26Then
Nebuchadnezzar approached to the opening of the furnace of the fire of the
burning answering and saying, “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, servants of the
Most High God, come forth and come. Then came forth Shadrach, Meshach, and
Abednego from the midst of the fire.
Isn’t it interesting that Nebuchadnezzar can see the
“fourth” man in the flames, that he knows Him to be of divine origin, yet he
apparently has no desire to meet Him. You would think, being a king himself, he
would be calling to this divine being to bring his servants out. I can even
imagine asking if I could come in and join them! When Peter saw Jesus walking
on the water in the terrible storm, he said, “Lord, if it’s you, tell me to
come to you on the water” (Mt 14:28). Yet, at least from what we’re told,
Nebuchadnezzar has no interest in the “fourth” man.
The problem, of course, is that he has an unregenerate
heart, an Adamic heart that runs and hides from God among the trees of the
Garden and sews fig leaves to cover his nakedness. It is only when grace
touches and conquers our hearts that we suddenly want to know God. Until then, like Nebuchadnezzar, we can actually
stand in His presence and have no interest in Him. We naturally see nothing
“desirable” in Him. We even see Him as threatening, someone who, if He is
there, will only cause us trouble. It is only when grace opens our eyes that
suddenly we see Jesus in His beauty. It is only then we realize we want to know Him, that we want Him in our life, that we need Him in our life, that He becomes to
us “altogether lovely.”
Can I suggest to you that this is where your life and mine
become soooooo important? Unlike Nebuchadnezzar, grace does not take up a whip
and thrash people into submission. Grace draws
them. You and I are not here to beat
people into the kingdom of God. We are here to draw them. Walk in your mind from beginning to end of the New
Testament. What kind of people does God call us to be? People of “love, joy,
peace, patience …” He says Himself that the wisdom that is from above is “first
of all pure, then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good
fruit, impartial and sincere” (James 3:17). He tells us “All that matters is
faith expressing itself through love” (Gal 5:6). He tells us “Be imitators of
God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love” (Eph 5:1). He
tells us even our work should “in every way make the teaching about God our
Savior attractive” (Tit 2:10). God did not send Jesus “into the world to
condemn the world, but to save the world through Him” (John 3:17), then Jesus
told us, “As the Father has sent Me, so send I you” (Jn 20:21). Grace would
make you and me “attractive.” Grace wants to use you and me to draw people to Jesus, to make them want Him in their lives. Until that
happens, like Nebuchadnezzar, they could literally stand in His presence and
see nothing desirable in Him.
I said last time I would love to know what Jesus said to the
guys there in the furnace. Once again, we can be quite sure He commended them
for their faithfulness, that He spoke words of hope and peace to them; but I
can also say I’d be almost positive He would have coached them on what to say
and how to act when they walked back out of the furnace. It would be of
absolute paramount importance how they act. Will they come out of the furnace
acting “triumphant” over Nebuchadnezzar? Will they come out angry at their
accusers? Can we all see how important it would be that they come out humbly,
with sweet spirits, bearing no animosity whatsoever, no arrogance, no
vindictiveness? Especially in relation to Nebuchadnezzar himself, it is of
absolutely paramount importance how they respond to him. If he’s ever to really
come to grace, they cannot emerge from the furnace with a “Told you so”
attitude. They must emerge submissive, thankful, and gracious to him.
I suggest to you that even in this one little verse we can
see that is exactly what happened. First of all, if I was walking with Jesus in
that furnace and Nebuchadnezzar said, “Come out,” I’d be tempted to say, “No!
I’m in here with Jesus and I don’t want to leave.” But even the Aramaic itself
would persuade us that wasn’t the case. The text tells us Nebuchadnezzar said
“Come forth” and then it says they “came forth.” In Aramaic it is exactly the
same verb. They did exactly what Nebuchadnezzar told them to do. Hopefully he
immediately realized that is always how they had responded to him – that he had
always found them very obedient, very sweetly submissive – and that would only
highlight in his mind that this one isolated act of “non-compliance” really was
a total God-thing. Their accusers had said, “They pay no attention to you”
(v.12). I believe Nebuchadnezzar knew it wasn’t true then, but now he really knows it!
And we should take special note too of what Nebuchadnezzar
called them: “Servants of the Most High God.” Notice that when Nebuchadnezzar
calls Him “the Most High God,” all he’s really seeing is the Lord’s power. There
are unfortunately a lot of people in this world who only understand power. What I mean is that to them what
matters is not truth or right or virtue or anything else. All they understand
is power. All that matters to them is who wins. Even Satan himself, when
rebelling against the Lord, refers to Him by the same name saying, “I will be
like the Most High” (Isaiah 14:14). All he saw was power and he wanted it for
himself.
We see this very contrast between the nations of Judah and
Israel after the kingdom split. In Judah, the kings were descendants of David
and they came to the throne by birth order. In Israel, whoever killed the last
king becomes king himself. It’s the difference between the rule of law and the
law of the jungle. Either “might makes right” or “right makes might.” Where
truth prevails, law is king. Where only power matters, the king is law. In
Nebuchadnezzar’s world, all that matters is power. He is the king because he is
the most powerful. He maintains order in his kingdom by power. In the last
chapter, he wanted his dream recalled and explained and threatened to kill all
the wise men if they couldn’t do it. In this chapter, he wants everyone to
worship his idol and threatens to throw them in a furnace if they will not. We
even see it in the decree he issues in v29: “Anyone who says anything against
the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego will be cut to pieces and their
house turned into a piles of rubble!” Still threatening. Still exacting
obedience by power.
All he’s really seeing in this passage is that this God of
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego is stronger than him. Their God wins.
Nebuchadnezzar understands this language. It’s the only language he speaks, and
so he addresses them as “servants of the Most High God.”
We should inject here that, under grace, true believers
actually love this name, “the Most
High God.” We’re glad He’s
all-powerful. We’re glad He rules in the lives of men and nations. We’re glad
He rules over us. But, I would
suggest our “gladness” arises from the fact that He is good, that He is wise,
that He is loving, and that He stands for truth. We see the King in His beauty. He should win. He should
conquer. He should be “the Most High.” He should be “the Most High” not simply
because He’s bigger than the rest of us, but rather because He deserves to be. One
of the first signs of a regenerated heart is that we call Jesus Lord. We’re glad to hear that one day “every
knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory
of God the Father.” We’ll be there that day, happily bowing and confessing, not
because we have to but because we want to. We love the Most High God.
My point in all of this, I suppose, is that we should not be
too enamored with Nebuchadnezzar’s words. He is not regenerated. He has not
come to faith. He’s only discovered that there is a God who is bigger than him.
And that is again why it is soooooo important how our friends act when they emerge
from the furnace. When they emerge not as conquerors but as sweetly submissive
young men, they will completely upend Nebuchadnezzar’s world. To him all that
matters is power. What he sees is three young men who live for something much
bigger and better, who stand for something much bigger and better, who are
committed to something that trumps power. And our only hope is that, even as
they emerge in Christlike sweetness and humility, something awakens in his
heart, that perhaps even a little tiny glimmer suddenly shines in his heart and
says to him, “Hmmmmm. I wish I had whatever it is they have.”
If all Nebuchadnezzar saw that day was power, then, in the
end it did him no good. If, on the other hand, his heart saw in Shadrach,
Meshach, Abednego something that awakened his heart to desire the Lord, then
grace won. It will have a work to do before he genuinely comes to faith, but
that is how it wins. Grace doesn’t conquer. It draws. We can only hope that
Nebuchadnezzar (and perhaps many others who were there that day) suddenly found
himself drawn. That’s how grace conquers you and me. It’s how it will conquer
others around us. It’s how God wants to use us.
May you and I sincerely try to live Jesus today wherever we
go, whatever we do, whomever we speak with, and may His Spirit take our
fumbling, feeble, failing efforts and somehow use them so that someone,
somewhere today is drawn. May grace
win, not power.
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