnezzar |
Shadrach,
Meshach and Abednego |
|
If you are ready to fall and worship, very good. |
If our God is able to save us, let him save us |
|
But if you do not worship, you’ll be thrown into
a furnace. And
what god will be able to rescue you from
my hand? |
But if
our God does not save us, we will not serve your
gods. |
The issue to them is not whether or not they
are ready to submit to the king’s will (as
They refocus
It’s not about us, it’s about God.
The point is, even if God does not deliver,
they will not bow. They believe God is
fully able to deliver them, but they also acknowledge that God doesn’t have to
deliver them. Regardless of whether God
delivers them or not, they will not bow.
Remember the context: the Jews are in exile
in
1. God
doesn’t owe us
We don’t have a conditional agreement: we’ll
be faithful to God only when He blesses us with good things. Our faithfulness is not conditioned upon
God’s response.
There’s no negotiation with God. There’s no obligation on God’s side.
Consider Job: God can give and God can take
away. Naked we came, naked we’ll go
Job replies to his wife, “Shall we accept good from God and not trouble?” God can give good or bad, and we learn to
humbly receive both.
2. God
is not our genie
What if we had a God who always did whatever
we asked—what kind of God would that be?
If God does not have the freedom to do things that displease us, then we
only have a God as wise and noble as ourselves.
Do
you want a God like a genie in Aladdin’s lamp, a genie that can do everything,
but will do anything for the one who holds the lamp. Or do you want a God who can do anything He
wants. Who is God?
This is against the “domestication of
God.” We must let God be God. (
The Consequence (19-23)
7 times hotter, 7 being the number of
completeness and extreme
bound by the strongest men, the best soldiers
clothed with flammable clothing, even to their
headwear
fire even kills the executioners
In the Crucible (24-25)
The king leaps at amazement. Not only are the three men good and well,
walking around in the furnace, but there’s a forth man with them.
God may not rescue them from the fire, but He is with them in the fire.
God could have written the story so that the
3 men survive the fire. But the story is
telling us more than that. God is with them in the fire.
God does not always protect us from the
fire. Rather, it is in the fire that His
power and presence are more powerfully experienced. God meets us in the furnace.
John A’s dad has a tumor in his esophagus. It’s obviously not been easy for him or John
or the rest of his family. But when I
spoke with John’s dad (and when John shares about his dad), there is a trust
and peace. He even feels that some of
his suffering is worshipping Christ and his suffering. Dad is at his spiritual
We will go through hard times. Of that you can be sure. Don’t expect that God will always deliver
us. Rather, He may want to meet us in
the furnace as we trust Him.
The Conclusion (26-30)
All the officials who had come to bow to the
idol have now gathered to witness this miracle.
They were completely protected, not even
smoke smell.
In the YHWH vs.
1. The arrows all point to God
As courageous, faithful as SMA are, they are not the focus of this
story.
SMA shift the if/if not dialog from
themselves to God
Imagine you’re healed of cancer, and the doctor says, “O follower of
Jesus, come here and let me re-examine you!”
And then
As we go through different trials,
disappointments, furnaces, we start with a shift in perspective. We tend to focus on ourselves, but let’s
shift to see it as a story about God (as we’ll do in the next 3 points, which
work together).
2. God is honored in the deliverance
and in the defiance.
When
However, even if God didn’t deliver them, He
still would have been honored, namely through the faith of SMA.
When SMA says I’d rather burn than bow, I’d
rather be faithful than alive—God was honored.
God is not always seeking glory from his
miraculous deliverances (which He could do much more of, if he wanted). He seeks honor from our faith in Him.
A lesson from Job: trials
becomes the arena upon which the glory of God is at stake.
Satan makes a bet with God:
Job only worships you because you’re good to
him. He only follows you because you
give him all these blessings. You’re not
really that great or valuable to him. If
you take away all the blessings, he’ll spit at you and cuss you out.
God replies, You’re
on Satan. I’ll bet that Job doesn’t
disown me. Job worships me not for the
other things that I give Him. He
worships me because he loves me, he trusts me.
The real test was not Job’s but God’s; Satan
didn’t care about Job, He was after God:
Is God so good that He can be loved for Himself, not just for His
gifts? God was put on trial, played out
through Job. Satan is testing God’s value through our faithfulness.
Satan and God make a bet over how you’ll
respond to your trials.
The God-centered question is, Is God honored
by our trust in Him when we go through loss?
3. Redefining
Trust
For some, trusting God means that we believe He
will deliver us, heal us, help us find that job, help us get married, etc. We certainly are supposed to ask, and
sometimes God does.
But the problem is that he doesn’t always do
that:
Many Christians die of their sickness, fail
in ministry, don’t have jobs, etc.
Then what happens to your faith?
SMA show a different
kind of faith:
They believe God can deliver them, but then
they say, even if he doesn’t deliver us, we submit ourselves to him. He can
save me or He can slay me—I entrust myself to Him.
Our trust in God doesn’t mean that we decide
what we want and believe He will do what we ask. Our trust in God means, we believe He
determines the outcome and we trust Him to make the right decisions. He can
save me or He can slay me—I entrust myself to Him.
Janette’s aunt has been battling cancer for
several years and has recently been hospitalized for treatment.
Janette called to express her sympathies, but
her aunt said, “Please don’t feel sorry or sad.
I don’t feel that way. I’m
assured that God has His purpose.”
[People should feel sorry about God’s purpose for me]
Instead of focusing on ourselves and the
hardships of our trials, behold a God who asks you trust His decision.
Our faith isn’t so tested when gives us what
we want. Our faith is tested when he
doesn’t give us what we want.
If God were to take away my wife, my boys, my health, my ministry,
would I still worship Him? I want to say
yes, but I don’t know. In some ways, I
feel I am still untested.
Some of us are in the midst of the furnace
now. Others the furnace days will come
later.
We need to prepare ourselves today for the
trials of tomorrow. Build the theology today, build that right relationship with God today that can
handle the realities of loss tomorrow.
4. Our Rescue
Whether God delivers us from our immediate
trials or not, we live with the assurance that God has delivered us from the
ultimate destruction.
The forth man in the furnace who looks like
the son of the gods points to a Son who indeed did rescue us from the greatest
fire.
The story is that we were in the furnace, not
because we were faithful but because we were unfaithful. And He rescued us. The story is not that we all walked out of
the fire, but that Jesus was burned to ashes.
That’s why we call Him Savior—he saved us. Ultimately, we celebrate a God who has saved
us.
All the little rescues remind us, point to
the hope, the fact that He is our Rescuer, our Savior.
We look at the cross and believe He believe
He indeed has already rescued us.
We look to a resurrection, a future hope, a
day of vindication from those who would oppose and mock the God whom we serve.
We believe He is our Savior, He loves and
saves us. That’s why we trust Him
today.
Time of ministry:
For those of us who are struggling, and it’s
hard to trust God.