Obey God Despite the Consequences

We live in a culture that doesn’t usually ask us to deny God outright.  Freedom of religion and all that.

Instead, it asks us to deny God subtly; to compromise quietly. We often go along to get along, so things stay easy. Our culture asks us to keep our convictions private. So, we bow just a little—socially, professionally, relationally.

There’s no threat of a fiery furnace. There’s no decree from the king carved in stone. Just a little bit of pressure to compromise.

Daniel 3 reminds us that true obedience to God has always come with consequences—and that faithfulness often looks like standing when everyone else bows.

The title for today’s sermon is Obey God Despite the Consequences

In Daniel 3, we don’t see much hemming and hawing or debating about obedience.  Daniel’s three friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, face a moment in which obedience to God comes with very real consequences and sacrifice.

Dan 3:1 (CSB)—King Nebuchadnezzar made a gold statue, ninety feet high and nine feet wide. He set it up on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon.

You think the Babylonians would learn, but no!  Nebuchadnezzar builds a statue at the same location where his ancestors built the Tower of Babel.  “Let’s build another giant structure that represents man’s pride and opposition to the God of Abraham.  Let’s build it and see how it goes.”  

It doesn’t say the statue is a depiction of Nebuchadnezzar himself, but this structure, whatever it was, represents his power and his belief in his divine right to rule Babylon.

All of the muckety-mucks of Babylon gather for the dedication of the statue.  This is what it looked like:

Dan 3:4-7 (CSB)—A herald loudly proclaimed, “People of every nation and language, you are commanded: When you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, drum, and every kind of music, you are to fall facedown and worship the gold statue that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up. But whoever does not fall down and worship will immediately be thrown into a furnace of blazing fire.” Therefore, when all the people heard the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, and every kind of music, people of every nation and language fell down and worshiped the gold statue that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up.

When they hear the horn, they are supposed to bow down as a sign of worship and an acknowledgement of Nebuchadnezzar’s divine right to rule.  If they don’t, they get tossed into the fiery furnace.  This is going to be problematic for Daniel’s three friends because there is this little commandment, specifically the first of the ten commandments, given to the Jews through Moses.  It says:

Deut 5:6-8 (CSB)—I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the place of slavery. Do not have other gods besides me. Do not make an idol for yourself in the shape of anything in the heavens above or on the earth below or in the waters under the earth. Do not bow in worship to them, and do not serve them, because I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, bringing the consequences of the fathers’ iniquity on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing faithful love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commands. 

I’m sure you remember how the rest of the story goes.  Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are at a crossroads and must decide what obedience to God looks like.  They recognized that bowing to Nebuchadnezzar’s false idol was in direct opposition to who God was and what He had told them.

Here’s the first thing about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego’s obedience to God that I want you to recognize:

Obedience requires identifying the idols competing for our allegiance.

When you think of worshipping an idol, maybe this is the picture you get: standing before a carved image, making a sacrifice, or bowing low in reverence.  

But idolatry extends beyond the worship of idols and images and false gods. The truth is, our culture is full of idols. Real idolatry is not just bowing to a carved image; it is a matter of the heart.  Idolatry can look like pride, self-centeredness, greed, gluttony, a love for possessions, and ultimately rebellion against God.

Here is a good definition for idolatry:

Idolatry is worshiping something that a human has made instead of worshiping the God who made humans; anything that replaces God’s rightful place in our lives.

One pastor I know defines idolatry this way:  Idolatry is anything that cools my affection for God.

This was not just a problem in places like Babylon; it is a problem for us.  It is a problem of the human heart, no matter the time or place that you live.  700 years after Daniel, Paul said it this way about Rome:

Rom 1:21-25 (CSB)—For though they knew God, they did not glorify him as God or show gratitude. Instead, their thinking became worthless, and their senseless hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling mortal man, birds, four-footed animals, and reptiles. Therefore, God delivered them over in the desires of their hearts to sexual impurity, so that their bodies were degraded among themselves. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served what has been created instead of the Creator, who is praised forever. Amen. 

The idolatry happening in Rome, says Paul, led them into incredible disobedience to the things that are most important to God.

Rom 1:28-31 (CSB)—And because they did not think it worthwhile to acknowledge God, God delivered them over to a corrupt mind so that they do what is not right. They are filled with all unrighteousness, evil, greed, and wickedness. They are full of envy, murder, quarrels, deceit, and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, arrogant, proud, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, senseless, untrustworthy, unloving,, and unmerciful.

Whatever sits on the throne in your life is what you become.  You start looking like the things you worship.  Once you become obedient to something other than God, the things of God are no longer important to you.

But when we are obedient to God, our obedience exposes the idols we are tempted to worship because it forces us to make a decision.  Will we have the courage to stand, or will we bow like everyone else?

In verse 8, some of the Babylonian wise men came to Nebuchadnezzar and reminded him of his promise to throw anyone who doesn’t bow down to the golden image into the fiery furnace.

Dan 3:12 (CSB)—There are some Jews you have appointed to manage the province of Babylon: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. These men have ignored you, the king; they do not serve your gods or worship the gold statue you have set up.”

Everyone else falls in line—but Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego remain standing.  They understand the consequences of standing, but they are more concerned about obeying what God has told them than about the consequences of not falling in line.

Obedience requires courage to stand when others bow.

In Acts 5, after Jesus has been raised from the dead, the Apostles do what Jesus told them to do. They go into Jerusalem and tell everyone who will listen about what Jesus taught them.  The religious leaders arrested Peter and the Apostles and told them, “Hey, you’re making us look bad, stop teaching these things.”  Peter responds to the religious leaders like this:

Acts 5:29 (CSB)—Peter and the apostles replied, “We must obey God rather than people.”

That’s the choice.  We can obey you, or we can obey the God who created you and everything else in the universe.

God or you—that’s the choice.  We choose God.

God is God. Because He is God, He is worthy of my trust and obedience. I will find rest nowhere but in His holy will that is unspeakably beyond my largest notions of what he is up to.

—Elisabeth Elliot

Obedience, though, often means standing alone—it may isolate you. Your obedience to God will likely be noticed by those around you.  But like Daniel’s three friends:

Obedience refuses to compromise even under pressure.

When Nebuchadnezzar finds out these guys won’t bow down, he flies into a rage and has them brought before him.  He then offers them one last opportunity to fall into line and worship the golden image. If they don’t, Nebuchadnezzar says, “you will immediately be thrown into a furnace of blazing fire—and who is the god who can rescue you from my power?”

It may have been one thing to find the courage to be obedient to God when no one was calling them out, but now they have been hauled before Nebuchadnezzar, and the consequences are very real.

I wonder if at any point, these guys thought, “What’s the big deal, we know the idol isn’t real. Is it that big a deal to just bow down this one time?  Maybe we are taking the whole ‘don’t bow down to idols’ command a little too literally. Since we know the idol isn’t real, are we really bowing down?”

True obedience refuses to compromise. It sounds reasonable to say things like, “Just this once,” or “You don’t have to make such a big deal about it,” or “I think God understands.”

Compromise always sounds reasonable, but it will slowly reshape our hearts, and after a while, we are obedient only as long as it is convenient or advantageous, but not when it costs us something.

Obedience rarely starts with a big public stand.  Faithfulness is shaped by the little decisions that we make each day.  The decision to be honest when dishonesty will benefit you.  The decision to treat the people around you with patience and grace.  The decision to exercise self-control even when no one else is around.  Being obedient in the little things is preparation for the moments when the stakes are high.

Here is how Daniel’s friends respond to Nebuchadnezzar’s demand that they compromise:

Dan 3:16-18 (CSB)—Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego replied to the king, “Nebuchadnezzar, we don’t need to give you an answer to this question. If the God we serve exists, then he can rescue us from the furnace of blazing fire, and he can rescue us from the power of you, the king. But even if he does not rescue us, we want you as king to know that we will not serve your gods or worship the gold statue you set up.”

These guys trust that God can deliver them, but they have the courage to obey even if he doesn’t.  There are no safety nets and no contingency plans. They are willing to obey God because of their faith, even if it costs them their lives. Honoring God through obedience is more important than their comfort.

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I’m afraid we often think that obedience is a test from God, and that if we do well on the test, there will be some sort of reward.  We see our relationship with God as transactional.

But Jesus’ definition of obedience is not transactional; it is relational.

Jn 14:15 (CSB)—If you love me, you will keep my commands.

If you ἀγαπάω​—agapaō · love me. It is a verb. If you have a feeling of deep affection for me.  If you hold me in high regard, you will keep my commands.

Implied in that statement is: If you trust me, you will keep my commands. If you have faith in me, if you have confidence in me, you will keep my commands.

In other words, your obedience is the evidence of your love.  We don’t obey in order to obtain God’s love.  God already loves you.  Paul confirms that in Romans 5:8:

Rom 5:8 (CSB)—But God proves his own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Paul reminds us, you don’t have to earn the Father’s love. But Jesus says you can demonstrate your affection, your confidence, and your trust in Me by obeying the things My Father has told you.

How does my wife know that I love her?  She knows because of what I do.  I can tell her every day that I love her.  I can say it when we wake up, before I leave for work, when I return home, and before we go to bed.  But if I don’t show her my love through my actions, my words don’t mean much.  

If I criticize her every time she makes a small mistake or if I don’t take time to sit and listen to her, or make the effort to help her when she needs help with the house or the dishes, etc., then my “I love you” doesn’t mean much. And as I show her my love it changes the nature of our relationship and it even changes me.

The greater the love, the greater the willingness to sacrifice. How did Jesus show his love?  By his obedience to the Father and giving himself as the ultimate sacrifice for us.

There are two things that we are guaranteed will happen through our obedience.  The first is His presence.

Obedience may lead us into the fire—but God meets us there.

When Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused to bow down, Nebuchadnezzar ordered the furnace heated to seven times its normal temperature. They bind the three men, and he orders them thrown into the furnace.  It’s so hot that the soldiers who throw the men into the furnace are killed.  Imagine the heat!

You probably know what happens next:

Dan 3:24-25 (CSB)—Then King Nebuchadnezzar jumped up in alarm. He said to his advisers, “Didn’t we throw three men, bound, into the fire?” “Yes, of course, Your Majesty,” they replied to the king. He exclaimed, “Look! I see four men, not tied, walking around in the fire unharmed; and the fourth looks like a son of the gods.”

There is a lot of speculation about the identity of the fourth person in the furnace. It could have been an angel, though many theologians think it was a manifestation of Jesus before He came to Earth. Either way, we know they were not alone in the furnace. God was with them.  He was present.  I don’t know if he said anything to the three men.  Maybe they talked about the weather. “I hear it’s going to be a warm one today.”

Where the presence of the Lord is, there is peace.  My guess is that is what He brought to these guys.  His peace.

For whatever reason, God didn’t cause them to have to avoid the furnace, but he was with them in their trial.  He was present.  He didn’t leave them to do this on their own.  He didn’t ask them to be obedient and then just leave them to the consequences.  He was there.

Every time you open up your heart in obedience to God and worship Him with all your heart, all your mind, and all your soul, our beautiful Lord responds with His magnificent presence.

—Darlene Zschech

There are two things that we are guaranteed will happen through our obedience.  The first is His presence, and the second is that He will be glorified.

Obedience ultimately brings glory to God.

Dan 3:26-28 (CSB)—Nebuchadnezzar then approached the door of the furnace of blazing fire and called, “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, you servants of the Most High God—come out!” So Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came out of the fire. When the satraps, prefects, governors, and the king’s advisers gathered around, they saw that the fire had no effect on the bodies of these men: not a hair of their heads was singed, their robes were unaffected, and there was no smell of fire on them. Nebuchadnezzar exclaimed, “Praise to the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego! He sent his angel, and rescued his servants who trusted in him. They violated the king’s command and risked their lives rather than serve or worship any god except their own God.

The obedience of Daniel’s three friends creates an opportunity for God to be honored and glorified.  This happens daily in our own lives. Maybe not in a giant display of God’s power, but through the testimony of changed lives. When we are obedient to God, people notice; people will see the difference in our lives.  Obedience is an opportunity to put on display God’s ability to take broken people and turn them into something new and beautiful.

In the end, Nebuchadnezzar issues a decree 

Dan 3:29 (CSB)—anyone of any people, nation, or language who says anything offensive against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego will be torn limb from limb, and his house made a garbage dump. For there is no other god who is able to deliver like this.”

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This is what it means to follow Jesus. We are to offer our bodies, our careers, our prospects, our respect among our friends, our houses, and our bank balances as living sacrifices to God, holy and acceptable to the Lord. This is the way we worship, Paul says in Romans 12.

I hope it will be said about you and me what Nebuchadnezzar says about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego: 

Dan 3:28 (CSB)—They violated the king’s command and risked their lives rather than serve or worship any god except their own God.

Obedience to God despite the consequences requires me to:

1. Identify the idols in my life.  What is in my life that is cooling my affection for God?

2. Finding the courage to stand when others bow.  Are there decisions I’m making to just go with the flow?

3. Refuse to compromise.  Are there any areas of my life where I am taking the easy road because obedience feels costly?

4. Look for God’s presence when the pressure is on.  Am I tempted to forget that God is with me when there is a price for obedience?

5. Remember the outcome of my obedience is God’s glory.

Remember that God has already delivered us from the fiery furnace.  Because He has already demonstrated His love for us, we know that He is able to deliver us from anything the world can do to us and whatever we may lose.  But even if He doesn’t, know that we will not worship these idols.