Serving Under Nebuchadnezzar #2 — Refusing to Bow
December 16th, 2008Daniel 3
This particular principle has more to do with Daniel’s friends than Daniel himself. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego had gone through the Babylonian training and ended up in leadership in the Babylonian Empire.
Meanwhile, Daniel had interpreted a dream that had been troubling Nebuchadnezzar. In this dream, God showed Nebuchadnezzar an image of a man that symbolized the current kingdom, Babylon, as the head and then the subsequent kingdoms that would follow.
Nebuchadnezzar took this message from God about the temporal nature of his own kingdom … and proceeded to make a huge image of himself made completely of gold. Then Nebby decided that everyone had to bow down to it.
After three years of a diet of vegetables and water, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego had seen the favor and faithfulness of the Lord. They would not bow down. The consequence of not bowing down was to be put in the fiery furnace. Nebby practically pleaded with them to reconsider. Their response? “God will deliver us. But even if he doesn’t, we will not bow down.”
We all know the rest of the story well. Basic Sunday School type stuff. God did deliver them and Nebby even saw a “fourth” person like the “son of God” in there with them. The three young men emerged from the fiery furnace unscathed.
While this is a very familiar story, the principle I would like to take away today is, what image are we being asked to bow down to? Those who seek to serve the Lord alone will bow to NO OTHER IMAGE. What does that mean?
Well, surely we don’t bow to actual idols, at least in our culture, so we feel safe from idolatry. But did you know that the scripture equates greed and covetousness with idolatry? So even though we do not bow down to a little (or big) image of something or someone, we still might be guilty of idolatry.
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego all served in the empire. They weren’t rebelling against the whole empire. They just would not bow down to any besides the true God. Nebuchadnezzar and Babylon had its place for its time, but it did not have THAT place.
So at what point do we bow to something? When you seek your identity from that thing, or your security, or your provision. When you give place to something that should only belong to God. If we continually have faith in the state to rescue our nation from every woe, then we bow down and worship the state. If we have faith in our nation to police the world and its conflicts, then we bow down and worship our own nation. If we see a political party or candidate as a reason for hope and prosperity, we bow down to those things.
America, its government and leaders have a place … but not THAT place.
We could also get into religious idolatry, as Alice left in a comment from yesterday’s post. The hero worship that happens with ministers in the Body of Christ is quite disconcerting at times. To see preachers, teachers, and worship leaders marketed like the latest celebrity is more worldly than we seem to understand. It goes directly against Jesus’ example and teaching. He wouldn’t let them make him an earthly king and continually told people to NOT tell anyone what he did, even though they did it anyway. He also taught that “the first will be last” and leadership in the Body works differently from the world, that we shouldn’t even let ourselves be called by names like “teacher” or “father” or other position type mentalities.
Those are the words of Jesus, of course.
There are other types of idolatry. Idolatry is basically giving created, temporal things the place of the eternal Creator. This is why Paul lists greed and covetousness as idolatry. You seek your satisfaction from things. True satisfaction can only come from God.
As people seeking to serve the Living God, be sure that you bow to only him. He is a jealous God, and he broaches no competitors. Not your career or your wealth or your entertainment or your country or your politics or your heroes. Nothing should have his place.
Thoughts?
Peace.