Things That Did Burn Up in the Fire Dan. 3 :1-30 CLICK TITLE FOR AUDIO
What Did Not Burn Up In The Fire Daniel 3:1-30
Most of the time when preaching is done about Shadrach Meshach and Abednego the focus is on their faithfulness, courage in the time of temptation or how God delivered them. In this sermon we are going to look at 3 things that actually did burn up in the fire.
Introduction :
God tries everything and really nothing is any good until it is tried. In the Old Testament Abraham was called the friend of God and yet he was tried (Genesis 22:1 with Hebrews 11:17). Even Jesus Christ was tried by being tempted of the devil in the wilderness (Matthew 4:1-11). Also the word of God has been tried and purified 7 times (Psalms 12:6-7). This will become extremely important because the way in which we make it through the times of testing and trials of our lives will be directly related to what we do with the word of God. Remember if Abraham, Jesus and God’s word was all tried then there is no way that we will not be (1 Peter 4:12-14).
3 Things that did burn up in the fire:
1) Binding Ropes (verse 21, 25)
- In this we see a type of God putting us through the fire to remove some of the sins that have us bound or are holding us back from serving him as he would like us to (Proverbs 5:22).
- God is a refiner of silver (Psalm 66:10 and Malachi 3:3).
2) The men that put them in the fire (verse 22)
- In this we see a type of our works at the Judgment Seat of Christ (1 Cor. 3:9-16).
- Note our works are tried by fire of what sort they are not the quantity.
- If we are not careful we can become prideful in our work or our abilities for the Lord, and the works that we think we are doing for him we are really doing for show or for ourselves. God will sometimes let us go through the fire to show us that pride as taken over and we are not as real as we think we are.
- Note what Job said in Job 23:10, that should be our goal but it is hard to obtain.
3) A false image of God (verse 15, 28-30)
- Nebuchadnezzar through dealing with Daniel already had some exposure with God, but he still did not believe that he could rescue the 3 Hebrews out of the furnace. He did not have a good image of God, but by the end of this ordeal he saw the true image of God, the son of God walking in the fire.
- Many times we get a kind of false image of God in our minds or we put him in a box so to speak. Then God will let us go through the fire so that he can show us his true image.
- It may also be said that without going through the fire you can see God really work in your life.
- Joseph is a good example of this compare Psalms 105:19 with Genesis 50:20.