Time to Stand

Read Daniel 3
 
Daniel 3:1-7 King Nebuchadnezzar made a gold statue ninety feet tall and nine feet wide and set it up on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon…4 Then a herald shouted out, “People of all races and nations and languages, listen to the king’s command! 5 When you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipes, and other musical instruments, bow to the ground to worship King Nebuchadnezzar’s gold statue. 6 Anyone who refuses to obey will immediately be thrown into a blazing furnace.”
 
A man has formed a statue. A man decrees all to worship it and so worship him. That man declares a hellish death for those who disobey. How vain it is to form a 90-foot gold plated statue to be an object of worship and to establish such hateful laws.  
   That’s sin’s foundation, isn’t it? Idolatry not only turns our worship to an empty image, it causes us to make our own laws in our attempt to be as God (Genesis 3:5b). Exodus 32 tells how even Aaron, God’s anointed High Priest and co-Deliverer of Israel, was like Nebuchadnezzar. He, too, formed a golden image – a calf statue below Mt. Sinai even as Moses was on the mountain receiving God’s commands. Self-worship is the “Vanity of vanities.” (Ecclesiastes 1:2a) that limits our view of God to our unholy desires.
   We remember now that Ezekiel, Daniel and many faithful Jews were in exile because Israel’s rulers and majority of the Jews made their own gods: Jeremiah 10:3 Their ways are futile and foolish. They cut down a tree, and a craftsman carves an idol. 4 They decorate it with gold and silver and then fasten it securely with hammer and nails, so it won’t fall over.
   But God is the Victor. He used Nebuchadnezzar’s evil for the Almighty God’s majestic glory. The time had come in Babylon for God’s redemptive plan to move forward. It was time for God’s people to fear God, to know God and to stand for God. The three faithful men, Mishael, Hananiah and Azariah (See Daniel 1), became God’s witnesses to self-consumed pagans and to the Jews, who wondered, “Is the LORD still LORD?”
   Now the time has come in our culture to stand. Who will do so? Philippians 3:3 For we who worship by the Spirit of God are the ones who are truly circumcised. We rely on what Christ Jesus has done for us. We put no confidence in human effort.