Assimilation! Shadrach, Meshach & Abednego

Then these men were bound in their coats, their hosen and their hats, and their other garments and were cast into the midst of the burning fiery furnace Therefore, because the king’s commandment was urgent and the furnace exceeding hot, the flame of the fire slew those men that took up Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego And these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell down bound into the midst of the burning fiery furnace Then Nebuchadnezzar, the king, was astonished and rose up in haste and spake and said unto the counselors Did we not cast three men bound into the midst of the fire? They answered and said unto the king, True, O king He answered and said, low, 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 This is not a new story to anyone in this house and you’ve heard, I’m sure, some very fine explanations And expository ministry from this chapter.

I hope that I can spread some familiar light, if not some new light Through this chapter upon you this morning And I hope that what I share with you is of benefit to you and helps you going forward For those of you who are visiting us today, we extend a warm welcome to you And we hope that you’ll consider coming back and visiting us again It’s quite a story What we have in this chapter is what’s called a Theophany, a Theophany That is the fact that Jesus kept on appearing through the Old Testament It was He who showed up in the fire The Theophany in the Old Testament would be like a Melchizedek, the priest king Melchizedek So it was Jesus in the flesh for a short period of Theophany Every time there’s a Theophany in the Old Testament, a revelation of Jesus.

We learn another something very, very special about Him So this took place, this story took place during a time when Israel had been conquered by the Assyrians And not just one, but many conquering armies, co-potentate kings They had a variety of ways in which they would subjugate those whom they conquered And one of the ways that it was done has become known as a methodology called Subjugation, making people subject to you, by the process of assimilation In other words, don’t try and get the people to do what you want them to do By frowning on them and putting them down and giving them dictatorial statements But rather win them through another process entirely Get the people that you want to no longer resist you Get them to assimilate with you Win their affection, win their mindset.

And so what the Assyrians did when they conquered Israel is they took the best of the Israel leadership We could say they cleared out the universities They went after the powerful politicians, whoever was an influencer They would have taken the doctors, they would have taken the best artists, they would have taken the best of the best And preferably the younger because you see they’ve got to work these people over And get them into their camp, into their mind, into their thinking And so many, many people were taken away and taken into Assyria So here you begin the process of winning them over Among those who were taken were these fellows who by the way were given brand new names,  Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego These were very, very intelligent fellows.

That’s why they were taken over to Assyria and of course, we also have Daniel. Now it’s very clear from this story, it’s very, very clearly stated That these three fellows, Daniel had a rose to the top He was an incredible leader, he had great things going for him But these other three fellows were friends, they became friends if they hadn’t known each other before. And they rose up, mightily, in the Assyrian kingdom. They had very special places in the kingdom of the Assyrians. It’s very possible that they had married some Assyrians That would be part of the assimilation process. Yes, you can marry our young ladies Yes, we’ll help you with all of that

So they may have married and had young families And so they rose up in a mighty way Now this king really got full of himself and he determined that another way to kind of work the assimilation. Now the Jews were not the only people that had been conquered and were among them. There were people from many, many nations that also had been conquered. And so this king recognized that all of these people who came. And the Jews included, they had their own culture. And they had their own gods They had their own deities that they worshipped or would look to So he had all of these people in his country He wants to train them, he wants to get their minds in along with him

He wanted to produce a whole new generation of people who would follow after what he wanted them to do Then he could release them to go back to their countries as heroes. And so he understood what he was up to and would lower any resistance back in their own country And so one way to kind of blend these people and bring them all together was to kind of create a religious setting that would appeal to everybody. So when this king set up this, I think it was something like 17 feet tall. This great image was not given any particular name. We don’t know exactly what he would have called it or what it would have resembled. That doesn’t matter. What this god represented was all the gods. That’s called a word that you hear all the time now …

Inclusiveness, inclusive. So get excited people Have a look at this God There’s something for everyone And the bottom line was this. That the people that were brought in, like the Jews and so on. They’d say, no, we don’t want to hear any more about your God being the only God or the great God Because you see, that’s going to hurt somebody else’s feelings This God that I’ve put together for you, he represents all of the gods. Now what you do in your own little gatherings, what you do in your own home. How you worship your God, and respond to your God. That’s entirely up to you.

But you keep it to yourself, okay, and that way we can all be friends Because if you start talking about your God being the greatest God. That’s going to be a put down to all these other gods. And we’re a sensitive group of people and we’re inclusive. We want to all be one big, happy family. You’re going to be subjective to this process And you’re going to assimilate with us So just get used to it You’re going to like this You’re going to like everything that we’ve done for you Because we are the ultimate power and everything that we do It’s to help you

Don’t you worry about a thing We’re here to help you. Now in order to bring everybody into line The king had some advisors around him I suppose. And they said, you know, you need to make a big to do about it. You need to have a big parade You need to have a big thing that kind of gets everybody. You kind of like it a happy mood. So the best thing you ought to do is you get your big orchestra. And it was a very high-end country. Like they had the arts, they had musicians They had what we would call operatic type of singers

But they had everything that you could possibly want. And so the king put together. Well he had these people do it for him. They put this great big menagerie together. Around the base of this big god, this big idol. And so he determined that about every three or four hours maybe, I’m making up this part now, but every once in a while, the orchestra would start up and the acrobats would start doing their thing, and so what was to happen that whenever the people who happen to be nearby, now if you know you’re up country with your family, or down at the beach or whatever. You’re not going to even hear about this.

So you don’t have to worry about that, but if you are in the town center, If you’re in the big city and when you start to see the orchestra gather. And when you see all the parade, and the people with their black faces, or their red faces Sorry about that When they all start to come together.

And assemble and get together. You’ll know something is up. You’ll know that the worship time is about to take place. So get on your best and show up. And here’s what’s going to happen When you hear the orchestra start to play. You will bow down to the image, It’s really important that everybody does this. Regardless of what god you’re excited about. We want everybody to recognize your god is somewhere in there, and all of the gods are represented.

So you will bow down And then there was this little piece just added on to it. That if you are not now prepared to follow through. And be cooperative. And if you just don’t seem to understand. The inclusiveness. The principle, this concept, If you don’t get it, you’d be best dead anyhow. So we’re going to heat up a fire and if you don’t do as you’re told, We’ll just disintegrate you.

We’ll take care of you in that way. So when the orchestra started to play Three of these boys ran, Shadrach,  Heshack And to bed we all go These three fellows Saw this coming, and they loved the Lord their God. They had been dragged from their country when they were younger fellows.

And, they had not given up their faith in the Lord. They were determined not to follow through with what the king demanded. And so somebody was watching them Came running over and they weren’t just a couple of peasants that were nearby, they were very astute people. They were highly recognized. So when they did not do their duty It became obvious to some significant people Who ran to the king and said…

You’re not going to believe what’s going on But you know those guys The guy who runs the treasury And the other guy that’s the mayor over in that situation These three guys, they’re not bowing, In fact, they’re taking a posture of just folding their arms. They’re being obstinate. And we’ve warned them And they’ve told us We’re not going to bow

We’re not going to That’s not our God And we’re not going to bow down And so the king Got angry We read this part now And brought these fellows in And it’s been an interesting That I love their reply I love, their reply we just sang.

God is so good, God is so good to me. And it has been good to all of us. And so when we say God is good, what do we mean by that. And so if we were to have kind of like a testimony. Tell me how God’s been good to you, we would have quite a wide variety of responses from folks here today about how has God been good to you.

Most interesting that when these fellows were told You either bow down Or You’re going to die Their response was We’re sorry King but God has been good to us. That was actually their response God is so good to us and what they were saying was this .. That God has supplied for us.

He’s ministered to us, but we were dragged out of our own country against our will, but God is still good to us. We’re living in a country that is strange to us. And we’ve been forced To cooperate with you. We ate your fine foods. We went to your university. We answered the questions in the university class according to how the professor said.

I’m going to ask you a question. And this is the answer. We did all of that. We’ve done our very best, and despite it being distasteful to us, we cooperated. And you know what? God is still good. Now if you choose to throw us in the fire, then that’s I guess how it’s going to be because you see, God might be good in an Extravagant fashion. He might save us. But if he doesn’t If his goodness does not extend to the place where he rescues us, we won’t bend. We won’t bow and we won’t give in. This is a beautiful picture of faith. Their faith was entirely focused. Why do you love the Lord?

Why do you serve God? Why? What is your definition of goodness? And their definition of goodness Was not all the things that he supplied We’ve been taken away from our country. We’ve been taken away from our family I’ve never seen my mom and dad my grandpa, my grandparents died. Well I was in obscurity everything that I hoped for everything that I dreamed it to be It’s all been taken away. But that’s not why, those things are not why I serve God. I serve God because of who He is and I will not bow. I will not bend. And if He even costs me my life, I don’t serve God because He makes my life comfy. I don’t serve God because of all the wonderful things that Proves his goodness. I serve God because He’s God. And this must have blown the king away. But he was in such outrage .He didn’t even want to inquire more and get a little better understanding of I don’t understand this, If your God doesn’t do things for you how can you serve him? Under pressure, Under pressure To assimilate.

Co-operate and go with the flow! They said we won’t bow. We might burn, so the king in his wrath said I want the fire to be heated up plenty. The king was totally beside himself. He went absolutely berserk. How much fire is it going to take to make your point, sir. He had it heated up

let’s say that they had a cord of wood. And that’s what would supply enough fire. He said I want, watch this I want seven chords of wood, I want it so hot that they’ll feel the heat before they ever get near it. And so profound was the temperature of this raging fire the soldiers who were commissioned to throw them in the fire. They died. They died as they got close to the fire. These fellows were bound and left clothed but in no time the king was out of his Throne and he was looking saying he was some distance away He wasn’t going to be too close to this himself but he had to have some people qualify.  I told you guys to tie them up We did, sir but there’s no ropes on it. The ropes burned off. But their clothes never caught fire. And then the king could not believe it He said to somebody How many did we throw in there? 

How many did we. . .throw in the fire …three, sir. No, tell me you must have thrown in a fourth. No, sir, we threw in three. Somebody’s lying to me. Somebody was about to lose their head because somebody messed up. Somebody made a mistake. How many. . . you tell me How many did we throw in there?

Three, sir. You tell me How many did we throw in there? Are my eyes deceiving? How many do you see in there? I see four. How many did you put in? I put in three, sir. Are you. . . this is crazy.

What’s going on? And then if somebody began to really focus They said look, at the fourth man, this was a Theophany. This was none other than the King of kings and the Lord of lords. That’s where his goodness comes through. Because when the chips are down and you’re down on your luck and you’re down on everything else, He will not fail you But they’d already announced What is failure? If He fails to deliver us. He’s still good. If I die of this problem that I’ve got He’s still good. All my prayers will. . . all of them will never be answered, I pray for this it doesn’t happen. I pray for the Heavens not to be as brass. I heard since I was a youngster, the Heavens seemed like brass. I cried, I prayed I was in that place when April was dying of cancer I did every kind of prayer that I knew how I fasted, I prayed. I begged, I screamed, I cried And nothing was taking place It’s difficult when you’re in that spot When the heat of the furnace is increasing, increasing and you’re saying God, God, where are you? You say, well, Pastor, that’s Got to do with our frailty Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah 

Listen, Jesus is on His knees In the Garden of Gethsemane and He literally has a Father. Can you take the heat of this furnace away from me? He prayed it not once, not twice He prayed that three times. And then He said Like the boys Looking at the furnace. But if I have to go in the furnace I’ll go in the furnace. The heat that Jesus experienced In the furnace that He was driven to was incredible. These three Hebrew boys were facing a fire I don’t know how long A person survives. An incredible fire I do know that fire can be so horrendous that a whole body can completely melt It doesn’t make sense but they say that heat can be so powerful.

Well, I guess that’s what happens then they, at you know, when they when a funeral, that kind of Yeah, apparently there are no bones In there, everything is reduced To just ash How long would it take to do that? Well, with the bomb and Hiroshima took about three seconds and people’s bodies literally disappeared.

It would have been instantaneous. But the furnace that Jesus experienced was not instantaneous. They brutalized Him for an entire night. And He hung on the cross for a couple or more hours. The heat of that furnace was nothing short of incredible and the heat that He was experiencing was much, if not more than the painful Imposition that was.

He was being put through what was the fire. The indignation Of God the Father toward sin. It was because of our sin. The heat of our sin. The burning sensation and the spirit In fact, the word of God records for us when this sin was being laid upon Him, because it says Ivey is if, 53 The Lord has laid upon Him Tied upon His back like a burden. The Lord has laid upon Him The iniquity of us all So the heat of that experience Was nothing short of incredible And here was Jesus In this furnace walking about with those boys untouched. What’s that got to do with me Today, Pastor David?

Well, our society is going To make some changes right now When we were young Everything had its standard, It had its place. We all had an understanding of what was right and what was wrong but it seems like everything right It’s now wrong and then everything wrong Is now to be put as right and we are being subjugated by the process of assimilation. We are experiencing that right now. There’s a brand new bill that’s going on in the government right now that is broader than anything that has spoken here too far. And it’s got to do with your freedom. My freedom of speech and so they’re putting pressure on me. Even more so and they put so many words in this thing And made it so all-encompassing.

It’s an impossibility to kind of drill down and get a clear understanding. What is hate speech? And it could be determined if and when this law goes through that my entire sermon today just doesn’t meet with the assimilating process. That right now going out over the internet. This message is being checked out and shifted out by what’s called an algorithm. And as soon as I say the word sex I just caused a blip on the internet.

I just caused one just now. If I say LGBTQ Bang there’s another one. When I said blackface a little while ago Boom! That brought a response. It’s just going on and on and on and on. And we’re told that everybody is so sensitive. There are pastors now who will not speak of the old rugged cross because that will hurt someone’s sensitivity Church buildings, the new ones now are not including men’s urinals in the bathroom. Because there might be somebody of another persuasion that goes in there and they’re going to come out and say I just feel damaged, I saw a urinal in your bathroom and I just don’t like that. Oh okay, so we take out the urinals. We’re doing absolutely everything that we need to do to make everybody happy Because you see we have this new God this new God called inclusivity.

We’re going to include everyone We want everyone to join this happy family And we need the preachers to tone it down We don’t mind if you want to sit and talk about The things that disappoint you about the world But don’t you dare say a thing outside those doors Don’t you say something where someone else might hear you Because you see that’s hate speech It’s okay for whoever wants to do so Including the most powerful politicians in this country They can trash Christianity And say we are worse

We’re a bigger threat to Canada than any terrorist. That has been said, it’s on record. You can YouTube it. It’s been said there and so there we are. That’s called hate speech in their estimation. That’s called hate. But if they use it, that’s okay against us. But we dare not say anything about any other Religion any other anything because that’s considered hate speech. In fact, if I were to read a certain passage out of this book right now from Romans chapter 1.  I could get arrested and be put in jail because that’s hate speech. That’s hate speech So you see we’re being pressured now to assimilate You will subject yourself to the way it’s going. And you have to like it We’re also being told that some of the most powerful people in Europe have put together this thing called The World Economic Forum. It’s not about economic anything, honey It’s about Assimilation. It’s about control. All of the nations of the world we’re going to be one big happy family. One beautiful big image so that it doesn’t matter what your language, It doesn’t matter what your God is, doesn’t matter. Your culture doesn’t matter. 

It’s about all just going to be one big happy family. And by the way as one big happy family, the children at that end of the table deserve some of the food that you are enjoying. We’ve got to have the same amount of food for everybody that sits around. Because you see we’re one big happy family. You cannot sing Oh Canada I stand for thee In your anthem No no no we’re going to sing a new song about all the nations. How we’re all wonderful and how we’re all perfect. Everything that can be changed Is being changed. Yeah, I’ve had some letters come to me. And to date, I haven’t responded to them Coming from I guess they’re called There are groups with one purpose little agendas And the one letter came to me and said I’ve got to be careful

The algorithm is very sensitive right now. So I don’t want to get myself into too much trouble If it’s the word of God I’m going to quote it I won’t back off. But my own little thoughts I think I have to be careful little mouth what I say. But this letter came by email and it said we are so and so and by the way this is our persuasion this is who we are.

And we just want to know what is your church’s view of us. And if we come to your church Is it a safe place for us? It was a tricky question I wrote a response about five times but I found that every time I wrote the response. Every time I rewrote it my teeth were just a little more edgy and it was biting pretty hard I wanted to say safe in our church. Oh no you don’t want to come here you see what they meant was that I wouldn’t say something from this pulpit but they’d say Oh, oh, you’re hurting my feelings. How do you feel about it? You’re bras out of shape there, you better fix that up you know, like, they didn’t want me to say anything. And so they wanted to know if it was going to be safe and one of my responses said Safe, no, you don’t want to come here.

You know how bad it is in downtown Chicago like, you don’t go out after six o’clock at night if you value your life. We’re continuously cleaning up the blood in the aisles of are sanctuary. This is not a safe place I wanted to say to them No, it’s not safe. But I wanted to say it in a very Ugly fashion. The challenge is this, that I don’t hate anybody.

I disagree with people but to disagree with people now the assimilation process you cannot disagree because you see that’s racist No matter what you do, out of line that’s everything is racist now your Bible is racist. Your color, by the way, is racist. Your color, by the way, is racist You’re a white elite person.

I know who you are everything is racist everybody’s supposed to back off and say No, no, no, not me, not me. And we’re all supposed to assimilate and say we’re all just perfect and we’re all just equal. Everything is just fine we’ve been told by the WEF World Economic Forum that the day’s coming when none of us will own property. You don’t have to worry about it, you don’t have to worry about your taxes we’re going to own your property and we’re going to let you live there, by the way, and this Klaus Claude wherever it is he hangs his hat. He looked into the camera and said and when you don’t own your own house and you live in our house because we’re going to own all the houses ee said you’re gonna like this, just like the king back then he said to all the people just fall down and worship this idol. You’re going to like it. You’re gonna have this kind of person on that side, and this kind of person and you know what? We’re gonna be one big happy family. You see, we are now under the crush of assimilation If God chooses to deliver us we will be delivered, if He does not deliver us Then we will burn. He can deliver us, they said, He can and maybe He will but if He doesn’t. We can take the heat. So the question for me and the question for you is. Your love for the Lord and your commitment to Him and what’s the best description of your faith?

I love Him because He’s good He’s so, so good. Even when where I am is distasteful I’m disappointed I thought my prayer would be answered in a different way I thought everything would go my way. I didn’t think people would disappoint me in that way. I thought everything was gonna be perfect It’s not going to be perfect Lord, you’re so good one man’s wife said to him your body’s covered in boils, you’re sitting on an ash heap Job, why don’t you just get it over curse God and die. And Job said If God chooses to kill me I will still serve Him. And we were warned In a prophetic way, do not fear the person Who can make your life difficult and even take it away from you.

But be careful of the spiritual death. That’s at your door. And wants to take your spiritual life Don’t fear the one who can hurt you physically Fear the one who can hurt you spiritually Fear that one Oh Lord Jesus, I want to be faithful and I believe that the point is gonna come where as a church, specifically as a pastor, I’m being pressed into the corner. Even right now, as all pastors are, we must choose this day, our side. The government says, and now the universities, they’re rife with this It’s nothing short of incredible. They’ve all drank it you see, the big shots, the smart people they went after the educational thing. And now they’re educating our little children, and talking them into, I don’t want to use the word, we’ve got young ears in this place. But you know what they’re doing to the little children, suggesting to them that maybe you’re not what you think you are. Maybe you should consider this … It’s diabolical and it’s confusing little hearts and minds, but you see the assimilation process Is to get these children, who will soon be Puba-sites.

Is that what we call them when they turn 13-14? You know when things are changing And then they become young adults. And they’ve already been beautifully processed and everything is being done so the educational system is constantly being rewritten. I always thought the way they taught me back in the day was pretty good. I was taught to read and write and to do arithmetic. But now no, they’ve got to teach me, they’ve got to teach our children social things, social things. They need to learn to listen to the new idol that’s being erected. They’ve got to learn to appreciate it and live with it. Our prayer needs to be Heavenly Father when the rubber hits the road help me to be found faithful!

God’s being faithful to me. But my faithfulness to Him Is being tested very very much. And when I’m being challenged with fire, will I back away or will I say I’m prepared to burn. David you can’t say things like that,  I’m going to say them. You might go to jail. Maybe I will. Then there are going to be some very well-meaning people there they say. David, just curb your tongue. Just be a little more careful than this. You’ll survive. We’re not called to survive. We’re called to stand for truth. We’re not called to want to die, we’re not called to want to lose. We shouldn’t want to be persecuted. But persecution is coming. It is coming. It is coming as sure as God made little green apples. Persecution is coming and we need to say, here I stand. Here I stand. I cannot move. I will not move. I have decided to follow Jesus. Sorry world, there’s only one way to heaven and that’s through the Lord Jesus Christ, and being bathed in His blood. There’s no other way.

No other God. Not Muhammad. Not Hinduism. Not any of it. This book is true. It’s perfect. It’s got no blemishes, and on the Word of God I stand. Let the winds blow. Can you say amen? Heavenly Father I pray, that our attitude to do with these things does not become harsh, ignorant, or arrogant. Lord, there’s no reason for us to invite the fire. There’s no reason for us to be belligerent. We know that loud speaking is not going to make a difference. We know that being that putting on pressure the other way, it’s not going to accomplish anything. What will accomplish much is our faith in God and to remain steadfast In the Word of God, and say this is where I take my stand I am with Jesus. Lord, I pray that you’ll help Every one of us

To be firm and steadfast In these things.

I ask it in Jesus’ name.

Amen