Who Is The God Who Will Deliver?

A fiery furnace, a furious king, and three young men who refuse to bow—yet the heart of the story isn’t heat or heroism. It’s the way God saves. We walk through Daniel 3 to uncover a pattern we can live by: God rescues with precision, turns deliverance into public witness, and draws near in the fire with personal presence. The cords burn, but not the hair. The crowd watches, and even a tyrant is forced to bless. The fourth man appears, and fear gives way to fellowship.

We share a real-world parable of near disaster—a costly cabinet order gone wrong—and how mercy landed with a reminder: God often spares more than we expect while allowing just enough to burn to refine our hearts. That mix is not random. It’s providence at work, trimming pride, reviving prayer, and preserving what our calling requires. From there, we zoom out to the larger plot of our lives. Will we center our story on wounds and become permanent victims, or on wins and become forgettable heroes? Or will we choose to be witnesses, telling a better story where God stands at the center and his grace becomes the headline others can see?

Finally, we linger with the fourth figure in the flames. God could have solved the crisis from a distance, but instead he steps into the heat. That is the promise many only learn under pressure: the God of all grace will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish. Christ sealed this truth by entering the ultimate furnace at the cross so we would never face ours alone. If you’re measuring losses or bracing for heat, this conversation will help you assess what survived, name what was refined, and carry out a clearer fragrance—the knowledge of God.

If this encouraged you, follow the show, share it with a friend who’s in the fire, and leave a review to help others find hope in the heat.

Transcript

Scripture Reading: Daniel 3

SPEAKER_00 0:00

For the rest of us, I will invite us to stand for the reading of God's Word, which this morning is found in Daniel three, verses nineteen through the end of the chapter, beginning in verse nineteen, the word of God reads this way. Then Nebuchadnezzar was filled with fury, and the expression of his face was changed against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. He ordered the furnace heated seven times more than it was usually heated, and he ordered some of the mighty men of his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and to cast them into the burning fiery furnace. Then these men were bound in their cloaks, their tunics, their hats, and their other garments, and they were thrown into the burning fiery furnace. Because the king's order was urgent and the furnace overheated, the flame of the fire killed those men who took up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell bound into the burning fiery furnace. Then King Nebuchadnezzar was astonished and rose up in haste. He declared to his counselors, Did we not cast three men bound into the fire? They answered and said to the king, True, O king. He answered and said, But I see four men, unbound, walking in the midst of the fire, and they are not hurt, and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods. Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the door of the burning fiery furnace. He declared, Shadrach, Meshach, and Nebednego, servants of the Most High God, come out and come here. Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Nebednego came out from the fire, and the Satraps, the prefects, the governors, and the king's counselors gathered together and saw that the fire had not had any power over the bodies of those men. The hair of their heads was not singed, their cloaks were not harmed, and no smell of fire had come upon them. Nebuchadnezzar answered and said, Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent his angel and delivered his servants, who trusted in him, and set aside the king's command, and yielded up their bodies, rather than serve and worship any God except their own. Therefore I make a decree any people, nation, or language that speaks anything against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego shall be torn limb from limb, and their houses laid in ruins. For there is no other God who is able to rescue in this way. Then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and Nebednego in the province of Babylon. This is God's word. Thanks be to God. You may be seated, and may God bless this reading and preaching of his word. We've been studying the book of Daniel, and for the we have spent three weeks on the burning fiery furnace story. We've done it in three Acts. For the first two weeks, we we have been standing before the fiery furnace. In the first week, we looked at Nebuchadnezzar and his evil abuse of power. Then after that, we looked at the faith of the three young Israelites who refused to bow. And now we're at Act 3, and the camera turns, and the furnace is blazing, and the king's anger is raging. The strongest soldiers in Babylon are burned up, and the question hangs in the air: what will God do in this situation, in this story? What does God do best? We know that God is the creator, and the more we experience his creation, we see how glorious it is. God is the judge, and his judgments are always fair and righteous and just. But what the Bible returns to again and again, and what has astonished the saints all throughout the centuries, is this the fact that God is a savior, that he saves from trouble, he saves from bondage, he saves from death. What a wonderful Savior our God is. But what kind of Savior is he? And as we turn our attention to this morning to the saving power of God, there's three unique things that we learn in this passage about God's saving power. We learn that God saves precisely, that he saves publicly, and that he saves personally. Precisely, publicly, and personally. So let's begin with God saves precisely. God saves precisely what he wants to save. After Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused to comply with Nebuchadnezzar and his worship service, the situation turns fairly chaotic. If you look again at verses 19 through 23, um, notice these important details. Nebuchadnezzar is filled with fury, um, and his fury leads him to this gross overreaction. He orders the furnace to be heated seven times more than normal. I mean, just the the furnace uh normally could have done the job, but he he heats it uh seven times hotter. Uh he orders the strongest men that he has to bind the companions. And in verse 22, it says that the king's order was urgent. Another way to translate this is severe. The king's order is severe. And the situation is so chaotic and the fire is so hot that the men who throw the companions into the furnace perish from the heat of just drawing near to it. What all of this together is showing us that Nebuchadnezzar is throwing everything that he has at these defiant Israelites. He is unleashing the floodgates and all all of the resources at his disposal he is throwing at them. And who is the God who is able to save them from this terrible power? Well, Nebuchadnezzar would like nothing more than to see his power expressed and for these rebels to be consumed by the fire, but he is alarmed to discover this instead. If we look again at 24 and 25, says, King Nebuchadnezzar was astonished and rose up in haste. He declared to his counselors, Did we not cast three men bound into the fire? And they answered and said, True, O king. And he answered and said, But I see four men unbound walking in the midst of the fire, and they are not hurt. And the fourth is has the appearance like a son of the gods. Now one important thing to note here is that the three companions are now unbound. They were bound, thrown into the fire, and now they're unbound. The furnace was so hot and powerful that it killed the guards who threw them in, who drew near to it. But it seems to have no power over the companions, and their bodies and their clothing, and their even their hats are mentioned. But it does burn up the cords that bound them. Suddenly they're unbound, so presumably the furnace burned up their bonds. When the men are called out of the furnace and examined, this is what they discover in verse 27, it says, The satraps, the prefects, the governors, and the king's counselors gathered together and saw that the fire had not had any power over the bodies of those men. The hair of their heads was not singed, their cloaks were not harmed, and no smell of fire had come upon them. The bonds that bound them were burned up in the fire, but otherwise it's as if they never entered the fire at all. All of all of the hairs of their head are numbered, and not a single one is singed. They don't even smell like they've been to one of our men's bonfires, or like they've been smoking a cigar or anything, anything like that. They can go home to their wives and they're not going to get in trouble. Part of Nebuchadnezzar's pained conclusion is found in verse 29, and he admits, he's forced to admit, there is no other God who is able to rescue in this way. What does he mean? In what way? Well, you could say that this is an example of God saving completely, that he completely preserves them, not a single hair of their head is singed. But I would rather say that this is an example of God saving precisely. There's nothing precise about the furnace. The furnace is a blunt instrument. It's heated seven times greater than normal. The chaotic flames burst forth and do more damage than is intended. But for the companions, it only burned up what God wanted it to burn up, which is their bonds. And in this situation, God saved precisely what he wanted to save, which is their bodies and their hair, and even their hats, which again are mentioned here. Our God saves with remarkable precision. I'm working on uh Aaron had uh we had prayed for this uh last week, and Aaron mentioned it again in his prayer. I'll tell you the story. So I'm working on an expensive cabinet project right now, and last week I noticed just a few days before it was to be delivered, so there the cabinets are already made, they're already on the truck, on the way to Cincinnati, and I noticed that I had ordered the wrong cabinets. Uh the customer had asked for rift sawn white oak, and I mistakenly ordered quarter sawn white oak. And that sounds it's a subtle difference, but it's a difference that matters to people who are asking for one or the other. Uh, and it's an expensive mistake. And so my heart sank when I noticed that I had ordered the wrong ones because it would it would cost me thousands of dollars to replace them and to make it right. So, what did I do? Um, well, I I informed the customer of my mistake, and we agreed to look at them first before deciding whether they needed to be replaced, and then I prayed that God would save me. And I prayed many times that God would save me. I said, Lord, I did it again! Please have mercy on me. And our family around dinner even prayed that God would change them to rift sawn cabinets in transit. It's never it is never too late for God, okay? So we we prayed that, even though they were already made, even though they're already on the way, and they arrived this past Tuesday, and they looked so rift sawn that you would think that I had ordered the right cabinets all along, and the customer loved them, and I was saved. But there was one door, one door out of the whole order, that looked particularly quarter sawn. It had the characteristic flecking that Cordisan oak has, and she did want that one door replaced, which I was happy to do. I was reflecting on all of this, and this is what I think. The Lord did not owe me that outcome. The whole order could have looked like that one door looked, and that would have been just what I deserved, and I would have had to replace all of it. But he spared most of it, and he left one door as a reminder that he could have let it all burn. But he was merciful to me, a sinner. And in that transaction, what was what did get burned up? What were some other things that got burned up? A little bit more of my pride got burned up, a little more of my prayerlessness got burned up. In that, God burned up precisely what he wanted to, and he saved precisely what he wanted to. Our God saves with remarkable precision. Does this mean that God always saves what we most value, that he always spares what we want him to spare? Uh it does not at all. Sometimes God allows the things that we most value to be burned up. Uh sometimes we escape without losing a hair, as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did. Sometimes it's a mixed bag, and some things get burned up and other things don't. But whatever the outcome is, be assured that it is precise. Whatever got burned up didn't happen by accident or misfortune. This is part of God's providential plan for our lives. Um and whatever got saved, God wanted us to keep it, and he had mercy on us. In all things, his purposes are at work, and his main purpose is that we would become more like Jesus. And his precise salvation in every trouble is always moving us in that direction. So for you, when you get pulled out of your next furnace that you stumble into or that you're thrown into, when you get pulled out, assess the damages and praise God for what he spared. He probably spared more than you think. Assess the damages and praise God for what he spared, and praise God for what he sovereignly allowed to get burned up, even if it's painful in the moment. We can trust God's remarkable precision in his salvation. He saves precisely. Point two, God saves publicly. God saves publicly to glorify his name. When trying to figure out what different Bible stories are about, I've mentioned this before, but it's always useful to ask what changed from the beginning to the end of the story? What was accomplished, what was gained, what situation changed, what was lost, maybe, what changed from the beginning to the end of the story? And that often gives us a clue as to what the story is about. In this story, many things are accomplished. The Israelites are saved from the fire, but that's only the beginning. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, throughout this process, come to know the Lord better. They meet him in the furnace and they walk and talk with him. We don't know what they were talking about, only they do. So they come to know the Lord better. And at the end, all of Babylon comes to know the Lord better, maybe not in a saving way, but but they come to know the power of this great God. This is a public salvation in the sight of all of the officials of Babylon. Again, look at verse 27. It mentions all of them. It says, The satraps, the prefects, the governors, the king's counselors gathered together. Every one of them saw that the fire had not had any power over the bodies of those men. It's very public. It's so public that Nebuchadnezzar has no choice but to bless God publicly. And verses 28 through 30 tell us that the king blesses Yahweh, that the king makes a decree, that no one in all of his empire can speak any word against the God of Israel, and he adds his characteristic violence to this decree, that if they do, they'll be torn limb. He just loves that being torn limb from limb stuff. And then he promotes Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego for their faithfulness to their God. So the really the climax of the whole episode is not just that the three are saved, but in the end, the name of the Lord becomes more renowned in Babylon. Babylon comes to see more clearly that there is no other God that can save in this way. God saves his people because he loves his people. But that's not the end of the story. God does not light a lamp in order to put it under a basket. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. God saves publicly, and he turns our life into a story that is meant to testify to his marvelous grace, not just for us, but so that many around us would see and many more would turn to him. The hymn writer Stuart Townend, we're going to sing one of his hymns at the end of our service today, not this one, but he wrote a hymn and he put it so well. He said, An altar of remembrance that stands for years to come. When I am called to heaven's rest, my story lingers on. Let those who follow on the way take courage in the race. You fashioned from this jar of clay, a trophy of your grace. So beautiful line. One of the main purposes of God in your salvation, and not just your eternal salvation, but as he saves you from every trouble throughout life, one of the main purposes certainly is to save you, but it's more than that. It also is to bear witness to the God who saves, that many would see and would turn to this great God. In acting, an actor can remember all of their lines, but in the stress of memorizing lines and technical issues and the anxiety of performing before an audience, they can easily lose the plot, as we sometimes say. They remember what they're supposed to say and do, they remember their cues, but in all of the details, they forget what the story is really about, and they forget the motivation of their character. The larger narrative is lost in the mess of details that they must manage. And this can kill a performance. It can make a performance unconvincing. It's far better that an actor would forget a few lines or a few cues than for them to nail the lines but completely lose the plot. If they understand the larger story arc and what their character would be thinking and feeling, they can get the lines wrong and they can still deliver a very convincing performance. Some of the most famous lines in your favorite movies are lines that were not in the script, but they were true to the plot because the actor understood the character so well. In The Empire Strikes Back, right before Han Solo is lowered into the carbon freezing chamber, Princess Leia tells him, I love you. As the script was written, his line was supposed to be, I love you too. And if he would have said that line, we wouldn't be talking about it today, and no one would remember it. But Harrison Ford knew Han Solo a little bit better than that, and he went off script, and his reply was simply, I know. And then he was lowered into the carbon chamber. The perfect line for the rogue cowboy spaceman. Because Ford understood the plot. He understood the plot, not just not just what he was supposed to say. Your life is a story. It's a story that's full of suffering, it's full of injustice, uh, it's full of moments of joy, it's full of little victories, it's full of losses, and it will be full of God's salvation if you will trust him. If you will continue to cleave to him in faith, it will be a story of God's salvation. So, what's the story about? What is the story of your life about? All of us could be tempted to play the role of the victim, and we could make our story about how we've been mistreated or treated unfairly, and our suffering could be the center of our story, and it will be a sad story. Or we could be tempted to play the role of the hero, and we could make you could make your story all about you and all about your accomplishments and your wins and your victories and the things that you've overcome, and it and you will be the center of the story, and it will be a boring story to everyone but you. And that's the story that often we're all trying to live. Or you could be a Christian and you could realize that the story of your life is not it's not about what you've suffered, it's not about the good things that you've done, but it's actually about God, and it's about his marvelous grace toward sinners, and it's about his saving power toward the helpless. And if you do that, God will be at the center of your story, and that is a story that is able to stand for years to come and to be an encouragement to many who are running the same race. When you understand, not just your lines in the moment, but when you understand the real plot line of your life, then all of the little events in your life start to make more sense. So have you lost the plot? You might really be a victim, you might really have suffered some things, but that's not the real story. You might really have done some heroic things, you might really have done some good things, but that's not the real story. The real story that we will be telling one another and telling the saints in heaven from all of the millennia, the real story that we'll be sharing back and forth forever, is that God saves sinners. That's the story of your life, that's the story of the life of every Christian that we'll be that we will be telling one another. That's that's what our life is about. So this morning, recenter yourself, or rather, take your suffering and yourself out of the center, and remember that God is the center of the wonderful story that He is writing through your life. God saves publicly. Point three God saves personally. A third thing that we learn here. Is that God saves not from a distance, but saves up close and personal. There is a fourth man in the fire. The verse 24 it says, King Nebuchadnezzar was astonished and rose up in haste. He declared to his counselors, Did we not cast three men bound into the fire? And they answered and said, True, O king, and he answered and said, But I see four men unbound, and one has the appearance like a son of the gods. This fourth man appears, Nebuchadnezzar's words, like a son of the gods. That would be Nebuchadnezzar's word for angel. In the Old Testament, the angel of the Lord is often God himself. The angel of the Lord is indistinguishable from God Himself. Here, theologians have disputed the exact identity of the fourth man, whether it be an angel or the angel of the Lord, or possibly even a pre-incarnate Christ. Whatever is the case, I think it's clear that the companions encounter the presence of the Lord in the furnace. They meet God in the fire. God could have saved the companions in many impersonal ways. There was no need for him to show up himself. He could have simply extinguished the furnace from heaven. He could have sent Daniel, who is not in this story, to come and plead, come to their aid and plead with the king. He could have done many other things. He could have done countless things to save impersonally, but he chose instead to come and save them personally, to meet them in the fire. And it reminds me of 1 Peter 5.10. This is what Peter says to the Christians that he's writing to. He says, After you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. That's a wonderful verse that we often read past without noticing what it's saying. Peter says, God will himself restore and confirm and strengthen and establish you. When you need to be restored and strengthened, God will not send an angel. What an encouragement that is. So the next time you get thrown into a furnace, I hope you set your eyes on God and wait for none other than him to come and meet you and help you himself. God saves personally. Why? Well, there are some things about God that can only be learned in the furnace. Keep in mind, they are thrown into the furnace, they meet God in the furnace, they talk with God in the furnace. We don't know what they talk about, only they do. There are some things about God that can only be learned in the furnace. Sometimes we can only see his face once we have gone through significant suffering. God does not deliver us from all suffering because it is in the suffering that God Himself shows up. When I got started in carpentry, I worked for a crew and a guy named Mike owned the company. Mike was the master carpenter. Mike had the most knowledge. He knew how to do all of the things. He owned the tools, he would sell the jobs, but he would send us to actually go and do the work. And this is how it goes most of the time in construction. But if there was an aspect to a project that was really important or that really mattered to him that it got done right, what would he do? Well, he would show up himself. And when Mike rolled up on the job site himself, we knew, okay, this is serious, this is important. He would come himself and he would do it personally to ensure that it got done efficiently and to his standards. The most high God has innumerable resources at his disposal. He could send his angels, he could command the flames from a distance, he could send one of his many servants. What does it teach us when the Most High God gets up from his throne and condescends to personally save his people? It teaches us that our salvation must be very important to God. It's so important to him, important enough that he would see to it himself, that he would see to it personally. So the next time you get thrown into a furnace, remember this. What you need most is not a pastor or a friend or a counselor, though all of these things can be helpful, and we we do, God often does send friends and pastors and counselors. We need them all. But what we need most in that trial is actually to encounter God in a personal way. So that when you walk out of the furnace, you don't just walk out having been saved from the trouble, but you walk out with a greater knowledge of God. You walk out with a greater understanding of his grace. You walk out with a greater thankfulness for his goodness. Thank you, God, that you are so good to me. You walk out with a greater dependence upon his saving power in the future. You walk out with a greater appreciation of his own suffering, because we know for certain that we can expect to meet God in the fire, because there is one fire from which even the Son of God was not spared. Jesus Christ went to the cross and was not spared from the real fiery furnace, so that God's people could be delivered from every trouble. So when you are in your next furnace, uh talk to a friend, talk to a talk to a pastor, talk to a counselor. All of these things are good. But set your eyes on heaven, because what you really need is to wait for God to come Himself to meet you and to minister to you in those times. And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. And you will emerge not with the fragrance of destruction, but with the fragrance of the knowledge of God, which he delights to spread everywhere we go. To this end, let us pray. Our Father, we give you thanks for this wonderful story that we've had an opportunity to study and to look at over the past few weeks. And we pray, God, that you would uh, like all good stories, that you would uh help it to stick in our minds, that we would continue to meditate upon it, and that we would continue to learn its lessons, that we would continue to see your saving power, that we would see the dangerous world that we live in and the dangers that we face, that we would see the faith that you call us to and the dependence that you call us to, and that we would see Jesus Christ, we would see the fourth man in the fire who entered the fires of judgment for us so that we can be delivered from every trial that we face. Lord, help us to trust you whether we experience complete salvation from trouble or whether we whether we get a little burned. Help us to trust your precise salvation and your purposes. All of this we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Let's stand and worship together.