00:00Hello, everyone. This is William Chambers. It is so good to be here with you all. Hello, YouTube family.
00:06Today, I want to talk about when the crowds bowed, three men stood.
00:15Oh, don't you want to be somebody that stands in your generation?
00:19Crowds bow all the time, but I want to be someone that stands.
00:25Crowds have an enormous influence over us, over people.
00:29People will do things that they would never do when there's a crowd with them.
00:35And sometimes crowds frighten us not to do the things that we should do.
00:41Help us, God, to ignore crowds.
00:43In this text, in Daniel 3, an entire nation bows to an idol, but three young men refuse.
00:54Everyone says they believe in God until the heat is turned up.
00:58The heat was turned up on these gods, and they took courage, and they stood when everyone else bowed.
01:04Don't you want to be that kind of person?
01:06Just setting up a table for this text today.
01:08King Nebuchadnezzar, the most powerfulest king in the whole region, told his whole entire nation that they would bow when
01:17the music plays.
01:18When this music plays, you will bow to my golden image.
01:22And if you do not bow to my golden image, you will be thrown in the fiery furnace, and you
01:29will die by fire unto death.
01:32So he threatened his whole entire nation, and everybody bowed when the music played, except Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
01:41And we're going to read what they told the king when the king found out that they were not going
01:47to bow.
01:47Now, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said unto the king,
01:51O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter.
01:55If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace,
02:02and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king.
02:06But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy God, nor worship the
02:13golden image which thou hast set up.
02:18These men defied the king.
02:22They worshiped God and gave God glory before the entire nation.
02:28That should be the desire that you and I have.
02:30Now, I want to talk about the pressure of the crowds.
02:34Everybody bowed unto this image.
02:36Government officials bowed.
02:38Government leaders bowed.
02:39The crowds, they all bowed together.
02:43And the pressure of the majority was on these boys.
02:48This was overwhelming pressure.
02:50Oh, it was costly pressure.
02:51At the cost of their lives, thousands had bowed.
02:56They were in the very, very minority.
02:59And not bowing to the king would cost them everything.
03:05This was a moment of mass conformity.
03:09Everybody was conforming.
03:11Be not conformed to the ways of this world.
03:13Everybody else was conforming.
03:15Oh, you got to imagine this picture.
03:17Yo, they probably had family out there bowing.
03:19Friends out there bowing.
03:21Other believers in God bowing.
03:22Oh, sometimes you got to stand alone and go against even family and friends.
03:29Stand alone.
03:30And don't expect those who you, they probably had some people that they respected bowing.
03:35Oh, no, no, no.
03:36This is about obeying God when everybody else disobeys.
03:40I'm going against the crowd.
03:42I'm going against the grain.
03:44This was the pressure that they were under.
03:46But they had their minds made up.
03:48We're going to honor God.
03:50When everyone else bows and they had the numbers, sometimes it can seem like a correct decision.
03:54But this text tells us that oftentimes the crowd is wrong.
04:00You must go against the crowd.
04:02This text is telling us that just because everybody else is doing it does not mean it's right.
04:07Just because everybody else is jumping off the bridge, just because everybody else is worshiping an idol does not mean
04:13it's right.
04:14These guys made themselves a target.
04:18And that's when you go against the grain, you make yourself a target.
04:22They became the target of attention.
04:24You might become the target of criticism.
04:27You might become the target of accusation and hate when you stand up.
04:32But God is looking for men that will stand.
04:37These men had confidence in God's power.
04:40You must have the ability to look past human power and see divine power.
04:46These young men said, we know our God.
04:48We have relationship with God.
04:50Oh, goodness.
04:51You must hear this word.
04:52You must draw closer to God to have the faith and the courage to stand up against the crowd.
04:57They wanted to honor God.
04:58They knew that the furnace was real.
05:01That furnace is real.
05:03They knew the flames in that furnace was real and it was real hot.
05:07They knew that the king had authority to put them in that fire.
05:10But they knew that God was greater.
05:15No matter what power you have, no matter what furnace you have, no matter what you do to me, our
05:22God is greater.
05:23Oh, God, look at the fate of these men.
05:26Our God has the final authority, Nebuchadnezzar, and our God is greater than any threat that you can put up
05:33against us.
05:34That's what these young men were saying.
05:36These men were committed to God even if deliverance would not come.
05:40They said, our God is able to save us.
05:42But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods or worship thy
05:48images.
05:48They didn't come to God with an agenda.
05:50They didn't say we'll serve God if he delivers us.
05:53They said, our God is so great that he could deliver us.
05:56But if he does not deliver us, we will still obey.
06:03See, we need more men and women like that to look at all the consequences and say our God is
06:08greater if he delivers us or not.
06:10We need men to take stands in our country.
06:13Our country gets so bad because they're not people that's willing to take a stand.
06:17They see the threat and they say, oh, no, I'm backing up.
06:20Oh, I see the cost of that.
06:21And they will not take a stand.
06:23But these men said, whether God delivers us or not.
06:26They said that giving God glory and honor is worth more than our very lives.
06:32They had already made this commitment.
06:34They told the king that we are not careful in this matter.
06:37To answer thee, we're not scared.
06:40We're not anxious about this.
06:42We already have our minds made up that we're not going to bow down.
06:46This was a public stand against the entire culture of Babylon.
06:53We need some stands against the culture in our nation.
06:57They said that we trust our God, even if we don't understand him completely.
07:02We trust our God that he'll be with us no matter what.
07:05We will not bow unto your image.
07:08This kind of faith that these men had was not controlled by fear.
07:12It wasn't controlled by threats or crowds.
07:14This is the kind of faith that we're going to need to stand when everybody else bows.
07:20When everybody else bows, we need to know that our God is greater.
07:25That our God is able.
07:27And our God is worthy above our own lives.
07:29That's the only kind of faith that will stand up underneath pressure.
07:35God is often looking for men that will stand.
07:40The entire nation have bowed except these three men.
07:45And these three men are the only ones written in the text.
07:49God said, I'm not, all the crowds bowed.
07:52I'm not going to write about them.
07:53But Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, I was looking for some men and I found them.
07:58Will you be written up for standing in the right time?
08:02Not only that, our God stands with us.
08:05If you know the rest of the story, you'll know that God was standing in the midst.
08:08They said there's three.
08:09Then we send three into the fire.
08:11There's also a fourth one that looks like the son of man.
08:14God stands in the midst of pressure.
08:17He'll stand in the midst of fire.
08:19Once they made the commitment, God was standing with them.
08:24God will help you to stand against your nation.
08:28He'll help you to stand in the fire when they all turn against you.
08:32He'll help you when authority comes against you, when criticism comes against you.
08:35If you're making a stand for him to glorify him, God will stand in the fire with you.
08:43We need men and women that'll stand up in our culture and know that God will stand with me no
08:51matter what comes.
08:52If he delivers me, that's not why I'm here.
08:53If he doesn't deliver me, that's not why I'm here.
08:55I'm here because God is great.
08:57Lord, help us to honor you in front of these pagan kings, in front of this entire empire, in front
09:06of those who do not worship you.
09:08Help us to give your name the honor that it deserves.
09:12Whether you deliver us or not, we will make a stand in our culture.
09:16That should be our desire, believer.
09:18Help us, God.
09:19In Jesus' name we pray in sight.
09:20Amen.
09:21Amen.
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