Brown's Daily Word 6-8-11

Good morning,
Praise the Lord for this wonderful Wednesday. They are predicting this to be one of the hottest days of June. We will meet for our mid-week gathering for food, fellowship, and study at 6 PM.
I get excited about the Lord and about His faithfulness to His own, when I study the faith and commitment of His servants to Him. The story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the burning, fiery furnace is a favorite in the Old Testament and it has enjoyed its popularity since the earliest days in the Christian church when the first generation of Christians in Rome were being persecuted for their faith. We first encounter Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in Daniel 1 where, as colleagues of Daniel, they refused to defile themselves with the tainted royal food and wine. They rose to positions of esteem in the kingdom, but their commitment was again to be challenged. Perhaps this tells us that one spiritual victory is not the end; in fact, each day sees us at the foot of a different mountain to climb. Every day we face temptations, even to deny the Lord whom we love and serve.
A poet (James Russell Lowell) put it like this, "Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide; Some great cause, God’s new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight; Parts the goats upon the left hand, and the sheep upon the right; And the choice goes by for ever, ’twixt that darkness and that light."
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego refused to bow down to the gigantic idol that was placed upon the Plain of Dura. Though they were in the hardest crisis they had ever faced, they refused to renounce God and his commands. They refused to follow the crowd. They were determined to stand out against this evil thing and to be faithful to the Lord at any cost. They embodied courage of the highest order, for they were prepared to face a fearful death rather than dishonor their God. The Biblical account tells us that Nebuchadnezzar even offered them a second chance (he rather admired the pluck of those young men, whom he had recently honored and was prepared to give them the benefit of a doubt in his mind that they had made a mistake).
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego would have none of it. With great courage and dignity they told the king that they were not going to argue with him. The three young men made no attempt to excuse themselves. They refused to save their situation at the expense of their consciences; they were prepared to defy their king rather than offend their God. They made a classic reply, "The God we serve is able to deliver us from the fire, and will rescue us from your hand, O king" (17). God was their God. He was theirs and they were his. They felt secure for their hope was based on a deep covenant and personal relationship. The faith of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego was unquestioning; their God was omnipotent. Flames and kings meant nothing to God. He could deliver. Their confidence was based upon their trust in God. The young men also had confidence in the purposes of God. "Our God can deliver, but if not..." (18). What they said is that "God can deliver, and if it is his will, he will deliver us - but he may not! It may be his will to let us suffer and die. We do not know what his will is, and we do not mind, for his will is best." What a statement to make. They felt that loyalty to God was of greater importance than life itself.
We know that God is able to save. He is able to heal. He is able to deliver from temptation. He is able ... but we have a God who may not choose to save in a particular circumstance. This is a hard saying, and yet faith in God is more important than faith in his works. Ultimately, faith must rest in the character of God irrespective of what he does or does not do.
This story from the book of Daniel is an important reminder that faithfulness to God may result in problems. Refusal to conform to this world’s pattern may well involve trouble and loss. Yet, surely it is better to accept the narrow way that leads to eternal gain rather than follow the way of the world which will result in eternal loss? True faith is a readiness to trust God to fulfil his purposes whatever that might be, and to say, as Job did, "though he slay me, yet I will trust him" (13:15). The steadfast refusal of the young men made the king furious, so he commanded the furnace to be heated again and again, and they were thrown into the fire. What a terrible experience. Yet, what a wonderful experience it turned out to be, as we notice. The three young men were in the fire, but they were not alone, for the Lord was there with them. Nebuchadnezzar was filled with amazement. He could hardly believe what he saw - he had expected their bound bodies to be incinerated within seconds. But to his astonishment, in the middle of the blazing flames men were walking up and down, unhurt by the fire and quite unaffected by their fearful surroundings.
It is little wonder that he could hardly believe his eyes and had to seek confirmation from his ministers that it was only three men that had been cast into the fire. He looked again - "no, it wasn’t three," 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." One thing is perfectly clear; if God had not delivered his servants from the fire, he had delivered them in the fire. God had gone even further than that, because in the hour of his people’s trial, he had strengthened their commitment by his presence in a physical form. Was it an angel or was it even an appearance of Jesus, a "theophany"? The important point to remember is that the Lord was with them in their fiery trial. If God is omnipresent, he must also be the God in the midst of our burning fiery furnace, whatever form that might take. God is omnipresent in pain and his presence makes faith possible. C S Lewis said, "God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our consciences but shouts in our pains."
Nebuchadnezzar openly acknowledged that the three young Jews were "servants of the Most High God" and he called on them to come out of the furnace. They emerged from the fire completely unscathed. Not a hair had been singed and there was not even a smell of fire on their clothes. The king and his courtiers were amazed, to say the least. Nebuchadnezzar realized he was up against a supernatural God.
The message is clear. Believers need to grow in the grace of God so that when face to face with a challenge to faith, there will be no compromise on Christian principles. But when the fire of pain, disappointment or disillusionment comes God will be with us for the God of deliverance is also the Lord of the furnace.
In Christ,
Brown
http://youtu.be/3qEjRLlL9iE

Saturday evening worship service.
Location: First United Methodist Church
53 McKinley Avenue
Endicott
Sponsored by the Union Center United Methodist Church, 128, Maple Drive, Endicott

Saturday, June 11, 2011

6 PM Dinner (at First UMC Endicott)

6:30 PM Worship Service
Worship Music: Emma Brunson
Speaker: Rev. Bill Turner