Take Heart! God Proves Able Daniel 3:1-27
Take Heart! God Proves Able
Daniel 3:1-27
Rev. Dr. Rhonda Abbott Blevins
September 6, 2026
King Nebuchadnezzar made a golden statue whose height was sixty cubits and whose width was six cubits; he set it up on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon. Then King Nebuchadnezzar sent for the satraps, the prefects, and the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the justices, the magistrates, and all the officials of the provinces to assemble and come to the dedication of the statue that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. So the satraps, the prefects, and the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the justices, the magistrates, and all the officials of the provinces assembled for the dedication of the statue that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. When they were standing before the statue that Nebuchadnezzar had set up, the herald proclaimed aloud, “You are commanded, O peoples, nations, and languages, that when you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, drum, and entire musical ensemble, you are to fall down and worship the golden statue that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up. Whoever does not fall down and worship shall immediately be thrown into a furnace of blazing fire.” Therefore, as soon as all the peoples heard the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, drum, and entire musical ensemble, all the peoples, nations, and languages fell down and worshiped the golden statue that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. Accordingly, at this time certain Chaldeans came forward and denounced the Jews. They said to King Nebuchadnezzar, “O king, live forever! You, O king, have made a decree, that everyone who hears the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, drum, and entire musical ensemble, shall fall down and worship the golden statue, and whoever does not fall down and worship shall be thrown into a furnace of blazing fire. There are certain Jews whom you have appointed over the affairs of the province of Babylon: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. These men pay no heed to you, O king. They do not serve your gods, and they do not worship the golden statue that you have set up.” Then Nebuchadnezzar in furious rage commanded that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego be brought in, so they brought those men before the king. Nebuchadnezzar said to them, “Is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, that you do not serve my gods and you do not worship the golden statue that I have set up? Now if you are ready, when you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, drum, and entire musical ensemble, you should fall down and worship the statue that I have made. But if you do not worship, you shall immediately be thrown into a furnace of blazing fire, and who is the god who will deliver you out of my hands?” Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to present a defense to you in this matter. If our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire and out of your hand, O king, let him deliver us. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods and we will not worship the golden statue that you have set up.” Then Nebuchadnezzar was so filled with rage against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego that his face was distorted. He ordered the furnace heated up seven times more than was customary and ordered some of the strongest guards in his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and to throw them into the furnace of blazing fire. So the men were bound, still wearing their tunics, their trousers, their hats, and their other garments, and they were thrown into the furnace of blazing fire. Because the king’s command was urgent and the furnace was so overheated, the raging flames killed the men who lifted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. But the three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell down, bound, into the furnace of blazing fire.
Then King Nebuchadnezzar was astonished and rose up quickly. He said to his counselors, “Was it not three men that we threw bound into the fire?” They answered the king, “True, O king.” He replied, “But I see four men unbound, walking in the middle of the fire, and they are not hurt, and the fourth has the appearance of a god.” Nebuchadnezzar then approached the door of the furnace of blazing fire and said, “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out! Come here!” So Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came out from the fire. And the satraps, the prefects, the governors, and the king’s counselors gathered together and saw that the fire had not had any power over the bodies of those men; the hair of their heads was not singed, their tunics were not scorched, and not even the smell of fire came from them.
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May, 1940.
The British army, nearly 400,000 men, is trapped on the French coast at a place called Dunkirk. The sea is at their backs. The German army is closing in front of them. There is no evacuation fleet large enough. There’s no plan. There’s no time. By every military calculation, the war is about to be lost right there on that beach.
The story is told from those days (it went around in newspapers and was shared from pulpits of the time) that a message was transmitted across the Channel from the beaches. Three words. Not a battle report. Not coordinates. Not even a plea for help.
Three words: “But if not.”
What’s interesting to me is that it was understood. Nobody had to ask what it meant. That generation knew its Bible . . . knew it well enough to catch a three-word quotation, knew it well enough to get its meaning: We may not be rescued AND we will not surrender.
So Britain emptied its harbors. Fishing boats. Ferries. Little weekend pleasure craft. Grandpas and shopkeepers steering across the Channel. They went and they got those soldiers off that beach.
Three words did that.
Where did the three words come from Daniel chapter 3. Back to that in a moment.
If you’ve been tracking with me over the past few weeks, you know the trajectory of this “Take Heart” series we’ve been in—studying the great stories of courage throughout scripture alongside God’s activity in the stories. God shows up. God goes with. God sees. God surrounds. Today we add a clause; (spoiler alert) this one comes with fire.
Daniel 3. King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon has built a golden statue of himself 90 feet tall (because nothing says “secure, well-adjusted leader” like a 9-story statue you force people to worship!) King Nebbie gathers every official in the empire for the dedication: satraps, prefects, governors, treasurers . . . the entire org chart. Here are their instructions: when you hear the horn, the pipe, the lyre, the trigon, the harp, the drum—whenever you hear the entire musical ensemble, EVERYONE bows. (Can you imagine the eyerolls?)
Now, when we read the text, did you notice how the narrator listed every instrument over and over? That wasn’t sloppy editing friends . . . that was satire. The storytelling is poking fun at the entire production. All the pomp, all the circumstance, all the flagrant display of empire . . . all to make people fall prostrate on cue. It’s manufactured, mandatory worship of an insecure leader, and the narrator wants you to hear how absolutely ridiculous it sounds.
Oh, and I almost forgot one important detail. Anyone who failed to bow before the nine-story idol got to experience the inside of a crematorium. So for most folks, when you heard the music, you might roll your eyes, but you’d face plant yourself right on the ground, right on cue.
There were three notable exceptions: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Three Jewish exiles with government jobs. Three young men who worshipped the God of Israel. Three courageous fellows who refused to bow before Nebbie’s ridiculous statue.
King Nebbie learns of their insubordination, and he is livid. Surprisingly, he offers them a second chance, taunting them in verse 15: “And who is the god who will deliver you out of my hands?” he pokes. He thinks it’s a rhetorical question. It’s not. Listen to their answer from verse 17:
“If our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire and out of your hand, O king, let him deliver us.”
Their faith is on full display!
But we dare not skip verse 18:
“But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods and we will not worship the golden statue that you have set up.”
And . . . there’s the doubt. That’s the Dunkirk telegram . . . “but if not.”
Faith AND doubt, right next to each other on a beach in France. Faith AND doubt, right next to each other next to a fiery furnace in Babylon.
We believe God can. We do not know that God will. And we're not bowing either way.
Now, I brought something with me this morning. A quarter. (You remember these, right?) Look at it with me. Heads: “God is able to deliver us.” Tails: “But if not.”
And here’s the thing nobody thinks about with a coin . . . you can’t spend just one side of it. Let’s fact check this: anyone ever spent just one side of a coin, raise your hand? OK, you can only spend a coin if it has two sides.
Friends, growing up in church, I was taught to believe that doubt is the opposite of faith. (Maybe you were too.) Taught that doubt was the enemy of faith. That if these fellows—Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego—if they had REAL faith, they wouldn’t have wobbled with their “but if not.”
But the text says otherwise. This text suggests that doubt isn’t the opposite of faith. It’s actually the other side of faith. This story about courage teaches us that faith and doubt go hand in hand, especially when faced with the prospect of a fiery furnace, whether literal or figurative. These three men walked toward the fire believing God’s ability with appropriate humility, not knowing what the outcome might be. That’s not a weak faith on display. It’s just . . . faith. (The kind you can spend.)
Now, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are in good company with this kind of faith. Fast forward a few centuries. We find a desperate father brining his son to a rabbi—a healer from Nazareth named Jesus. The boy has convulsions; he’s had them since childhood. (We call it “epilepsy” today). The loving father has watched the boy fall into fire and water more times than he can count. And this exhausted, desperate dad says to Jesus in Mark chapter 9: “if you are able to do anything, have pity on us and help us.” And Jesus sort of raises an eyebrow: If I’m able? And the man blurts out the most honest prayer in the whole New Testament:
“I believe, help my unbelief!”
Both sides of the coin. One breath. Out loud. To Jesus’s face.
And what does Jesus do? Does he send the man home to get his theology consistent first? Come back, sir, when your faith is one hundred percent? He does not. He heals the boy. Right then. Jesus, it turns out, accepts the doubt right along with the faith. The whole coin.
Preacher and author Frederick Buechner said it about as well as anybody ever has. Doubt, he said, isn’t the opposite of faith . . . it’s an element of faith. He called doubt “the ants in the pants of faith.” They keep it awake. They keep it moving. Sit with that a second, because it's true: dead faith has no questions. Dead faith is very, very settled. Living faith itches.
And then there’s Teresa.
When Mother Teresa died, and some years later her private letters were published in a book called Come Be My Light. The world was stunned by what this book revealed. You see, the woman whose very name had come to mean radiant, unshakeable faith had lived for decades in interior darkness. Long, long seasons when she felt no presence of God at all. When her prayers seemed to go nowhere. When heaven, by her own account, felt empty.
Despite that emptiness, Mother Teresa got up every single morning and went out and held the dying of Calcutta in her arms anyway.
“But if not” the three young men said. “But if not” the soldiers on Dunkirk wired. Mother Teresa lived 50 years of “but if not.” And nobody who has read those letters can ever again stand up and say that doubt disqualifies a person from faithfulness. I wonder if Mother Teresa’s darkness drove her deeper in, rather than out.
Now I want to show you something. And to be honest, I’ve gone back and forth about whether to.
Years ago, in a season of my life when I was playing guitar and writing songs as a hobby, I was also questioning my faith. Now, I was a minister, actively, daily serving the church at that time. But I was filled with doubt. Listen to some lyrics to one of the songs I wrote at that time:
No burning bushes and no fire to light my night;
There’s no fourth man in my furnace, there’s no flaming sacrifice.
You’ve been in the fire, but you’re not in mine.
Did you catch the biblical references? Moses got a burning bush. Elijah got fire on the mountain. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego got a fourth man in the flames. I felt like I was standing in the fire . . . alone.
Decades after writing those lyrics, I’m here before you, not because that season resolved itself. There’s no pretty bow around my songwriting journal. But somewhere along the way I discovered a truth that I’m going to share with you this morning. Faith and doubt are flip sides of the same coin. And the coin only spends whole.
So if you have ever prayed something like that lyric, kind of a “where are you, God”—or if like the desperate father, “I believe, help my unbelief,”—hear this truth: you are not faithless. You’re just exploring the other side of faith.
Back to Babylon. King Nebuchadnezzar has heard enough. He orders the furnace heated seven times hotter, just for good measure. The furnace is so hot that the soldiers who carry the three men up to throw them in are killed just by the heat coming off it. Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were thrown in. Bound and fully clothed.
Then King Nebbie sees something that makes him jump out of his chair. “Was it not three men that we threw bound into the fire?” “But I see four men unbound, walking in the middle of the fire, and they are not hurt, and the fourth has the appearance of a god.”
Details matter here. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are walking—not writhing, not huddled in a corner. Strolling. Maybe playing a round of Texas Hold’em. In the flame. They’re unbound. The only thing that fire managed to burn was the ropes.
And there is a fourth. The king’s taunt has come back around: “Who is the god who will deliver you out of my hands?” This one, Nebbie. YHWH. The one standing in the fire with them.
Notice God didn’t keep them from the fire. No. But God was right there with them in the fire.
Isn’t this what we’ve been learning throughout this whole series? The voice came in the storm, while the wind still blew. The chariots were around the besieged city. And the fourth man is in the flames. God’s presence is the point.
Now. Before we finish, I have a word for some of you in particular, and I’m going to say it carefully, tenderly.
Some of you are living your version of “but if not” right now. The healing hasn’t come. The relationship hasn’t restored. Someone won the lottery, but it wasn’t you. The fire did what fire does, and you’re sitting in ashes. Maybe you feel like I felt when I wrote those lyrics, “You’ve been in the fire, but you’re not in mine.”
The scripture we read this morning doesn’t promise deliverance. That’s why they said with humility, “but if not.” They knew people, even God’s most faithful people, don’t always walk out. They got it. In fact, these fellows had seen their beloved Jerusalem burn to the ground. Their courage, their resolve to keep worshipping their God was in spite of the horrors they’d seen. “But if not . . . we will not bow” they informed a self-aggrandized king. They kept faith despite their doubt. Just like Mother Teresa. Just like (dare I say?) you.
So, my dear friends, if you’re in the fire right now and you cannot see God, well, you heard my lyric. I’ve been there. But just because we can’t see God doesn’t mean God isn’t there. We learned that last week with a mountain full of flaming chariots: our not-seeing has never once meant God’s not-being-there.
Remember the quarter?
This week or this month or this year or this decade . . . you’re going to face something. Maybe a furnace. Maybe just the roundabout. And when you do, both sides of this coin will be right there in your pocket. Heads: God is able. Tails: but if not.
Don’t try to file one side off. It can’t be done. Besides, the coin only spends whole. Courage, the in spite of kind we’ve been learning since week one, rises up through faith and through doubt. Because courage was never a feeling of certainty. It’s feet. Moving toward the fire. Carrying the whole coin.
They sent “but if not” from that beach at Dunkirk. And then, one by one, the boats came.
So take heart my dear friends! God shows up. God goes with. God sees. God surrounds. And when the fire is real, and the outcome is uncertain, and you walk in anyway . . . take heart! God proves able.