A Blazing Reformation Faith

1st Sunday of End Time, Reformation, 11/1/15
Daniel 3:16-28


A Blazing Reformation Faith
I. Stands firm on God’s word
II. Stands firm facing death


The uncommon has become common. I realize that’s a paradox, but I think you’ll agree how true it is. The uncommon has become common and it has much to do with the ubiquitous smart phone. Unless you are absolutely by yourself without such a device, what you say and do can be photographed, video and audio recorded. And quite often it is. So that when something unusual occurs, it’s being captured with the potential of being uploaded to one or more media outlets and now the whole world can see it.

So when your little soccer star scores three goals in the space of 5 minutes, the potential exists for the whole world to witness the uncommon. When your daughter’s musical performance is a “10” on nearly everyone’s scale, the potential exists for the whole world to see the uncommon.

But since billions of people are doing the same thing, the uncommon has become common. It loses its startle-factor. We may even roll our eyes thinking, “I’ve seen something just like this before.”

But I’m sure you’ve never seen what Nebuchadnezzar saw on the day described for us in this morning’s text from Daniel 3. You talk about uncommon! Three men get thrown into a fiery furnace and they live to tell about it! In fact, they don’t even smell like smoke. Nebuchadnezzar and the people with him witnessed a miracle.

But there was another miracle on display that day. It was the miracle of amazing faith or trust in the only God. Aren’t the words of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego amazing? They flow from a heart of amazing faith. This morning I’d like to refer to it as a blazing faith, a faith fully on display for all to see.

So what’s the connection between their faith and Luther’s Reformation of the Church, which we’re celebrating this morning? Just this: that in many ways Luther shared their blazing faith. His God-given blazing faith enabled him to be the reformer that he was.

Are there times in your life when you wished you had just such a blazing Reformation faith, when your moment of weakness wreaked havoc in your life, when fears and doubts paralyzed you?

Then may our God use his word to bolster our faith in him, to cause your faith and mine to be a blazing Reformation faith.

Part I.

The word “politics” has a bad connotation, and deservedly so. It’s a word used to describe a messy, often back-stabbing environment. In the world of politics, rivals are neutralized, sometimes fatally so. It’s a world of incessant striving to be on top and remaining there. It’s power. It’s corruption.

Ruthless politics was rampant in the Babylonian Empire and Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were victims of it. They were officials under Nebuchadnezzar in one of the provinces of Babylon even though they were Jewish, not native Babylonians. And that didn’t sit well with their fellow officials. They wanted Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego eliminated.

So they used a result of Nebuchadnezzar’s sinful pride to achieve their goal of eliminating these Jewish political rivals. Nebuchadnezzar had made an idol of gold 90 feet high and demanded everyone in his empire to bow down and worship it. The punishment for non-compliance was death by fire. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego weren’t intimidated and that’s amazing. Think about it. They could have reasoned, “Let’s just go through the motions. We don’t really have to worship the idol. We just need the king to think that we are. Besides, we know that the only true God has placed us in our positions of leadership in order to be a blessing to our fellow Jews. If God wants us to continue doing that, then we’re going to have to bow down. Surely God will understand.”

But Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego knew what God’s word clearly stated. The very first of God’s commandments demanded that they have no other gods. It prohibited making any idols, let alone a golden one 90 feet tall. In fact, even to give the impression that you were engaging in idol worship is a violation of the commandment because it’s a failure to place your complete trust in the only true God.

These three men displayed that complete trust, a blazing Reformation faith. Listen to them, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king.” I don’t think these men had ever witnessed God rescuing anyone from a fiery furnace. But they knew that he had the power to do so. If it was God’s will to spare their lives, he would do so.

But their faith blazes even brighter in the words they spoke next. “But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.” There you have it—an unflinching allegiance to the God of their salvation. Their faith in that God assured them that, if they did die instantly in the fiery furnace, the Lord would carry their souls home to heaven. Their blazing Reformation faith made them confident of victory no matter which way things turned out. In short, they stood firm on the word of God.

Four hundred ninety-eight years ago, Martin Luther nailed the 95 theses to door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, thus setting in motion his Reformation of the Church. And the further that Reformation progressed, the more convinced Luther became that he was correct because he was standing firm on God’s word and not on the decrees of sinful men. Six years into the Reformation, Luther’s blazing faith made him bold enough to stand before the world’s most powerful emperor who was demanding that he recant everything he had written and said, and to declare, “I am tied by the Scriptures I have quoted and by my conscience. I cannot and I will not recant anything. Here I stand. God help me! Amen.”

A blazing Reformation faith stands firm on God’s word.

Praise God for giving Luther, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego such a blazing faith that stood firm on his word! Wouldn’t you love to have a blazing faith like that—one which unflinchingly did the right thing in a pressure situation? But so often my faith and yours has not been blazing. Too often it’s barely glowing. There are times when we even give others the impression that we aren’t children of God by the things we say and do. God forgive us! God help us! And he does. That’s what the Reformation was all about. It’s not what I do to please God; it’s what God does to forgive me freely, fully. He does so through what Christ has done. God declares us holy because of the work Jesus did for us which ended with his death on the cross. And now through word and sacrament he feeds and nourishes our faith. His Holy Spirit fans it into flame, so that, instead of caving in on God’s word, we stand firm to the glory of God, a blazing Reformation faith.

Part II.

It’s happened far too often right within the border of our country. A person has a gun pointed at another person right in front of them and asks, “Are you a Christian?” And when the reply is yes, it’s the last word that person ever speaks on this earth.

A crazed Nebuchadnezzar had the furnace heated 7 times hotter than usual, 7 times hotter than it needed to be. It was so hot it killed some of his best soldiers unintentionally. What if Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego had decided they didn’t want to die? What if they had decided they could do more good alive than dead? Would you have blamed them? Probably not. Because let’s be honest. We don’t know what we would have done if we were in the same circumstance.
But if they had flinched, we wouldn’t be celebrating Reformation with this account. In fact, the Holy Spirit might not have caused Daniel to record it.

Martin Luther lived under the threat of death. He had been excommunicated from the church and declared an outlaw. That meant he could be shot on sight. But the Lord saw to it that Luther had friends in high places and he used those men to protect Luther and to continue blessing his Reformation of the Church.

But if Luther had caved in under pressure, if he had concluded that the Reformation was costing him and his family too much, if he had become weary of defending the truth of God’s word in the face of some of the world’s most powerful men in the government and the church, then the Reformation might not have happened. Worse yet, we might not have the truth of God’s word today. We could be living under the deadly delusion that of sins and eternal life can be earned by good works or bought with money. But thanks be to God we live in the daily assurance that Christ our Savior won forgiveness and eternal life for us! That’s as certain as Christ’s resurrection from the dead.

A blazing Reformation faith is built on Christ’s death and resurrection. We know our eternity is absolutely secure. A blazing Reformation faith stands firm facing death.

I’ll continue to pray that you never face the demand to deny Christ or die. But if you do, then know with certainty as Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego did that the bliss of heaven awaits you. Trust that the God who knew you by name as his dear child back in eternity before the creation of the world will carry you forward into eternity with him. That’s what our Savior came to win for you. And it’s all yours by faith in him. So whether you die the violent death of a martyr, or disease slowly brings death, or you die in an accident, or peacefully in your sleep, the result is the same—life with Jesus forever. A blazing Reformation faith knows and believes that and so it stands firm facing death.

May our God cause your faith to blaze and may others join you in praising him for it. Amen.