[28] Nebuchadnezzar responded and said, "Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego, who has sent His angel and delivered His servants who put their trust in Him, violating the king's command, and yielded up their bodies so as not to serve or worship any god except their own God. [29] "Therefore, I make a decree that any people, nation or tongue that speaks anything offensive against the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego shall be torn limb from limb and their houses reduced to a rubbish heap, inasmuch as there is no other god who is able to deliver in this way." [30] Then the king caused Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego to prosper in the province of Babylon. The story line is very simple, the king built a big image of gold and ask and made a decree that everyone should worship. So here, the people accused these three young boys and therefor the king took them into his presence and what did the king do? He threatened to throw them into a burning fire. They did not worship the image and God in their life therefor simple story right? We like to concentrate bible study on getting principles, what principles can we learn, what are the things that we can learn so that we can apply it into our lives? Most of the time when we begin to look at the bible and we begin to look for principles notice where do we begin? We begin with who? Obey, I will obey. We want to teach you not to do that, that is a secondary, the first thing that you have to look for is God, what can I learn about God, because this whole book is about God, about Jesus and therefor when you look for principles… the story is about young boys and we tend to focus on them rather than God so every time we’ve been doing this exercise notice we always say God. So what can we learn about God? God’s sovereignty okay, the power of God. The last time we took the sovereignty of God, anything else that you can see, Okay, God is faithful, as you read this chapter and the chapter before there is one key taught about God and there are many characteristics about God but one that we want to focus on tonight God is omnipotent, what does that mean? What does omniscient mean? All knowing, see God can be all knowing, God can be all present but those two would be not encouraging unless God is omnipotent. Basically what does that mean? It means God is able, able to what? Look at v. 17, If it be so our God whom we serve is able to save us or to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire. look at v. 29, When the king finally saw it, what did he say? There is no other God who is able to deliver, so omnipotent means God is powerful, He is able to deliver from the most powerful king on earth, these three young boys were facing the most powerful man in the den known earth the king. Where they helpless before the king? You know the king said, "kill them!, throw them into the fire" did anybody object? Very powerful yung king noong araw unlike the president today, if the president said, ‘Throw this person into a blazing fire!’ what will happen? there would be impeachment or the newspaper will get on his back, there would be a rally and so forth and so on because he does not have that authority to do that. So, these three men were before the most powerful man on this earth and this man threatened them and yet what did they do? They did not follow him, they were not antagonized by him, why? Because they look to God and you see when you are in this kind of situation you have to know God and si God madaming mga attributes yan , he can be present, he can be your friend but unless He is omnipotent useless. How many of you are in crisis situation? Good!. What do you normally do? we worry, you get distracted, you get depressed, you panic, what else? You try to solve it. Actually when we face crisis situation those are exactly what we do, we look at the situation, it’s a huge problem therefor the first thing that is affected is our will being, we get panicking, we get scared then in our panic we tried to solve in our human way, if you were one of this kids how would you have reacted? Some of us will argu, some of us would say… you would try to get out of the… we will rationalize our ways out of any crisis the first thing we do, the second thing is… we will conform, we will conform to what the other person wants us to do, we will agree. So, many of us are have been in those kind of situations and basically our reaction is are almost always wrong, human, why? Do you identify with these three guys or are they too idealistic, are they a good model? Excellent model but there are too good to… how can we become like them? These are the people who know their God. You need to understand the basic principle. When you have crisis it’s always a crisis, any crisis in your life is always a crisis of faith, any trial, any problem that you have in your life will always be, it will not be a trial of your patience, it will not be a trial of anything else, it will be a trial of your faith, that’s what trial is all about. God will put you in a situation and you need to exercise faith. Faith means that you have to come to Him and what? 1) You must believed that He is able, that He exist, that He is God, that he is more powerful than anything on this earth, that he is more powerful than anything on this earth, that He is more powerful than your problem, that He is more powerful than your husband, than your wife, whoever your problem is. Without faith it is impossible to please Him or those who come to Him must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who seek Him. These people have a very clear idea of who God is and what God is able to do throughout the bible this is the most important characteristic that God put in front of His people, this is the characteristic that God wants you to always remember. How do you know that? He put it in the ten commandments, where is it? Do you know where it is in the ten commandments that God is omnipotent? Let’s look, put your finger here, let’s go to Exodus 20, It is in the very first preamble of the ten commandments before God gave the ten commandments Exodus 20, Then God spoke all these words, saying, [2] "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. That’s the thought that God wanted to imprint in their minds. "I am the GOD, who brought you out of Egypt, in other words He’s saying, I am the one who was able to deliver you from the most powerful king or Ferro then you were all slaves. Do you understand how powerful that is for the Jews? If you’re a Jew in bandage for four hundred flat years and you are a slave… If you were there you would think you will never get out of this wrath, we will always be slave, there’s no one who can free me. If you have been praying and it has taken 400 years what will you now say? Can you imagine 400 years… would you be in despair? And yet these Jews, these same Jews that saw God perform so many plagues and divide, can you imagine the red sea, dinivide ni God yung red sea na yon, right after that what did the Jews do? They began to wonder in the dessert and disobey God why? Despite everything that God did. How did the yung boys know, because everywhere in the bible if you read the old testament this is the most repeated event in the old testament that God delivered people out of Egypt. The key message of God that He brought is what? Nothing is impossible with God and yet the Jews, God’s people tayo, we have not yet learn that lesson, we do not believe it, we are not men of faith to the point that we believe that God can and will deliver us. That is why most of us when we have trials we tried to solve it our own way. We do not believe in, we get worried, we fret, we do this, that and the other, we commit suicide. Just today I spend a couple of hours on the telephone and this person was telling me that Bro. Ricky I will describe my situation to you and you tell me what it’s look like: Wala silang kita, anim ang anak niya, nasa college tatlo, wala silang pambayad, they are three months behind in the rent, they are going to pushed out of their house, they have nowhere else to go, they have asked for their relatives to help, they don’t want to help them, my husband is not bringing home the bacon anymore, he just drink all day, what will I do? Alm nyo, gusto ko nang magpakamatay. What will you now say? Hinde huag kang magpakamatay, God is omnipotent, God is powerful. It’s easy in the class room, do we all agree with this? And yet when we are right there, when it’s our problem, when we are hurting, when we are in pain, we throw right out the window, we throw out the only hope that we have, we throw Him out because we don’t understand that He is working, because it taking Him so long, why am I in this wrath? And it’s difficult and I can appreciate pain, and I can appreciate that most of us we see this as a truth in the bible but it’s difficult to apply in our life but may we suggest to you very strongly that the way out of your problems, the only way out is really true God. Let us submit to you that you have not even, we have not even given God half a chance to show us what He can do and tonight we would like to really explore this and share with you some of the key thoughts from God’s word that will allow us how can I make this truth a reality in my life so that when the crisis comes I can bare up under it like these three young guys. How can I do that? Let’s go back to Daniel and study how were they able to do this? What is the key when you understand a truth like that what should be our response? Ladies and gentlemen God is most interested in your response, this is what God looks for,. What is the respond of these three young men in front of the king their lives were threatened, what worst crises can you find? Why will you kill yourself? As if that will solve anything. How should we respond? You know people cry so forth and so on. When somebody said, I’ll commit suicide and what do you know? They will not do it hopefully but you know there are exemptions you will find them one day they killed themselves because the pressure is to much. Where is the focus of that person? It is in the problem, therefor the first step is look up, God is omnipotent but how should I respond to a God that is omnipotent? Let me share with you two responses from these young men, can you see how did they respond? Look at v. 16, With the threat in front of them with the soldiers beside them they were all tied up, what did they do? they responded, "O king we do not need to give you an answer concerning this matter." What’s the answer? It be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver, that means omnipotent, to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire. Look and he will deliver us out of your hands O king. What does that respond say? Basically, the first respond is one of complete confidence, you have faith means, I have put my confidence in God, my confidence will not be in my cell but in God. They did not even try to break free, they did not even try to escape. What is that saying? That saying to us, their confidence is in God. God put us here, God was the one who promoted them, God put you there as king, you are telling us to do this but our God is telling us we will not bow down, therefor I will put my confidence in God. How is it express in I will put my confidence in almighty God? let’s turn our bibles living our faith in Gods hand 1 Peter 5, what does that mean that I will have complete confidence in God? 1 Peter 5:7, casting all your anxiety upon Him, because He cares for you. In other words I will not be anxious I will leave my faith in God’s hand, I will leave whatever happen to me to God rather than do anything else. I must cast all of that anxiety over to God. The meaning of cast your anxiety is it’s like a fisherman casting his net. Notice many people, they put their problem to God, that’s not what the bible recommends, many people misread this verse, akala nila ang ibig sabihin nito cast your problem to God, Lord I give you my problem bahala ka na diyan. Hinde ganon eh. What is saying is you cast what? Your anxiety, if there is tension inside you, you’re worried, yun ang ibigay mo sa kanya, hinde yung problema mo. Yung problema mo will it still be there? Yes!, will you be in the midst of it? Yes, but what you will toss out to God is how you feel about it or your anxieties. Is there a difference there? There’s a large difference so, she lack confidence rather than anxious. I’m confident I know God will deliver me, my faith is in your hand, I will not worry, I cast my anxiety over upon you. What did Jesus carry on the cross? Our sins, the worst thing as far as God is concerned is sin. What is anxiety? If your are anxious, are you sinning? Yeah! You are that’s a sin. Did you know that Jesus carried all of your anxiety on the cross already?. If your are anxious run it over to Him and confident is express I will leave my faith in your hand, I will not worry about that, that’s what I will not worry about. The second sign of confident is they were content with whatever God gives. If God gave me this fire so be it, if God gave me this king okay lang, therefor you will not be anxious in other words if I have confidence in God, God must know what He is doing, He not only knows what He’s doing, nothing is impossible with Him, therefor if I cannot pay this rent, what is God telling me? very simple move out to the house. That’s why we tell the man, why are you sending your son to La Salle, why are you sending your daughter to the Ateneo? Your income is not enough to send them to that school therefor what should you do rather than complicate your problem and barrow money right, left and send them which you cannot pay, don’t send them to that school. You cannot afford of amortization of so many twenty thousand pesos, don’t live in a house of twenty thousand pesos. Be content with what God gave to you, if God made you a Filipino, don’t try to become an American. Are you proud to be a Filipino? Yeah! Because if you’re not proud to be a Filipino, who are you insulting? Your parents? Si God. If you are earning twenty thousand pesos and you’ve got ten kids be contented with that. If God wants to give you more, He will give you more. Be content with what God gives. Cast out all of your anxieties to Him because He cares for you and then Daniel 3:18, Even if he does not, many of us we have the wrong concept that leaving our faith in God’s hand means that everything will become okay. Does that mean that? No! so even if he does not deliver us still we will not bow down, what is that saying? Giving us the second C, complete confidence and then complete obedience, our response to our omnipotent God has to be I am completely confident in your abilities, in your goodness and therefor I will show you complete obedience whatever the consequence. I will not compromise no matter what happens. If I loose my job so be it, if I loose my arm so be it, if I loose my family so be it. I was in a meeting late last night the other night and we kept stressing so people kept saying what will you get out of this and I kept shouting on them and I said, ‘No one receives any bribe.!’ None, not one centavo, if you insist on that we resign. Never compromise, will you loose money that way? Of course! God does not work that way, if I have my schedule now and you call me out of the blue I’ll be in your office and you will give me a threat, now this other guy will get it, I’ll tell you go give it to him, I’ll leave my faith in God’s hand and my big thing this year is I will keep to my commitments whatever my commitment is I’ll do it, so don’t rock my boat. Basta ako I will obey God, I’ll put my faith not in myself not in somebody else, not in the supplier, not in anybody, I’ll put my faith in God, if God want’s to give me that He will, if He doesn’t. The millions are nothing, you think money in this earth can is acceptable currency in heaven? So, complete confidence and complete obedience. I talk to this person who was going to commit suicide and we began to analyze, number one I asked, Where is your confidence? Is it in your husband, in his pay check? Are you worshipping the Lord, are you obeying completely, are you grumbling, are you giving tithes? No wonder you’re not blessed, you’re not doing what God wants you to do, how do you expect God to bless you? If you are not doing what God’s want you to do, how do you expect God to bless you? If you are not putting God first in your life, if you are not making disciples, if this are the things that you know the bible is telling you to do and you are not doing them, why do you think God will bless you? The secret of life it is with God. God is the secret and if God is not for you… last Tuesday we have bible study in another place, you will not believe this, we’ve been trying to get this guy, ah he is not coming to the bible study super yaman then all of a sudden do you know how easily God can take away wealth? Eleven cars in his house all gone, his house, gone, his business half gone. Can God take it away? Yeah!. One of our cell members in BF they came home so many thousands of goods they were stolen but those are irrelevant, you should never allow those things to turn away from God but they do. What the first thing that you will blame? What verse will you show them? John 10:10, "The thief comes only to steal, and kill, and destroy; I came that they might have life, and might have it abundantly. So, the formula for success be confident not in yourself but in God. Number two, completely obey, if you do that, do you know what will happen to you? Hebrews 11:6, one of the nicest verse in the bible, says what? God will reward you, unfortunately for many of us we cannot see that reward. Let’s read Daniel 3:22,For this reason, because the king's command was urgent and the furnace had been made extremely hot, the flame of the fire slew those men who carried up Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego. Daniel 3:23 But these three men, Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego, fell into the midst of the furnace of blazing fire still tied up. Were they thrown into the furnace? What was their greatest fear? To be thrown into the furnace, right? Do you know that that’s a blessing from God? Putting you in the furnace, if God decides to put you in the furnace, that’s the best place for you to be in, let me repeat, if God decides to put you inside the furnace that’s the best place for you to be in, that’s where your reward is. You have to tell that person, person this is good for you, the fact that you don’t have money to pay all of this things. You’re now in the furnace that’s where God wants you to be. Why is it good? Let’s look, what happened? Daniel 3:24-25, Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was astounded and stood up in haste; he responded and said to his high officials, "Was it not three men we cast bound into the midst of the fire?" They answered and said to the king, "Certainly, O king." [25] He answered and said, "Look! I see four men loosed and walking about in the midst of the fire without harm, What do you think is the first benefit of being in the furnace? Many people don’t understand this, they don’t like it because they don’t know God but the most important reward we can ever have is to have fellowship with Christ in the time of trials. Times of trials, times of crisis, those are the times when you can really appreciate fellowshipping with God, that’s when you will feel God, when you need Him the most, it’s like a husband and wife when the wife is all so filled with tears and so forth and so on that’s the best time for the husband to then put his arm around her and give her a tight squeeze and say, "Sweetheart I love you! no matter what happens I will be with you." it’s true that the hug in times of crisis, in times of trouble feel ten times better. In times of trial when your wife is giving labor and she’s yelling at the top of her voice as she’s about to give birth and you are holding her hand never be at work when your wife is about to give birth, take a break be where with her, see that’s a special touch, you fellowship with them in moments of trial, the touch of God will be ten times more profound than in times of peace, that’s when you will feel God. That’s why si Apostle Paul, Philip. 3:8, More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ, Philip. 3:9-10 and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, [10] that I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, You know lahat ng mga bagay sa mundo, I’m willing to loose so that I can know Christ better. When can you know Christ best? In times of persecution, in times when you are obeying God and you are being persecuted by the world that’s when you will know JESUS CHRIST IS ALIVE, because he will experience what Jesus Christ experience. Can you imagine the world? Do you feel Jesus Christ, He comes into the world, He show so much love to the people, he never harmed anybody, He multiplied bread, He heal the sick, yung blind binigyan niya ng sight, He was very kind to sinners even adulterers, He went around and raised up a dead child because the mother ask him, he went to a party and gave them wine, this guy was an economic revolution and people were around him, he was doing good, he was obeying God’s will and what did they do? They cursed him ,they mocked him, they said,…. they crucified him, they put crown of thorns, they spot on him, he was obeying God’s will. We are so pampered, we are getting further, and further away from the Christ that we know, we’re drinking golden chalices rather than from cups made of wood, we don’t know what it is to suffer for Christ. People ask me, where do you get the energy? You have so many bible study? You’re running here, there and every where and I tell them a simple truth. This is not to let myself up but just to open up your mind, people get tired too easily, do I get tired? Of course! I get tired, I’m human just like anybody else but when I focus on Christ and what Christ did for me so I get tired so what! Why can I not do that for Christ, why can I not go out of my way, to make something happen for Jesus, why? Many they don’t want the ministry, why? We are so pampered, I’m not doing anything spectacular I’m just doing what I can but many… why? Ang mentality kasi natin hinde natin maintindihan yung reward ni God, hinde natin maintindihan that in the midst of suffering, that’s when you can really have the touch of God and we want to get the suffering. The greatest time of Jesus and His father was in the garden of ______ He was shedding blood, He was intimate with the Father and He said, not my will but yours be done, it’s going to be heavy I know I don’t like what I’m going to do but I’m going to do it. Fellowship with Christ in the midst of the furnace. Many people say how do you know that that’s Jesus? It does not say that it’s Jesus Christ, we know it cannot be a man, we know it cannot be the devil why? The devil will not do that, he do the opposite so, what are your other choices? Angel, okay maybe angel send by God but we believe deep in my heart that that’s Jesus. How do we know that? Jesus promise I will never leave you nor forsake you, I will always be there but you know the condition there pag tiningnan mo yung Matthew 28, where will Jesus be with you? if you read Matthew 28:20, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always," So, will we fellowship with Christ? Suffering is not the thing… but if the suffering comes look at it differently, it’s a reward from God a nice reward you will fellowship with Christ and Christ is really nice to be with. What else, what is our second reward? Look at what happen, v. 25, I see four men, what were they doing? Loose walking about, you know what God does? You know why we need the fire? We need to loosen our earthly bandages maybe you are still on bandage to something. 1 Peter 1:4-7, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, [5] who are protected by the power of God through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. [6] In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, [7] that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ; God uses trials to purify us like gold is purified. Where was the blessing for the young men? When the king saw what was happening in chapter 3, You know what happened to them? Nothing. Let’s read Daniel 3:2, And the satraps, the prefects, the governors and the king's high officials gathered around and saw in regard to these men that the fire had no effect on the bodies of these men nor was the hair of their head singed, nor were their trousers damaged, nor had the smell of fire even come upon them. God is in control of the physical world, He can suspend all of the lost of nature but you know the application for us, some of us might be burn, some of us might be hurt. God will perfect us and the reward for the young men, now they were promoted, they experience a miracle on earth. How many of you here experience a miracle? I want you to right down those miracles and next week you come forward and you tell us, here is the miracle that happen in my life, this is one of the ways God will bless you, you know that? Because the moment you stand here and you will do it for God then somebody will hear you and God will multiply your effort God will bless you. It’s true, if something is happening in your life, we believe in God, He is in the miracle business. What did we learn tonight? God is omnipotent, if He is omnipotent what should be our response? Complete confidence and complete obedience. Will God reward us? Of course! Sometimes we do not appreciate what He is doing.