The Man in the Furnace

[00:00:03] How can Christians stay faithful to God in a culture that doesn't share our beliefs? The ancient Israelites faced the same question when they were exiles in Babylon. Written during that time, the Old Testament book of Daniel addresses the complexities of living faithfully in a pluralistic society. Today, Timothy Keller explores what it looks like to seek the good of the cities and communities God has placed us in, while remembering that our true home is in His coming kingdom.

[00:00:37] Let's read this long passage out of Daniel 3. I've got half of the chapter there for you. It's a famous narrative, fairly famous narrative about Daniel's three friends who were Jewish exiles and had risen to a high place in the Babylonian governmental structure. And in Daniel 3, verse 14, we start. And Nebuchadnezzar said to them,

[00:01:01] Is it true, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that you do not serve my gods or worship the image of gold I have set up? Now, when you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipes, and all kinds of music, if you are ready to fall down and worship the image I've made, very good. But if you do not worship it, you will be thrown immediately into a blazing furnace. Then, what god will be able to rescue you from my hand?

[00:01:32] Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego replied to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the god we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods nor worship the image of gold you have set up. Then Nebuchadnezzar was furious with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and his attitude toward them changed.

[00:02:00] He ordered the furnace heated seven times hotter than usual and commanded some of the strongest soldiers in his army to tie up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and throw them into the blazing furnace. So these men, wearing their robes, trousers, turbans, and other clothes, were bound and thrown into the blazing furnace. The king's command was so urgent and the fire so hot that the flames of the fire killed the soldiers who took up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and these three men, firmly tied, fell into the blazing furnace.

[00:02:29] Then King Nebuchadnezzar leaped to his feet in amazement and asked his advisors, Weren't there three men that we tied up and threw into the fire? They replied, Certainly, O king. He said, Look, I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods. Nebuchadnezzar then approached the opening of the blazing furnace and shouted, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out. Come here. So Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came out of the fire,

[00:02:59] and the satraps, prefects, governors, and royal advisors crowded around them. They saw that the fire had not harmed their bodies, nor was the hair of their heads singed. Their robes were not scorched, and there was no smell of fire on them. And then Nebuchadnezzar said, Praise be to the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent his angel and rescued his servants. They trusted in him and defied the king's command and were willing to give up their lives rather than serve or worship any god except their own god.

[00:03:26] Therefore, I decree that the people of any nation or language who say anything against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego be cut into pieces, and their houses be turned into piles of rubble, for no other god can save in this way. This is God's word. What we're looking at, as we said last week, is we're looking at the book of Daniel because the Israelites in this book had found themselves, after living for centuries,

[00:03:53] centuries in a culture in which the cultural institutions supported their belief in God. Now they're in Babylon. They're in a religiously pluralistic society where all the cultural institutions, the government and the media and the education and the arts, all the public institutions were committed to religious pluralism. In other words, they were committed to the principle that there were many gods and many moralities all equally valid. Now, that almost automatically sets up tension.

[00:04:22] Because if you are someone who believes in the biblical God and believes that he is the God and the only true God, that creates tensions in a pluralistic society that says, no, no, no, there's many valid gods and moralities. Not only do the people in the pluralistic society get nervous about Christians, they're nervous about Christians, but Christians are nervous about the pluralistic society. It creates great tension.

[00:04:51] How do we live as believers in a pluralistic society? And that's the question that you see in Daniel. Every chapter gives you another take on it. And what we're looking at tonight is that there are two very, very important issues that come up continually in a pluralistic society, and they're both addressed here. One is the question of religious tolerance. And many people say this, in a society like ours, because we live in a pluralistic society just like they did, of course,

[00:05:18] people will say, the problem I have with Christianity is there's so many religions in the world, how in the world can you believe you have the right one? How intolerant? How dangerously intolerant that is. And the second issue is this issue of evil and suffering. A lot of people in the pluralistic society also say, especially today, they say, well, I have a great problem with Christianity because of the problem of unjust suffering, evil and impression. You believe in a powerful, all-loving God in heaven, but that can't be.

[00:05:47] The unjust suffering and evil of the world has defeated that very idea. But this passage deals with them all. First of all, let's take a look at the golden image, which addresses the problem of tolerance, and then we'll look at the fiery furnace, which addresses the problem of unjust suffering. First, the golden image and how it addresses the problem of tolerance. What is this golden image? If I read you the very, very first part of the chapter, which I didn't print, we read this.

[00:06:15] King Nebuchadnezzar made an image of gold, 90 feet high, 9 feet wide, set it up on the plain of Dora in the province of Babylon, and he summoned all the leaders of all the province and all the officials of all of his provinces together. Verse 4, Then the herald loudly proclaimed, This is what you are commanded to do, O peoples, nations, and men of every language. As soon as you hear the sound of the music, you must fall down and worship the image of gold the king Nebuchadnezzar set up.

[00:06:44] Whoever does not fall down and worship will be immediately thrown into a blazing furnace. Now, interesting. What was this image? Now, some people have said, well, it was an image of the king. But not only does it say that, not only does it not say that, but actually there was no record of any Babylonian kings that were divinized, divinized, and there was no record that Babylonian kings were worshipped as gods and, you know, given divine status. Nothing like that.

[00:07:15] Some people have said, well, it's one of the Babylonian gods, but it's deliberately not mentioned. He said there's no name given to it. And there's a couple of places in here where it would have been very easy to explain which Babylonian god, but it doesn't say that. In fact, actually, the hint is right here on your page in verse 14, where he says, isn't it not true that you do not serve my gods or worship the image of gold I have set up? And by putting those together, you know, that little word or is a little bit, it would be just as easy to translate that nor.

[00:07:43] In other words, you do not serve my gods nor worship the image of gold I have set up. And there you have it. What he's really saying is the image of God doesn't, is not one particular god and it's not him. It actually represents the gods of Babylon, or maybe more specifically, it represents the spirit and the power of the Babylonian empire. And when he drew people from every tribe, every nation, every language, as I read, he knew these people had their own gods. He knew every nation had its own god and had its own religion.

[00:08:13] So was he saying you must worship the Babylonian gods instead of your gods? No, of course not. What he's actually saying is you must worship the Babylonian gods in addition to your gods. What he's actually saying here is everyone is free to worship their god as long as they don't worship any god exclusively. You are free to worship your god as long as you also admit that other gods are real and valid

[00:08:40] and the way you can prove that you are not a bigot is that you will come and worship the image that I have set up. So what he's actually saying is, he says there's no problem, you may all worship gods as you wish as long as no one says their god is the god, that their god is the exclusive god, that their god is the only god. Now why would he do that? Why would that be a problem for Nebuchadnezzar? Well, it's very clear he wants peace in his realm. And what he's looking for is political glue.

[00:09:11] And actually this makes perfect sense. I'm going to just draw this out. What he's really saying is, well the only way we're going to have peace in a multicultural empire is everybody has their own god, that's fine. But nobody can believe their god is the true god. Nobody can believe their faith is the true faith. Nobody can believe their truth is the truth. Because if that happens, that can lead to one group judging another. That can lead to one group oppressing another. And therefore, what he's after here, is he's after religious pluralism. He says you can worship your god as long as you show that other gods,

[00:09:39] you believe other gods are equally real and equally valid, then we'll have peace. Now that's awfully up to date. And you know, I'm trying to be as sympathetic as I possibly can here. Now listen, doesn't that make sense? And isn't this another issue we have today? We live in a pluralistic society. And even though it hasn't been put together by military force, the way it was back then, we also live in a multicultural, multi-ethnic, pluralistic society. And how are we going to get along? And it seems very natural

[00:10:07] that modern religious pluralistic thinkers, just like Nebuchadnezzar actually, believe that the only way we're going to have peace is if everybody worships their own god, but nobody believes they have the god, the faith, and the truth. Karl Popper wrote a book. He's a very, very, very influential thinker. And he wrote a book called The Open Society and Its Enemies. And in it, he says something very, very simple. Karl Popper says, it's okay to worship whatever religion you choose, but if anybody believes your god is the god,

[00:10:38] your truth is the truth, and your faith is the truth, that will almost have to lead to totalitarian behavior, he says. In fact, what he actually says is, if you believe your god is the god, your truth is the truth, and you do not have totalitarian behavior, you're just not being consistent. You just haven't thought it out. That's what he says. Because he says this, you will feel you have warrant to impose your beliefs on others. And if your god is the god, you have the right to impose your belief on others, that's the end of a free and open society.

[00:11:09] That's, got it? And so basically what happens is, back then and today, the problem with somebody who says, I worship my god and only my god. I worship my god and he's the only god. And all other religions are not valid. All other religions are not the right one. This is the truth, the way, the life. We can't have peace. And that's dangerous. And that's the reason Nebuchadnezzar's acting the way he is. Now, what do we learn from the text about this issue? Don't you see the seriousness of this?

[00:11:38] Don't you see the reason why Christians will look at a pluralistic society and be scared of them in some ways, in just little ways scared of them? And why pluralistic society looks at Christians and is scared of them? Does it make sense? What do we learn from this? Well, here's what we learn. I'm going to... Some of you in this room also believe that if you think one religion is the right one, that you believe that that's arrogant and maybe dangerous because it might lead you to impose your views on others. On the other hand, some of the rest of you are Christians in the orthodox sense and you believe that Jesus Christ is the one Lord,

[00:12:08] when there's only one Lord, one faith, one baptism, and so on. And now there's a few of you in here that really aren't sure where you are so you can just listen in. You don't have to leave. Because what I want to do is... I mean, I'm kidding. I want to talk to both sides and here's what I want to do. First of all, if you are a very typical contemporary person in many ways and you feel like, yeah, you know, if somebody really believes that this is the one truth, the one way, the one God, isn't that going to lead to intolerance? Isn't that going to lead to you having the warrant to impose

[00:12:37] your views on everybody else? Isn't that going to... Doesn't that make you an enemy of an open society, as Karl Popper says? Well, I have something to say to you. One critique and one assurance. Critique and comfort. Here's the critique. If when you say Christians should not try to convert people, if that's what you mean by impose their views on others. If you say, well, the problem with Christians is they try to impose their views on others. If you mean Christians shouldn't convert other people,

[00:13:05] well, listen carefully and think a little bit about that. Think about whether that's really being as tolerant as you might think you're being. See, Nebuchadnezzar actually says, oh, you're all free to worship as long as you bow down also to the spirit of Babylon. And when you come to someone else, if you go to someone and say, look, you can believe what you want as long as you don't convert someone else, what you're really saying is you're free to worship any God you want as long as it's not a God that I need too.

[00:13:35] In other words, another way to put it is this. When you say to a Christian, you must not say that your take on ultimate reality is the right one and everybody else is wrong. And yet when you do that to a Christian, you're doing the very thing you just said the Christian shouldn't do. Do you see that? Because when you say you shouldn't try to convert people, you're actually at that point saying, my take on ultimate reality is better than yours and you must stop doing what you're doing and you're essentially doing the very same thing.

[00:14:06] Now, this is as gentle a critique as I can make. When you say to someone you must not impose your views on others in the sense of not converting them, you actually yourself at that point are trying to convert that person to what you consider a more moderate view on religious reality than that person has. So how are you more tolerant? Do you see? Got to be careful. Nebuchadnezzar is a bad example here. Nebuchadnezzar is saying, oh, you're all free to worship your way as long as it's my way, basically. You see? In other words,

[00:14:36] under the veneer of tolerance there's really a note of intolerance. But let me give you an assurance. When you say, I'm afraid that Christians, this is what Karl Popper is saying, I'm afraid that Christians will feel that they have the right to impose their views on other people politically, militarily. That they have the right because they have the truth that therefore aren't they going to necessarily feel that they have the right to be totalitarian? Aren't they going to be totalitarian if they're consistent? But take a look at the last verse here. Look at Nebuchadnezzar.

[00:15:07] Nebuchadnezzar, and we're going to get back to this. Nebuchadnezzar says, praise be to the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Now after this great miracle, what do we see? Nebuchadnezzar's very impressed. He says, what does he say? He says, wow. And immediately, he realizes power when he sees it. He's impressed. And notice something very, very careful. What does he say? He says, wow, I believe this God. I believe this God is real. This God is really incredible. And so what does he say?

[00:15:37] He says, verse 29, therefore I decree that the people of any nation or any language who say anything against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego will be cut into pieces and their houses turned into piles of rubble. Now that's totalitarianism. That's somebody who says, because I realize this God is a real God, anybody who disagrees with that, you know what we're going to do. We're going to kill you. We're going to cut you to pieces. We're going to throw your house in rubble. But look carefully. This is a bad example. The Bible is lifting up Nebuchadnezzar as a person who though he embraces

[00:16:05] the idea of this God, he embraces, he believes in the reality of this God, he never calls him my God. He says, pray be to the God of who? Them. Not my God. He's not been converted. He hasn't been changed. He hasn't appropriated this. He hasn't understood the message. He himself, in a sense, is a bad example. And what actually, I think, and I'm going to show you here in a second, what the Bible actually says is anyone who says, I believe in the God of the Bible

[00:16:34] and then acts in a totalitarian way proves that they don't understand the God of the Bible. Nebuchadnezzar is a bad example. Nebuchadnezzar is somebody who's not getting it. Nebuchadnezzar is somebody who simply is after this God now because of the power that he might help him wield. So what should, so my assurance to anybody who says, well, if Christians, you know, believe that their God is the only God, surely they're going to be totalitarian. I'm trying to tell you no. Why? Because let's look at what the truth is.

[00:17:05] What is the truth that Christians believe? What is the central, ultimate truth that Christians say, everybody must know, everybody must believe, everybody ought to believe? I mean, does that sound so totalitarian? Yeah, on the surface, but here's what's interesting. Religious pluralism, on the outside, looks tolerant. When you push in, as I've been trying to show you, there's a note of intolerance. Christianity, on the outside, looks intolerant. Jesus, see, is the absolute truth, the way. But if you push on in,

[00:17:35] you will find tremendous tolerance. Why? All right, well, Karl Popper says, if you believe anything is the truth, it's going to make you totalitarian, if you're consistent. But what is the truth that Christians say everybody needs? What is the ultimate truth that Christians say every single person ought to believe? What is it? It's Jesus on the cross. And what do you see on the cross? You see the Son of God hanging, bleeding, serving, loving,

[00:18:04] and dying for people who oppose Him. And if you believe, if you've taken the very center of your being as the absolute truth that everybody in the world needs to see, this dying Son of God dying for people who oppose Him, could that possibly make you totalitarian toward your opponents? could it possibly ever lead to coercion toward your opponents? No, of course. And therefore, if it ever does, then you don't have it. You don't got it. You may say, I believe in absolute truth, but it's truth in general. You may say, I believe in Jesus Christ

[00:18:33] or I believe in the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, but you don't know Him. You don't. And here's what I want you to see as Christians. Christians say, okay, well, what are we supposed to do in a pluralistic society? What does Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego do? They don't argue. In fact, they even kind of revel in it. What they say is, look at verse 16, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not going to defend ourselves. Now that sounds arrogant, but what they're saying is they're not defensive. Look at Nebuchadnezzar

[00:19:02] frothing at the mouth. And look at them calm and speaking respectfully, O King, O Nebuchadnezzar. Look at Nebuchadnezzar coming through with all sorts of arguments. What kind of God would ever make you do this? What kind of God? If your God is so great, why am I about to kill you? Which is what he says, you know. He says, then what kind of God is going to save you now? And they don't come back with arguments. What do they do? They live out their absolute truth. They don't argue about it. Now listen, I am not, as you know, against arguments. I am not against

[00:19:32] intellectual defense. If you go to Acts 17, you look at Paul on the Areopagus, Mars Hill, talking to the philosophers, he's quite happy to make some arguments as to why, you know, Christian truth is true and what they believe is not. I'm not against that, but here's what you're seeing. 95% of the time, the best way to defend absolute truth, if it's Jesus, is to live it. Many of us spend more time thinking about ourselves

[00:20:02] than we'd like to admit. Whether we're comparing ourselves to others or just trying to live up to our own expectations, it's easy to become preoccupied with what we've done or accomplished. In his short book, The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness, Tim Keller shows how embracing the truth of the gospel makes it possible for us to let go of the constant need to evaluate ourselves and points us to an identity that's secure because of Christ's work on the cross. This month, as thanks for your gift to help Gospel & Life

[00:20:32] spread the good news of the gospel with more people, we'll send you two English copies of The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness and one Spanish copy that you can share with a Spanish speaker in your life. Sharing this Spanish copy is part of our focus this month on Gospel & Life's translation initiative as we launch the Global Reach Project, where, with God's help and in partnership with the Keller family, we are translating 500 of Dr. Keller's sermons into 30 of the world's most spoken languages. Through the Global Reach Project,

[00:21:01] millions more people around the world will be able to access the hope of the gospel shared through Dr. Keller's teaching in their native language. To learn more, go to theglobalreachproject.com. And to request your copies of The Freedom of Self-Forgetfulness, visit gospelandlife.com slash give. Again, that's gospelandlife.com slash give. Now here's Dr. Keller with the rest of today's teaching. In other words, they are showing him the opposite of what he's showing them.

[00:21:31] He's angry, he's frothing at the mouth, he's against them, they're calm, they're respectful. In fact, by the way, they had to be turned in. If you read the first part of the chapter, one of the things that's so interesting to me is that even though they had been commanded to come, every single administrator was commanded to come and bow down. They did not come, but they didn't make a federal case out of it. They didn't say, we're doing civil disobedience, which is what they're doing. They quietly just weren't showing up. And the jealous astrologers had to turn them in. You go up to verses 8 to 12 and see that. They didn't make

[00:22:01] a federal case out of it. There's a tolerance here. There's more than a tolerance here. What you've got is, if you want to show people that though we believe in absolute truth in a pluralistic society, the absolute truth does not turn you to a totalitarian, that it's exactly the opposite, as a matter of fact, it creates not just a tolerance, but a love for people who differ with us, a deep love, a patient love, a love that lasts. Live it. 95% of the time,

[00:22:31] the best way to defend the absolute truth of the gospel is to live it out. Live a life of sacrifice. Live a life of tolerance. More than that, live a life of love. Now the second thing we learn here, and I mean, that's to me quite remarkable. So the first thing is the golden image shows that on the one hand, religious pluralism looks tolerant on the outside, but on the inside it tends to be intolerant. And Christianity on the outside looks intolerant, but inside, if you really understand it,

[00:23:00] if you've really grasped it, if you've really made him your God, the God of the Lord Jesus Christ, and not just the God, if he's not just the God of your parents and grandparents, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, if you've really been changed, then on the outside you might, Christianity looks intolerant, but on the inside it melts in your mouth. Now the second issue, the second issue that comes up is in the fiery furnace itself because we said the second issue that really puts people off in the pluralist society from Christianity is unjust suffering. And you know,

[00:23:30] this is remarkable in a way. What do we have here? We have a racial minority, in this case, three Jewish men being thrown into a furnace. And do you realize how many people there are in the world today who don't believe in the God of the Bible because of all the young Jewish men and women and all the racial minorities and all the things, all the furnaces of the 20th century? I mean, think of how relevant this is. Think of how up-to-date this is. And there are plenty of people

[00:23:59] who have simply said this. They said the unjust suffering, the enormous amount of unjust suffering in the world, in our modern times, at all times, but in our modern times, has defeated the very idea of a biblical God. That is, you know, this idea of an all-powerful, all-loving God can't be. He can't. He can't. He couldn't possibly love us and let all this happen to us. And that's that. Well, let's see what this tells us. First of all, we see in this remarkable and very, very famous story,

[00:24:31] Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are thrown in, see? Verse 23, And these three men, firmly tied, fell into the blazing furnace. But then, almost immediately, Nebuchadnezzar, who obviously had some kind of vantage point to look into the furnace, jumps up and says, weren't these three men, didn't we throw three in there? I see four walking around, unbound, unharmed, and one looks like a son of the gods. Now, we have no idea why he would have said that.

[00:25:01] That fourth figure, does that mean, was the fourth figure eight feet tall? What was it? I don't know. But even in the flames, even in the raging flames, there was a fourth figure walking around and the power of it, the aura of it, the nature of that figure, immediately showed Nebuchadnezzar as some sort of supernatural being. He looks like one of the sons of the gods. Who was it? You know, Nebuchadnezzar himself, down in verse 28, said,

[00:25:30] he sent his angel. Who was it? Now, in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, you have angels. But one of the things that's so weird about the Old Testament is there's a particular figure that keeps showing up called the angel of the Lord. The angel. Why would this be called the angel? Now, you know, the word angel only meant messenger anyway. Emissary. Representative. But didn't God have a lot of angels? Why would he call it? Why? You know, why didn't Nebuchadnezzar say one of his angels? Or why doesn't the Bible

[00:25:59] talk about an angel of the Lord? But for example, in Exodus 3, we're told that the angel of the Lord came into the burning bush and made it burn. And when Moses gets near it, a voice comes out. It's the voice of the Lord. Now, who's in there? The Lord or the angel of the Lord? Sometimes it says the angel of the Lord. Sometimes it says the Lord. When Joshua, in Joshua 5, goes out to look at Jericho the night before the big battle, he suddenly sees

[00:26:28] this towering man in full armor in front of him. And he looks, he goes out to him and said, are you for us or for them? And he says, and this is another sermon, of course. And he says, no. You know, in other words, this is back before multiple choice, but even back then they understood what none of the above meant. No. And he says, but I am the commander of the Lord's hosts. Okay, so I'm from the Lord, he says. But then he says, take off your shoes,

[00:26:57] hit the deck, because you're standing on holy ground. And you know, every place in the New Testament, for example, where John meets an angel or other, whenever somebody tries to worship an angel, the angel, he says, get up, don't worship me, I'm just a creature like you. I was created by God, you're created by God, don't worship me. But this angel, sometimes this figure is called an angel from the Lord, but sometimes he acts like he is the Lord. He talks as if, he takes worship as if. Who is this guy?

[00:27:28] Well, you know, I don't think the author of Daniel knew, and I don't think certainly Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego knew, and I know Nebuchadnezzar didn't know, but we have a better take on, don't we not, the possibility of somebody being from the Lord and yet being the Lord? This is Jesus. This is the pre-incarnate second person of the Trinity. This is the Son of God. This isn't just one of the sons of the gods. This is the Son of the God. Isn't that interesting? The poor pluralist didn't realize quite who it was. And so what do we have here?

[00:27:58] What we have is the ultimate answer to the question of suffering. It's not completely the right answer to all the philosophical questions, but I'll tell you what, it will answer the heart of a philosopher, even if not completely all of the questions of a philosopher. Why? What we see is perfect here because at the very end of verse 29, Nebuchadnezzar understands it. Nebuchadnezzar understands that this has been a contest. And he says, no other God can save in this way. No other God

[00:28:27] can save in this way. He gets it. Do we get it? When people say, I can't believe in Christianity because of the furnaces. I can't believe in Christianity because of the suffering. I can't believe in Christianity because of that. Okay, fine. But the furnaces are going to come. And you're going to go into some kind of furnace. And who will you go in with? What kind of God belief will you go in with? And what could be better than this kind of God? See, that's what Nebuchadnezzar is saying. And what we have here

[00:28:57] in this picture of the Son of the God walking in the furnace with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and we see why Nebuchadnezzar was right. No God saves like this. First of all, Jesus Christ is the only God who walks objectively in the furnace. Isn't it weird? If this... Why didn't God save Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego by reaching down and pulling them up? Sort of like Superman. Shh!

[00:29:27] Why did he walk in there? Why did he walk around in there? Well, it's an indicator of what the Bible tells us. And see, only the God of the Bible did this. In Matthew 13, Jesus Christ talks about the wrath of God as the fiery furnace. Matthew 13, he says, at the very end of time, the angels are going to come and they're going to pick up the wicked and the oppressors and they're going to throw them into what, he says? The fiery furnace. What is the fiery furnace? It's the justice

[00:29:55] that man's inhumanity that a man deserves. And Jesus Christ calls the eternal wrath of God the fiery furnace. Remember in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus was sweating. And Jonathan Edwards in his famous sermon, Christ's Agony, he's very poetic in a way, but he says, why was Jesus sweating? Because he was about to be sent into the furnace and the door was open. And in a sense, he was looking at what he was going to go into.

[00:30:25] Jesus Christ came to go into the ultimate furnace for us. The ultimate furnace to take the punishment, all the punishment that anyone deserved, all the punishment that wickedness and evil deserved, all the punishment that selfishness deserved, all the punishment that indifference deserved, all the punishment. And he went willingly. He went in. See, he doesn't rescue. This God, this God does not rescue by just, you know, reaching down

[00:30:55] and pulling us out. He goes in. He goes in. Jesus Christ is the only God who goes objectively into that ultimate furnace. No other God says, no other religion talks about a God that suffers. And that answers the real problem. Nicholas Wolterstorff was a professor of philosophy at Calvin College in Michigan. And today, he's a professor of philosophy at Yale University, right up the road here. And when he, in the mid-80s,

[00:31:24] he had his son die. His 25-year-old son, Eric, died in a mountain climbing accident. Now, here's a guy who's a philosopher. And he knows about all the issues about suffering. How can you believe in a loving God if he allows all these things to happen? And surely, you would think, well, all right, why wouldn't that be the question? Well, what he writes down in his journal, which is in a book called A Lament for a Son. Lament for a Son. It's still in print. It's a great book. This is what he writes down. He says, God is love.

[00:31:54] That's why he suffers. To love our suffering world is to suffer. God so suffered for the world that he gave his only son to suffering. The one who does not see God suffering, therefore, does not see his love. The one who does not see God suffering does not see his love. So suffering is at the center of things, deep down where meaning is. Suffering is the meaning of our world because love is the meaning and love suffers. The tears of God are the meaning of history.

[00:32:23] Now, what is he saying? Well, at the mundane level, it's just this. One day, we were coming home. I forget. We were in a car. My wife and I were in the car and we only had one child. It was our oldest son had been born. He was probably a few months old. Right in the middle of the, we were driving somewhere and suddenly Kathy says, now that we're parents will never be happy again. And I know she was having a bad day, but she's saying the same thing. She said it suddenly broke into her that now that she loved this child, a fragile child, a human being

[00:32:53] who was in the world, she would never be happy unless he was happy. And I mean, how often in, you know, the 60, 70 years if we all live out to the normal lifespan that you watch a child grow up, how often can he be happy? In other words, if he ever has any problems, if he's ever messed up, if he's ever in despair, how can I ever be happy again? In other words, the way you know you love someone in this world is you suffer. If you're not suffering, you're not loving. There is no way

[00:33:23] to love without suffering. And suddenly Nicholas Woldersorf, this great philosopher, realized, as he looked out at the world and all the suffering in it, how could there be a God who loves the cross? Here's the point. If you don't believe that God came down into the world and suffered, if you don't believe that Jesus Christ was thrown into the ultimate furnace for you, then there is absolutely no proof that God is a loving God. Not at all. And you'll never be able

[00:33:52] to handle the problems out there. You'll never be able to handle the furnaces. What does he say? He says, if you don't see God's suffering, you don't see his love. In other words, do you believe in a general God, an abstract God? You say, I don't believe in Christianity, I can't believe in God. But I believe in a God, I believe in a spirit, I believe in a spirit of goodness, I believe in a spirit of love. The suffering, even of the 20th century, the furnaces of the 20th century defeat that kind of God. There is no evidence he loves us. But Nicholas Wolderser says, the sufferings and the furnaces

[00:34:22] of the 20th century do not defeat this God. They can't defeat this God. Because since we're suffering, the only way we could ever know that God loves us is if he suffers too. And he came down. And he was brought into our suffering. Jesus Christ, objectively, was thrown into the furnace with us, for us, for us. Now secondly, the second thing we see is that Jesus Christ, therefore, walks subjectively in the furnace with us. Because he was thrown objectively into the furnace of God's wrath

[00:34:52] for us, the ultimate furnace of God's wrath, he walks subjectively with us in our penultimate furnaces, the sufferings and the difficulties we have. And only if you know that he was thrown into the furnace for you, will you even feel him walking in the furnace with you. How do I know? What do you mean? Well, simply this. Do you see him dying for you? That means he loves you. It means he loves you enough to die for you. And what does that mean? It means the great debt has been paid

[00:35:21] and the real love your heart needs is guaranteed. And the real wealth that can never be taken away from you, in a sense, is in the bank. In other words, if he was thrown into the furnace for you, the real love, the real wealth, the real things you need are all there. And that means all other kinds of loves, all other kinds of debts, all other kinds of diseases, all other kinds of wealth, all other kinds of hurts you can take or leave. What is a furnace? A furnace is when something important to us

[00:35:50] is being taken away from us. But if we know, if we were moved, if we've been changed by the fact that Jesus was thrown into the ultimate furnace for us, then and only in, when you go into your penultimate furnaces, you'll feel him with you. And those penultimate furnaces, look at, notice the other thing I thought was interesting is if he was going to save them, why did he do it this way? See, Nebuchadnezzar's amazed at the way he saves. Why didn't he strike everybody blind before they even went in? Why didn't he strike them all blind or strike them dead or something like that

[00:36:20] before they, why did he let them go in? Because that's the way it works. Jesus Christ suffered not that we might not suffer, but that when we suffer we'd become like him. If you know he was thrown into the furnace for you, then you'll feel him walking in the furnace with you, and you'll know that just as through suffering came grace and glory in his life, through suffering will come grace and glory in yours. He'll become wiser, you'll become deeper, you won't become more bitter. You'll become richer

[00:36:51] and you'll walk because you'll feel him walking with you. Do you believe this? Do you see how it doesn't exactly answer all the questions of a philosopher, but it can totally answer the heart of a philosopher? Jesus Christ is walking in the furnace with us. No God saves like this. See, you're going to go into the furnaces with something. You're going to go with some kind of belief system. Let's just say, somebody here an atheist say, I don't believe in God. How are you going to deal with suffering? I don't mean just psychologically, I mean intellectually. If there is no God,

[00:37:21] then why be outraged at suffering and evil and injustice and oppression? That's just life. And if you go in with a general God, not the God of Jesus Christ, you go into a God which hasn't suffered and you do not know that God loves you, you can't now. That God does not walk through the furnaces with you. And if you say, well, I don't really believe in God, I believe in my family or I believe in my loved ones or I believe in my career, they can't go through furnaces with you either. Does anybody here say,

[00:37:50] I can't possibly have faith like that? Here's what I like about the ending. At the very end, you've got Nebuchadnezzar and you know what he does? You know, he's making progress. You know, at the end of chapter 2, Daniel said, look, it's God that's giving me the answer to the dream. It's God who's telling you all this, O king. It's God, it's not me. It's God, it's not me. It's God, it's not me. What does he do at the end of chapter 2? Remember last week? Nebuchadnezzar burns incense to Daniel. He didn't get it.

[00:38:20] This week, he's starting to see it's the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, but it's not my God yet. He's making progress. Next week, we'll see he makes more. In other words, slowly, slowly, slowly, faith can grow. Don't just say, I could never have faith like that. Take a look. Look at this faith. Look at the faith that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego had. I think one of the most amazing things is when he says, when they say, in the very beginning, they say, we believe our God is able to save us.

[00:38:50] You see that? And not only that, he says, we believe our God will save us, they say. But then they say, but if not, wait a minute, we're sure he's going to save us, but he might not. Does that make sense? Oh, it does. I've seen so many Christians who say, we know God is going to answer this prayer. They don't turn around and say, but he might not. Because there'll be a lack of faith. You know what that really is?

[00:39:20] That's faith in your agenda, not faith in your God. See, what they're able to say is, we feel that God's going to save us. We feel in our heart, we sense that God's going to save us. We could be wrong. We're not standing here defying you, O King Nebuchadnezzar, because we believe in our agenda, in a plan, and we're sure God is going to come along. We're standing defying you because we believe in God. They believed all the way down. That's faith. And the real miracle happened before. They were ever thrown into the fire. They were spiritually fireproofed before they were physically fireproofed.

[00:39:50] They had been given the faith and the humility to trust God calmly, courageously. See, are you closer to Nebuchadnezzar or Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego? Believe it or not, there's a continuum. You're not born in Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. There's progress that can be made. Tremendous progress that can be made. This is a faith that can take you into furnaces. This is a faith that can help you face anything. Let's pray. Father,

[00:40:19] we ask that you'd help us understand how we can grow into Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and that kind of faith that they have. We pray that you would give us the tolerance that comes from the gospel and the love of others and we pray that you would give us the ability to sense you walking with us through our furnaces and through the fire and we pray that you would grant this through Jesus in his name we pray. Amen.

[00:40:51] Thanks for joining us today. We hope this message was encouraging to you. We'd also like to share that today's sermon is one of the first of Tim Keller's sermons that we've translated into five additional languages through our translation initiative, The Global Reach Project. You can find and listen to the translated version of this and other sermons and learn more about this initiative at theglobalreachproject.com. Again, that's theglobalreachproject.com. Today's sermon was recorded in 2000. The sermons and talks you hear

[00:41:21] on the Gospel in Life podcast were recorded between 1989 and 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.