PBPC Update - Sunday Sermon Available on YouTube
- Sermon, August 2, 2020 - "The Power of Presence"
 | Daniel 3:19-30 - Part 4 of "God's People in Exile" |
Sermon – "The Power of Presence" – Daniel 3:19-30
August 2, 2020
Chris Coon, PBPC
When I was going into the fourth grade, I went through the potentially traumatic experience of having to switch schools. I would be leaving the one school that I had ever known, where all of my friends were and with all of its familiar surroundings and memories, and going to a new place where I didn't know anybody. What it would like? Would people be nice to me or mean to me? Would I fit in, or would I be all alone? The anxiety that I was experiencing was relieved when my parents informed me that my best friend
would also be attending this new school. I wouldn't be alone, after all! No matter how difficult it was, I would have a trusted presence there with me, and this made all the difference. Presence can be powerful.
We are in the midst of a sermon series called God's People in Exile, focusing on the Old Testament book of Daniel. Six hundred years before the time of Jesus,
the Israelites living in Jerusalem were conquered by the Babylonians, Jerusalem was destroyed (along with the Temple), and many of the people were taken away into exile in Babylon. Last week we covered the story of three young Jews (another word for Israelites, specifically those from the region of Judah,
around Jerusalem), named Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who refused to worship the golden idol that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. After King Nebuchadnezzar magnanimously offers the three another chance to obey and worship the statue, they refuse, "If our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire and out of your hand, O king, let him deliver us. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods and we will not worship the golden statue that you have set up."
We now pick up the story in Daniel 3:19-30.
19 Then Nebuchadnezzar was so filled with rage against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego that his face was distorted. He ordered the furnace heated up seven times more than was customary, 20 and ordered some of the strongest guards in his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and to throw them into the furnace of blazing fire. 21 So the men were bound, still wearing their tunics, their trousers, their hats, and their other garments, and they were thrown into the furnace of blazing fire. 22 Because the king's command was urgent and the furnace was so overheated, the raging flames killed the men who lifted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. 23 But the three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell down, bound, into the furnace of blazing fire.
24 Then King Nebuchadnezzar was astonished and rose up quickly. He said to his counselors, "Was it not three men that we threw bound into the fire?" They answered the king, "True, O king." 25 He replied, "But I see four men unbound, walking in the middle of the fire, and they are not hurt; and the fourth has the appearance of a god." 26 Nebuchadnezzar then approached the door of the furnace of blazing fire and said, "Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out! Come here!" So Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came out from the fire. 27 And the satraps, the prefects, the governors, and the king's counselors gathered together and saw that the fire had not had any power over the bodies of those men; the hair of their heads was not singed, their tunics were not harmed, and not even the smell of fire came from them. 28 Nebuchadnezzar said, "Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent his angel and delivered his servants who trusted in him. They disobeyed the king's command and yielded up their bodies rather than serve and worship any god except their own God. 29 Therefore I make a decree: Any people, nation, or language that utters blasphemy against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego shall be torn limb from limb, and their houses laid in ruins; for there is no other god who is able to deliver in this way." 30 Then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the province of Babylon.
Exile is the place of Separation
The Israelites in exile were separated from everything that was important to them: important people, like their families, their king, and their priests; important places, like their homes and the Temple; important activities, like celebrating holidays with their community and worshiping God together. By separating the people from their home and country, the Babylonians sought to replace the culture and values of the Israelites and make them into Babylonians. At the deepest level, the Babylonians wanted to replace devotion to the God of Israel
with a devotion to Babylon, with its king and its gods. Separation was the strategy for achieving this.
The most powerful sense of separation was the sense of separation from God. When Daniel and his friends, along with the rest of the Israelites in exile, were marched off into captivity, they were understandably tempted to believe that God had abandoned them. God had apparently withdrawn his presence from them, as punishment for their sins, and was allowing them to be conquered by a foreign empire. The Temple was destroyed and the entire city of Jerusalem was in ruins.
They were in a far-off land, a land ruled by other gods, and they were on their own.
This experience of separation from God in exile is an echo of the story in Genesis of Adam and Eve being cast out of the Garden. They too rebelled against God and as a result were sent into exile, losing the blessed life they had in the presence of God. This is the great Exile that we all share, as human beings created in the image of God and yet living in a strange land with strange gods that demand our devotion. Exile is the place of separation, where we no longer live in the presence of God, where God is far away, and we are on our own.
The Promise of Presence
When confronted, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego choose to maintain their faith in God, and to have no other gods before the one true God,
and this brings them into conflict with system of kingdom of Babylon. In the hands of the Babylonian king, his words must have been intimidating: "who is the god that will deliver you out of my hands?" They don't profess to know what God will do – God can save them if God chooses to do so. But in any case, they will stand firm.
It would have been so easy, and understandable, for these three to have given up hope and given in to pressure. How often have you found yourself asking the question, "Does God care about me?" or "Does God even know what's going on?" or "Does God even exist?"
These are all normal questions for people in exile, people who live in separation from the presence of the God for whom they were created to live in relationship with. I've found myself asking these questions at various points in my life, and I'm sure that you have also – perhaps you're asking them right now. Perhaps this experience of pandemic and the accompanying isolation have also brought on a heightened sense of separation for you, even from God.
The faith of the Jews in exile was based upon the promises of God, which are promises for us as well. While God had allowed them to go into exile as the consequence of their rebellion and disobedience, God was not through with them yet. God intended to remain faithful to his promises. Here are a few of the promises from scripture:
Jeremiah 29:11-13 (written specifically for the exiles), "For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. Then when you call upon me and come and pray to me, I will hear you. When you search for me, you will find me; if you seek me with all your heart"
Isaiah 43:1-2, "But now thus says the Lord,
he who created you, O Jacob,
he who formed you, O Israel:
Do not fear, for I have redeemed you;
I have called you by name, you are mine.
2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
and the flame shall not consume you."Psalm 23:4, "Even though I walk through the darkest valley,
I fear no evil;
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff—
they comfort me."
And we could go on and on, all the back to the beginning, with God's promises to his people. And these are God's promises to us, as well.
The Power of Presence
When Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were thrown into the furnace, they didn't presume to know the outcome. But I believe that they trusted in God's presence
with them. That trust – that faith – gave them the courage to remain true. While one of the promises includes the words, "you will not be burned," the full understanding of the promise rests on the words that surround it: "I will be with you" and "you will not be consumed." The reality is that sometimes God's people are burned. Sometimes God's people suffer, and get hurt, and sometimes God's people die. But we are promised that no matter what challenges we face, if we keep our faith in God, God will be with us and we will not be consumed.
As King Nebuchadnezzar looked into the furnace, he saw not three, but four figures walking around, and the fourth man looked like a god.
We can speculate about who exactly this fourth man was, whether it was a preincarnate Jesus or the Holy Spirit or an angel of God, but the fourth man was God's presence with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. He wasn't visible before, or after, but while they were in the furnace it was as if a veil had been pulled aside and the king was able to see a different, deeper reality: God was indeed with these three Israelites. As Dale Davis says, "God does not always shield you from all distresses and dangers, but it is in the loneliness, the betrayal, in the loss that the Fourth Man comes and walks with you." That is the power of God's presence.
The presence of God is most powerfully demonstrated to us and to all the world in the incarnation of God in Jesus Christ, who became a man and walked among us, whose name Emanuel
means "God with us." Jesus continues to be present with us through the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Jesus, fulfilling his own promise to us: "I am with you always, even to the end of the age" (Matthew 8:28).
So friends, perhaps we can relate to the experience of the exiles in feeling alone and separated from God in the midst of our challenges and troubles, because in the big pictures we are also exiles. So remembering the promises of God to his people becomes so vitally important for us if we are to hold on to our faith in God and trust that no matter what circumstances we face, he will be with us. He is not only the "Fourth Man" in the furnace with us, but in Christ God is the Word made flesh. He loves us and has good and eternal plans for us. Whatever you might be facing today, trust that God is right there in the middle of it with you.