Daniel 3

It is a great honor we do to a man when we trust him with all we have, we put our lives and estates into his hand; a sign we have a good opinion of him. The three children glorified God by believing, The God whom we serve is able to deliver us, and will deliver us (Daniel 3:17).…

Ay, but the fear of God will make you avoid those sins which can neither be heard nor seen by men. 2. Where the fear of God is, it destroys the fear of man: The three children feared God, therefore they feared not the king's wrath (Daniel 3:16). The greater noise drowns the less…

The intent of making images and pictures, is to worship them. No sooner was Nebuchadnezzar's golden image set up, but all the people fell down and worshipped it (Daniel 3:7). Therefore God forbids the prostrating ourselves before an idol: so then the thing prohibited in this Com…

The three children were humble; they gave the king his title of honor; but they were not sordidly timorous. Daniel 3:18: "Be it known to you, O King, we will not serve your gods." Though they showed reverence to the king's person, yet no reverence to the image he set up.

How can that be, when they oft take away their lives? (1.) They conquer by not complying with them: The three children would not fall down to the golden image (Daniel 3:18), they would rather burn than bow; here they were conquerors. He who complies with another's lust is a capt…

(1 Thessalonians 1:10). Jesus has delivered us from wrath to come. Nebuchadnezzar's fiery furnace was a type of God's wrath, and that furnace did not singe the garments of the three children, nor was the smell of fire upon them (Daniel 3:27). Jesus Christ went into the furnace o…

Whether it be right to hearken to you more than to God, judge you. God says, you shall not make a graven image; King Nebuchadnezzar set up a golden image to be worshipped; but the three children (or rather champions) resolve God's will shall take place, and they would obey him,…

And the midwives of Egypt are commended of the Holy Ghost, (Exodus 1.17.) for saving the young children alive, against the King's commandment. And the three men of the Jews, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, are renowned with all posterity, for disobeying the commandment of Nebuc…

When Daniel was cast into the Lions' den, God was there with him, and shut their mouths, Daniel 6:22. When the three children were cast into the fiery furnace, God was with them, and took away the natural force from the fire: Daniel 3:27. When the Israelites were to pass through…

But, Daniel even then believed in the Lord, and put all his trust in God; and for this cause, the Lord by his angel stopped the mouths of the Lions, and (as it were) sealed up their paws, that they could not hurt him. The fifth effect, in quenching the violence of the fire, must…

We say usually, that water and fire be unmerciful creatures; and therefore the natural man fears them both: but the Israelites' faith, makes them not to fear the water; but it makes them bold, even to pass through the sea. The like we may see for fire, in the 3 children, Daniel…

If we frequent devised forms of worship in prayer or praise, we shall offend our consciences; (even so many of us as are Saints enlightened, to behold the beauty of his spiritual worship, performed, or offered in his spiritual house, the congregation of the faithful united;) now…

I answer, some alleged were before Moses' Law, as that of Abraham and Jacob's commanding his family to put away their idols (Genesis 35:2). And the injunctions in the Old Testament were built upon reasons of immutable equity, as God's glory, the danger of infection, etc., and so…

Others, as was said above, trifle by saying that Haran died before his father as a punishment, because he was a maker of idols. Everyone can see that the lying Jews seized upon the story of Nebuchadnezzar casting the three holy men into the furnace of fire for refusing to worshi…

When Hagar and Ishmael were in the wilderness, and the bottle spent, then God comforted her from heaven (Genesis 21:17). When the three children were in the fiery furnace, then God sent an Angel to be their deliverer (Daniel 3:28). But now in wantonness to desire extraordinary p…

Command deliverances for Jacob; angels, devils, men, the hearts of the greatest men are all at his command. He has might and strength (Daniel 3:17). Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us, and what then can hinder?

He that would be wise, must deny his own wisdom, and become a fool (1 Corinthians 3:18). The three children would not consult, touching the worshipping of the image, but said: "Be it known to you, O king, that we will not worship your gods" (Daniel 3). When the judge gave Cypria…

For God's name may in no wise be abused, and trampled underfoot: and therefore blasphemers piercing God are to be cut off. This is the very law of Nature, as appears by Nebuchadnezzar, who gave in commandment to his people, that whoever blasphemed the name of the true God, shoul…

Section 13. The Apostle also tells us that as God is a sovereign Lawgiver in his commands, so he is able to kill and keep alive — that is, his commanding authority is accompanied with power whereby he is able absolutely and eternally to reward the obedient and to return to the d…

Yet so it has often been seen, where Gods interest has been immediately concerned in the danger and evil of the event. The Sea divided it self in its own Channel, and made a wall of water, on each side, to give Gods distressed Israel a safe passage, and that not in a calm, but w…

The Word assures us, that the best expedient for a man to settle his own interest in the consciences and affections of men, is to direct his ways, so as to please the Lord, Proverbs 16:7 and does not Providence confirm it? This the three Jews found by experience, Daniel 3. 28, 2…

When the Egyptian magicians see real miracles, beyond all their juggling pretences, they cry out this is the finger of God (Exodus 8:19). Profane Nebuchadnezzar beholding the deliverance of those three worthies, from the fiery furnace, he owns them for the servants of the most h…

For, to forsake the true God of heaven, is to fall into all such evils upon the face of the earth, as men either destitute of divine grace may commit, or unprotected from above, endure. In zeal to the glory of God Babylon has excelled Zion (Daniel 3:29). We want that Decree of N…

But 1. Free goodness, and not natural necessity, made the world; and that same freedom intervenes, in continuing, being and acting in creatures, which act by nature. Fire casts heat, the Sun light and influences, the Sea ebbs and flows by nature; yet there must also be a free ne…

We are created anew to be his holy frame and workmanship, and then hardly can we but consent; nor bought we his love-influences. Yes, nor is the Lord obliged to give the Sun-influences for shining and moving, nor the fire for casting out heat: he has interposed his sovereignty i…

There is no creature but may be hindered: for in the best of the creatures, to wit, in the Angels, there is an essence, and an executive power by which they work: Even as you see it in the fire, there is the substance of fire, and the quality of heat by which it works: now where…

As when the leper could go to Christ, and say, Lord, you can make me clean if you will, then the Lord did so. It was a great matter for those three children in Daniel 3 to be able to say, when the fire was ready prepared, and the king was wroth, and there was no resistance, yet…

For the first, when our cross comes, we must be willing to take it up freely, and readily to submit unto it. It was the honor of the three children in Daniel, that they yielded their bodies to those fiery flames they were cast into, Dan. 3:28 Let us not seek to put off suffering…

If I pray, I shall be accused, might Daniel think, but yet pray I must, come of it what will; so if I worship God in my prayer, they will mock me, I shall pass for a fool — no matter for that, it must be done, I must call on God and strive to walk with him. This puts the mind at…

Was not Christ with the Three Children? did not he go with them into the fire? Daniel 3:25. I see four men in the fire, and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.

Such as revere the divine Majesty dare not go near the borders of Sin. Those who went near the Fiery Furnace, though they did not go into it, were burned, Daniel 3:22. A wise Christian should in all his transactions put those three questions of Bernard to himself; Whether is thi…

And so in the story of Joseph, we shall not finde it expresly said that God was with him, till he was in prison, and there you shall find these very words. Not to name all passages to this purpose, in Dan. 3. Those three children, as they are called, they never had the familiar…

Now not to speak of Cain, who seems to me, to have laid the foundation of that cruelty, which was afterward inserted into the churches' orthodoxies, by the name of Haereticidium, we find the four famous empires of the world to have drunk in this persuasion to the utmost, of supp…

Theodoret, Book 4, Chapter 30. 2. If summoned before them in a judiciary way, as the three children were before Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel 3:13): Then Nebuchadnezzar in his rage and fury commanded to bring Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and they brought these men before the king:…

1. Committing ourselves to his power is trust and dependence. Our God is able to deliver us from the fiery furnace (Daniel 3:17; Romans 4:21), being fully persuaded that what he had promised, he was able also to perform. Now this is abundantly seen in his judgments of old (Isaia…

In your greatest wants he is all-sufficient, and can supply you (Genesis 17:1). I am the Almighty God, walk before me, and be perfect. In your greatest dangers he can deliver you (Daniel 3:17). Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he wi…

We dare not offend God to please men; the good Levites are commended (2 Chronicles 11:14). So it was pride in Nebuchadnezzar to command all men to bow before his image (Daniel 3:15-16). God's prerogative must not be encroached upon, there is a superior sovereign: partly in vexin…

Indeed, David himself was guilty of this great sin, and therefore it is spoken of as his only sin (1 Kings 15:5). Some have made laws to command men to sin, as if they should sin cum privilegio and with authority, as (Daniel 3:10) and chapters 6, 7, 8, 9. And how many masters co…

As precious a thing as life is, a godly man would not willingly sin to save his life. Though the mouth of a fiery furnace (heated sevenfold) were open to devour the three children (as we use to call them) yet they would not sin (Daniel 3:18), and Daniel would rather venture into…

But now affliction, though not chosen for itself, yet for an end (a good end and effect of it) may be chosen, indeed, and rather than sin; it may be chosen, though no other good thing should follow than this, that one did no evil. Instances we have of this, as the three young Wo…

Sometimes the people of God are brought to such straits by temptation, that either they must sin much to avoid suffering, or suffer much to avoid sinning: their own carnal advantage and outward safety lies through sin, but the glory of God lies through suffering. Such a dilemma…

So Peter's advice here following the text: save yourselves from this crooked generation. Indeed, were [illegible] the loss of a man's life, [illegible] also comes within this necessity; there is no necessity to hinder to part with this life, there is a necessity he should part w…

It is dangerous to go near a hornets' nest. The men who went near the furnace were burned (Daniel 3:22). Second reason: because the appearance of evil may eclipse his good name.

Courage is a Christian's armor of proof, it steels and animates him. The three children (or rather the three champions) were of brave heroic spirits; they do not say to the king we ought not serve your gods, but we will not (Daniel 3:18). Neither Nebuchadnezzar's music, nor his…

Grace teaches us to mortify our sins, to love our enemies, to prefer the glory of Christ before our own lives. Thus the three children by the power of grace marched in the face of death: neither the sound of the music could allure them nor the heat of the furnace affright them (…

And to put it past question, Ezra 10:7, 8 relates, this decree of the King was accordingly put in execution by Ezra and the princes and elders, proclamations being made throughout Judah and Jerusalem, to all the children of the captivity that they should gather themselves togeth…

Ezra 2:63, Nehemiah 7:65, some Priests being put from the Priesthood and forbidden by the Governor to eat of the most holy things till there stood up a Priest with Urim and with Thummim, that is for want of Urim and Thummim by which God might be consulted with and his mind known…

The ox and the donkey being more knowing to their owner, and the swallow and the crane being more discerning of their times, than men are. 2. They so keep their line, that there is more self-denial in their actings, than in man's way: as if fire were not fire, and nature in it d…

For it is above the power of natural generation, that the substance of one creature should be really turned into the substance of another, as the substance of a rod into the substance of a serpent. Of the like kind, were the standing of the sun in the firmament without moving in…

He sits amongst those Judges though they acknowledge him not; He rules over them at his pleasure; He knows the cause of the Oppressed, and justifies them whenever the world condemns; and can deliver them when he pleass. With the Thoughts hereof did those holy Souls support thems…