We must, next, have a deep sense of the divine law. I have already reminded you of the law.” Thou shalt have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them.” No Virgin Mary, no cross, no crucifix, no picture, no image, no visible object is to be regarded with reverence, or worshipped instead of God. All this must be put away. That is clear enough; and therefore Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, feeling that God was near, and knowing what God’s law was, dared not violate that law, but would sooner die.
Above all, to keep us right, we must have a mighty sense of the divine love. We shall never obey God till by his grace we have new hearts, and those hearts are full of love to him through Jesus Christ. Then, if you love him, you will say, “What! put an image of gold in his place? Never! Join the multitude in worshipping a colossal statue instead of the invisible Jehovah? Never!” With holy indignation you will choose the furnace of fire, rather than have that purer flame which glows in your heart quenched, or made to burn dimly.
To some of you this must seem very trifling, because you say, “I do not care about religious forms and ceremonies. Let me enjoy myself while I am here; it is all that I ask.” Well, you have made your bargain, and a sorry one it is. If this life be all, how ought a man to live? I am sure I cannot tell you. Perhaps the wisest thing of all is, “Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die.” But there is another world, and a life beyond, and it is sometimes incomparably wise to fling this life away that we may win the life eternal. Our Lord often reminded his hearers of this great truth, “He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.”
“But what did these three men do?” says one: “they simply did not bow their heads, and they were cast into the fiery furnace. What did they do?” They influenced their age, their people, and, all time. These three men influenced the city of Babylon, and the whole Babylonian empire. They certainly influenced king Nebuchadnezzar. They influenced the next age, and to this hour the influence of their brave stand for God in his eternal unity, and for the non-worship of any visible thing, has held the Hebrew race firmly to this one point. It was principally through these three men that the whole Jewish people were taught their deep hatred of everything like idol-worship; and they were, by such men as these, and some who followed after; weaned from their tendency to wander after idols, and tethered fast to the worship of Jehovah, the one living and true God. Would God that the Jews as a nation went further, and knew our Lord Jesus Christ! Still, it is something that they are yet alive upon the earth bearing witness that there is but one God, Creator of heaven and earth, who only is to be worshipped. More than that, the influence of these three men lives in this audience, and will live in thousands of audiences in days to come. Does it not make your pulse beat? Does it not make your heart leap within you? Have you not said to yourselves, “This is a noble example”? Oh, that we may rise to it! In an age like ours, when everything is sold, when you can buy anybody, when the flute, harp, sackbut, dulcimer, and all kinds of music carry everything before them, when a mask and a vizor will infatuate even a saint; it is time that there were some men of the stern old mould of these three Jews, who could not, and would not, yield, whatever might happen. The pillars of the earth might be dissolved, but these men would still stand upright, and bear the whole world upon their shoulders by the grand power of God that made them strong. Be like unto them.
These three men command the admiration of heaven and earth. A fool would have pointed at them and said, “There go three fools—gentlemen high in office, with large incomes, and wives and families. They have only to take their cap off, and they may live in their wealth; but if they do not do it, they are to be burnt alive; and they will not do it. They will be burnt alive. They are fools.” Yes, but the Son of God did not think so. When he in heaven heard them speak thus to king Nebuchadnezzar, he said, “Brave, brave men! I will leave the throne of God in heaven to go and stand by their side;” and invisibly he descended, till where the fires were glowing like one vast ruby, where the fierce flame had slain the men that threw the three confessors into the burning fiery furnace, HE came and stood. And there they walked. It was the greatest walk that they had ever had. On those burning coals the four of them were walking together in sweet fellowship. They had won the admiration and the sympathy of the Son of God, who left heaven itself, that he might come and stand side by side with them. It was therefore comparatively a little thing that they won the admiration of Nebuchadnezzar. That proud imperial tyrant cried to those about him, “Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire?” They answered, “True, O king;” and he, with his visage white with ghostly fear, said, “Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.” He himself could not but stand there, and, awestruck, admire these three heroes. And now to-day you do the same. These three men still live. From the glowing coals their voices call aloud to us, “Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might.”
To close: if we would be servants of God, we must be believers in his Son Jesus Christ. Come and trust Jesus Christ, and you are saved. When you are truly saved, you are to be saved from all hesitation about obedience to God—so saved, that henceforth God’s law is your rule. Then, with that holy law imperative upon you, you will go forth into the world, and say, “It is not mine to ask what others will do. It is not mine to shape my course by them, not mine to enquire what will bring me most profit, what will bring me most honor. It is mine to look up to thee, my God, and ask, what wouldest thou have me to do? I will do it at all costs.”
I wonder how many young men to whom these words are addressed have pluck enough in them to come out on Christ’s side. I do believe that many young men do not want an easy life; they would rather have a hard time, and a stern battle. We have brave spirits among us still, who like to lead the forlorn hope, and are not afraid. I challenge such to come and serve my Master fully and thoroughly, and they shall have a rough time of it; but they shall have glory, and honor, and immortality as their reward. Make a whole burnt-offering of yourself, my brother, body, soul, and spirit, for Christ. These three young men “yielded their bodies”, as we read in the twenty-eighth verse. “I beseech you, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.” Let the faith of your spirit carry your whole body with it, in hearty obedience to God’s command, and let this be true of you—
“In full and glad surrender,
I give myself to thee,
Thine utterly and only,
And evermore to be.
“O Son of God thou lov’st me,
I will be thine alone;
And all I have, and am, Lord,
Shall henceforth be thine own.”
But I fear that I speak in vain to many, who will turn away, and say, “This world for me.” Well, if you make choice of this world, and of ease and pleasure for yourself, then have you chosen Egypt’s treasures, and you have disdained the reproach of Christ; you shall find one day how dreadful a folly you have committed. God grant that you may find it out soon, and not in the world to come! God bless you, and save you, for Christ’s sake! Amen.
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
