That is what happened to Shadrach. That is what happened to Meshach. That is what happened to Abed-nego and that is what happened to Daniel. Not many years after that is what would happen to Esther and Mordecai and in these Last Days, it is what is going to happen to us. The furnace of affliction—quite an adventure! We will see the judgment of God against our enemies. Sudden destruction will come upon them. We will see this intervention on behalf of His people. We will see His Lordship. We will see His power and not only will we see it, others will see it, and then they will believe. The world will become hard of heart in the developed world. People are not interested anymore. When I was saved it was the Jesus movement, hippies were looking for truth and meaning. That is over now. It is very difficult to see people saved now. It is not that open; there is not a move of God’s Spirit, it is not the same. There are counterfeit revivals and frauds and deceptions in Toronto, Pensacola, and Lakeland but there is no real revival, only lies, and deceptions. What will make people believe? When they see not three in the furnace of affliction but they see four. They see Shadrach, Meshach, Abed-nego and Jesus. They see us and then they will see Him. That is what it took 400-plus years before Jesus. That is what it is going to take in these Last Days. The book of Daniel is not a past history, the book of Daniel is a future history and even as we speak this evening, the book of Daniel is becoming our history. That is the way it was; that is the way it is … that is the way it is going to be. Praise Jesus.

The first portion I am going to read from is the Aramaic section of Daniel. When you see it is in Aramaic instead of in the Hebrew portion, it means that it is not only specific to the Jews; it means that it applies to the Jews and to the other nations and to the other peoples.

Daniel 3:1 Nebuchadnezzar the king made an image of gold, the height of which was sixty cubits and its width six cubits; he set it up on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon.

The Significance of 666

Let me begin right away—in Hebrew if I were to count to six, achat, shtayim, shalosh, arba’, chamesh, shesh, in Aramaic, shesh. Now in Hebrew, if I was to say “sixty,” it is not shesh or six, but shishim, sixties, sixes; two or more sixes is shishim, the way you say sixty in Hebrew is two sixes, shishim. In Aramaic, it would be almost the same, shetem. Look at it again. “An image of gold, the height of which was sixty cubits and its width sixty cubits.” In other words, it is the number of the beast. It is one of the places where 666 occurs in the Bible but you have to understand the original languages to understand how it worked out to the number of the beast, but it is one of the places.

The number of the beast occurs many places in scripture. We have a recording called “The Ships of Tarshish” where we explain it but before you go looking for the Roman numeral equivalent of Henry Kissinger’s name or something, look where else that number occurs in scripture. Look what is in the Bible before you look outside the Bible if you want to understand Revelation 13. Every place that number occurs in scripture is important and it occurs many places. It is the number of the weight and dimensions of Goliath’s armor. Goliath is a type of the Antichrist. The number occurs many places in scripture and it occurs a number of times with Solomon when he backslides but here it occurs in Nebuchadnezzar’s image.

Hence, Daniel begins speaking about something eschatological; he is speaking for his own time but he is speaking for events of the Last Days.

Daniel 3:2 Then Nebuchadnezzar the king sent word to assemble the satraps, the prefects and the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the judges, the magistrates and all the rulers of the provinces to come to the dedication of the image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up.

This prefigures the abomination of desolation. It is a picture of ha Shiqutz ha Meshomem, the Abomination of Desolation. It teaches something about antichrist to come.

Daniel 3:3-7 Then the satraps, the prefects and the governors, the counselors, the treasurers, the judges, the magistrates and all the rulers of the provinces were assembled for the dedication of the image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up; and they stood before the image that Nebuchadnezzar had set up. Then the herald loudly proclaimed: “To you the command is given, O peoples, nations and men of every language, that at the moment you hear the sound of the horn, flute, lyre, trigon, psaltery, bagpipe, and all kinds of music, you are to fall down and worship the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king has set up. “But whoever does not fall down and worship shall immediately be cast into the midst of a furnace of blazing fire.” Therefore at that time, when all the peoples heard the sound of the horn, flute, lyre, trigon, psaltery, bagpipe, and all kinds of music, all the peoples, nations and men of every language fell down and worshiped the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar the king had set up.

Here we actually have some Greek terms for these instruments. Now again, this is the picture of the Antichrist who is to come and Antichrist, of course, will in some way mimic the incarnation of Jesus. Hence, we read of Satan in Isaiah 14:10-11: “You have become like us. Your pomp and the music of your harps have been brought down to Sheol.”

He has his own version of worship music, but let’s continue. If you do not bow down, it is a capital sentence. This kind of happened in the early church with emperor worship. The believers would not worship the Roman emperors. The imperial Romans did not care what religion you had as long as you acknowledged the emperor; the believers did not and that is why they were killed. In Ephesus, along the promenade that led into the market, the Agora in Ephesus, you can still walk on it, there was a gate and over the gate it said “Caesar, Son of God.” Caesare filio dei. In other words, to get into the market to buy or sell you had to acknowledge that Caesar was the son of God. If you did not do it, you could not buy or sell. This is a major picture of what is going to transpire with Antichrist. Of course, believers who did not do it, they tied them to posts on either side of the promenade and they used them as human torches, street lamps to illuminate the streets. They were burned alive rather than bow the knee to the emperor. Well, same idea, you either worship him or pay the price.

The Agora in Ephesus

Daniel 3:8-11 For this reason at that time certain Chaldeans came forward and brought charges against the Jews. They responded and said to Nebuchadnezzar the king: “O king, live forever! [Notice how they ingratiate themselves] “You yourself, O king, have made a decree that every man who hears the sound of the horn, flute, lyre, trigon, psaltery, and bagpipe, and all kinds of music, is to fall down and worship the golden image. “But whoever does not fall down and worship shall be cast into the midst of a furnace of blazing fire.

The Hebrew word, not the Aramaic word but the Hebrew word for worship, the infinitive, is lahish da havod. It means the same as to prostrate, to bow down, to genuflect, same word, to bow down before as an act of worship. No matter what anybody tries to tell you or how they justify it, if you see people, for instance, in Roman Catholicism or in the Eastern Orthodox Church bowing down before a graven image or an icon, it is an act of idolatry, it is an act of worship in the original Ten Commandments. That is why the Roman Catholic Church from its catechisms deleted the second commandment and split the tenth commandment into two. They had to get that out of there because their religion, like the Eastern Orthodox religion is based on icon veneration, where they believe the icon has a metaphysical property and it was a window into the spiritual realm. Well, in Eastern Orthodoxy this is called “Theosis”, they believe God became one with man so man could be one with God, but the channel for achieving that is through the icon, through the image. While Roman Catholicism has a different interpretation, both will indeed bow down before a graven image. In the original scriptures, however, it is an act of worship. They can call it veneration or dulia or something like this but the Word of God calls it an act of worship. Then it continues:

Daniel 3:11-12 But whoever does not fall down and worship shall be cast into the midst of a furnace of blazing fire. “There are certain [notice, certain] Jews whom you have appointed over the administration of the province of Babylon, namely Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego. These men, O king, have disregarded you; they do not serve your gods or worship the golden image which you have set up.” Then Nebuchadnezzar in rage and anger gave orders to bring Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego; then these men were brought before the king.

Notice first of all that they had positions of social privilege, of some financially viable position, even a privileged position in the society. They were court bureaucrats. They rose through the higher ranks of society, in terms of their status and in terms of their income. They were quite comfortable; they did quite well and they greatly assimilated in the popular culture. In fact, their names are not their original Hebrew names; they had Gentile names. If you were in Israel today and you found an Israeli, his name would be Baruch bar Yosef, or Benyamin ben Yacov. If you went to Minneapolis his name would be Robert Horowitz. Those names came from central Europe. The language was Yiddish, a dialect of German, well, it was different. Well, they fitted well into the mainstream of society. But there will always be an anti-Semite or somebody raising up to tell a Jew, “You are a Jew.” Well, there are two kinds of people who are called God’s Chosen, Jews and born-again believers. Abraham has two kinds of descendants: The descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had the anthropological descendants and the theological descendants. The anthropological descendants are descendants by birth; the theological descendants are descendants by second birth, but they are all children of Abraham. The world hates them. It goes back to Genesis Chapter 3: “I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed.” Always remember there is a hypostatic relationship between anti-Semitism and persecution of the true Church going back to Genesis 3. Who did Imperial Rome persecute the most? Jews and born-again Christians. The Roman authorities persecuted the Jews notoriously. If you were to read Josephus, the wars of the Jews, the Romans became vehemently anti-Semitic, particularly under Titus and again under Hadrian. The Jews had a tough time under the Roman authorities. The Romans, even when Jesus was a baby, had crucified thousands of Jews. They crucified thousands of Jews in the party of the zachin, the Zealots. The Jews did not have a good time under the Romans and neither did Christians. Well, let’s move ahead. In the Inquisitions, who did the Roman Catholic Church persecute the most? Jews and Bible-believing Christians. Before the Iron Curtain came down, who did the Soviets persecute the most? Jews and Bible-believing Christians. Who does Islam hate the most? Jews and Bible-believing Christians. What two nations do Moslems hate the most? Israel and America because it has the most Christians in the developed world at this time in history. That is the way it is. This all goes back to Genesis, chapter 3. They will always find you and point you out, no matter how high you get in society. You may be a government bureaucrat, you may be a civil servant, you may be a politician, you may be a successful business person or a successful professional person, we are called to be in the world but not of it. No matter where they are, no matter what nation they dwell in, a Jew will always be a Jew and a believer will always be a believer. We can be in it, but we will never be fully of it. The world will simply not accept us because we are heirs to a better world, a different world. “The meek shall inherit the earth.” Their time is running out on this planet. The faithful Church will have it for a thousand years. Don’t expect the world to like you. Even when believers have it good for a while sooner or later they will come against you. The only exceptions will be when you have a lot of believers in a society. Remember, the freedom and affluence, but certainly the freedom believers have had in the Protestant democracies is a historical anomaly. It is less than 400 years old. Most saved Christians in most countries, throughout most of church history have been persecuted. The freedom we have in America and in other Protestant democracies is a historical anomaly, it has not been the usual case. And now, of course that we are turning away from the biblical principles that gave us this freedom, that bequeathed us this liberty, our freedom is quickly disappearing. Jesus said we will be hated by all nations for his namesake and, of course, at the same time hatred of the true Church increases in the Last Days, so will anti-Semitism. This has a future meaning.

There are certain Jews who will not do it. In other words, certain ones would not but others did. It is the same with Christians. There are certain Christians who will not go down the Ecumenical Road with Chuck Colson. There are certain Christians who will not subscribe to the “Purpose Driven Lie”. There are certain Christians who will stand up and call the Emergent Church idolatry. There are certain ones who will not go into the interfaith, not even a deception. Interfaith is not simply a deception, interfaith is a highway to Babylon. You get into bed with the Pope, he is in bed with the Dali Llama. This is going to happen again. Ultimately it will set the stage for Antichrist who will come in the character of Nebuchadnezzar among others.

Daniel 3:12 “They do not serve our Gods. These men O king, have disrespected you, they don’t serve our gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.

The king is really angry.

Daniel 3:14 Nebuchadnezzar responded and said to them, “Is it true, Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego, that you do not serve my gods or worship the golden image that I have set up?”

In California they had a program in a school where the policy of the school was to force children, Christian children, at least nominally Christian, to dress up in Moslem costumes and to take Islamic names and celebrate Ramadan. Parents have to go to court to win the right not to have their children do this. They tried to make it compulsory, compulsory multi-faith education, compulsory pan-sexual education, compulsory! If you don’t do it, you are socially disruptive. “Don’t you believe in a multi-faith, multi-cultural society?” If you don’t accept the legitimacy and validity of other gods, if you don’t worship together, you are divisive. Don’t say you are a Christian. If you were a Christian you would love the Hindus, you would love the Moslems and if you love them, you would not tell them that their Mohammed is not the truth. If you loved Mormons, you would not tell them that Joseph Smith is not the Prophet. You are not loving.” That is what they are going to say. That is what they are saying already. “There were certain Jews….” In the last days there will be certain Christians. Bring them up here, we will find out what is happening.

Daniel 3:15-18 “Now if you are ready, at the moment you hear the sound of the horn, flute, lyre, trigon, psaltery, and bagpipe, and all kinds of music, to fall down and worship the image that I have made, very well. But if you will not worship, you will immediately be cast into the midst of a furnace of blazing fire; and what god is there who can deliver you out of my hands?” Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to give you an answer concerning this matter. “If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire; and He will deliver us out of your hand, O king. “But even if He does not, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”

“Yes, we realize that we have positions of privilege, education, status in the society, even affluence. With respect, we understood what you said and we understand what you are saying now. For the record, we wish to make clear, we believe with perfect faith our God may providentially intervene; indeed, he can do so. Whether He does or not is His sovereign choice. Even if He does not, he remains our God.” Certain Jews said that. In the Last Days, certain Christians will say that. The others, they will follow the Ecumenical, interfaith agenda. They will accept President Bush’s invitation to celebrate Ramadan at the White House. They will accept President Obama’s invitation to the Gay and Lesbian Pride Day Picnic on the White House lawn. They will go see the Pope and call him the Holy Father. They will crowd into Robert Schuller’s church to hear the Grand Mufti of Damascus when Robert Schuller stands up and said he wouldn’t mind if his grandchildren became Moslem. They would not mind when Bill Hybels has a Moslem preaching in his church, Willow Creek, after September 11th. They will go along with this stuff, certain ones, certain ones will not, the others will.

History Does Not Repeat Itself – It Rhymes

They had positions of affluence, privilege, status, “We are not going to risk that for the sake of our beliefs, we will just go along with it.” The Sanhedrin were accorded legal authority by the Imperial Roman authorities. They were mandated juridical, religious and civil authority. The Sanhedrin were not just religious law, they were legal law. They could arrest people, imprison people, flog people, and pass criminal sentences. What they could not do was carry out capital sentences; that is the one thing they could not do. That is why Pilate said, “See to it yourself, it is your law.” When the apostles resisted the Sanhedrin, they were resisting the civil, as well as religious authority. There was no distinction historically or biblically. They resisted the religious authority. They resisted the legal authority. They went against the law. I know a lady who is now with the Lord, she was a missionary to the Bantu tribe in Angola most of her Christian life. Her name was Loki Nussenbaum, a German Jew. The Nazis murdered her father and her mother, the Nazis murdered her two little sisters and her brother. She and one brother escaped to Switzerland as children and they were taken in by born-again believers who led them to Christ in Switzerland and she got saved. Later she went to Bible college and off to the mission field in Angola, but as a young girl of 14, after seeing her who family murdered by the Nazis, (remember, in the name of Christ they were murdered by the Nazis, they said they were a Christian movement) she was told by a so-called Christian pastor in Germany that “Hitler is God’s minister; the government is God’s authority, go back and submit to the authorities or you are not a believer. Go to Auschwitz, little Jew girl, go to the oven, be a good Christian, go let the Nazis murder you.” She was actually told that. When the civil authorities tell you one thing and the Word of God tells you another, you have to make a choice. Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego made the right choice. Some Christians will make the right choice, others will not. “Oh, we have to obey the law.” Yeah, you have to obey the law when it does not contradict God’s law.

Daniel 3:19 Then Nebuchadnezzar was filled with wrath, and his facial expression was altered toward Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego.

Initially he was saying, “Now let’s work this out, it is a big misunderstanding. Stop by the White House for a few beers, we will just talk it over and get the whole thing wrapped up.” Once he found out they meant business, that they were going to stand on their faith, it was a different story.

Daniel 3:19-22 He answered by giving orders to heat the furnace seven times more than it was usually heated. And he commanded certain valiant warriors who were in his army to tie up Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego, in order to cast them into the furnace of blazing fire. Then these men were tied up in their trousers, their coats, their caps and their other clothes, and were cast into the midst of the furnace of blazing fire. 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.

Notice in the providential hand of God, God judged their persecutors. “I will bless them that bless thee and curse them that curse thee.” Nobody has ever touched the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, be it the anthropological or the theological and escape the wrath of God. Any nation or empire that has ever persecuted the Jews or that has ever persecuted the true Church has come under the judgment of God, no exceptions. I have no doubt that when the Waldensians were wiped out in Europe, long before the Reformation, it was called the Black Death. Nearly 50 percent of Europe’s population was wiped out. I personally am convinced it was a judgment. Nobody has ever touched the true Church, or touched the Jews, remember, the same ones who persecuted the Jews persecuted the Church. The Jews were rounded up and put into ghettos, shtetls, with a wall around it. Any Jew climbing over the wall was machine-gunned. Hence, there would be a wall built around Berlin, the capital of the Reich. Any German climbing over that wall was machine-gunned. Not until Hess died in Spandau prison in Berlin did one brick of that wall came down. Once the last Nazi responsible for the Holocaust and the blitz was dead, that wall came down a few weeks later. Nobody gets away with persecuting God’s people. You touch the true Church, you touch the Jews, you touch the apple of God’s eye. You make the Almighty your enemy. He will come after you.

Long before the Zionist movement saw Jews coming from Russia in large numbers, after Lenin died and Stalin came to power, he killed Trotsky and he killed Venuviev and he began kicking the Jews out of the party so the Jewish Bolsheviks came to Israel to make kibbutz’s, long before that happened, there were born-again believers in England, led by the Earl of Shaftesbury and William Wilberforce, who lobbied the British government to pass the Balfour Declaration. My children were born in Israel, I live in England. I am proud of the fact that God used believers in England to give Zionism that land initially. But once the British revolted to placate the Arabs, what happened? Jews were sent to ovens instead of to Israel and then even after the war, when people knew what happened, the British were still putting them in camps. Well, if Jews burned, so did London, so did Liverpool, so did Coventry. The Empire collapsed, Britannia no longer rules the waves. Spain was the number one world power, it ruled the Spanish main until it began the Inquisition. Then along came Francis Drake and sunk the Armada, bye bye Spain. It does not matter what nation it was, the Soviets, the Germans, the Spanish, the British, nobody has ever turned against Israel and not come under God’s judgment. Nobody has ever persecuted the true Church and not come under God’s judgment. I tremble for America. They are going after homeschoolers, they are going after believers, they are accusing us of hate crimes because we will not agree with the same-sex agenda and so forth. And now, as we speak, the American government is betraying Israel to Islam, Hillary, Obama, and Bush was no better. We have two oil gulfs in the world, one is the Persian Gulf the other is the Gulf of Mexico. Without a peace treaty, the Bush administration pressured Israel to leave Gaza. There was more to it than that but Bush and Rice pressured them to leave without any guarantee of peace. The next day Hamas began shooting rockets into Israel. There is no land for peace. What happened? You have to placate the Persian Gulf oil, so the next day the Gulf of Mexico oil came under God’s judgment. Thirty percent of America’s refining capacity was wiped out in Hurricane Katrina, now Americans were being forced out of their homes in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. That was God’s judgment brought on this nation because of Bush, the Saudi pawn. I remember his father saying “Oh, the Saudi’s are our friends.” They allow the Saudi’s to finance the construction of Mosques and Islamic institutions all over America, but you cannot build one church in Saudi Arabia. You cannot bring a Bible into Saudi Arabia. Guess what happens in Saudi Arabia if a Moslem becomes a Christian. Somebody who kills my brethren in Christ for their faith may be a friend of Bush but he is no friend of mine. These wicked men bring God’s judgment. You persecute the Church, you persecute the Jews, you make God your enemy, no exceptions. Believe it, don’t believe it, God does not care, it is going to happen. The scripture has never been wrong and history bears it out. Now let’s look.

The King was angry: “Make it seven times hotter, turn up the heat.” They go in tied up but the first ones to be judged were the people that threw them in. May God’s judgment come on those who persecute the Church and those who persecute the Jews, unless they repent. God gave Corrie ten Boom the grace to forgive the Nazis. They murdered her family for protecting Jews. It is better they repent, but if they do not, the judgment of God is certain, it came on them first.

Daniel 3:23-28 But these three men, Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego, fell into the midst of the furnace of blazing fire still tied up. Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was astounded [they fell into the midst of the furnace still tied up] 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.” He answered and said, “Look! I see four men loosed and walking about in the midst of the fire without harm, and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods!” Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the door of the furnace of blazing fire; he responded and said, “Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego, come out, you servants of the Most High God, and come here!” Then Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego came out of the midst of the fire. 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. 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.

Notice, they went against the civil authorities as the apostles did. It was both religious and civil.

Daniel 3:29-30 “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.” Then the king caused Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego to prosper in the province of Babylon.

Notice first of all, they went into the furnace of affliction bound, they came out loosed. The king did not untie them, the flames did. When God allows his people to be persecuted, he has a purpose in allowing it; they may go in bound, they came out unshackled. The angel here is, I am quite convinced, the one in Judaism called the Metatron, Ha Melech Adonai, the definite article, The Angel of the Lord, it is a Christophany, an Old Testament manifestation, enfleshment of Jesus. I cannot promise you will not go into the furnace of affliction. Those who stand fast for their faith in these Last Days may certainly face it. In fact, we will all face it to some degree. I cannot promise you we will not. Do not listen to the lying Televangelists, “You don’t have to suffer, you are a King’s kid, name it and claim it, blab it and grab it. If you are suffering, you don’t have any faith.” Those men are liars. They have lying spirits. Kenneth Copeland is of the devil, I am positive, that man is of the devil. Those who teach that message are not of God, they are from the devil. I go to places where the Church is persecuted. I go to places where Christians suffer for their faith. I have the privilege of teaching in a kind of Bible college in Indonesia, the most populous Moslem country in the world and there are some very brave young people, late teens, early twenties. I know and they know when they leave that place they are going into the hinterlands of Sumatra, of Borneo, of Java, some of them to be martyred. Three thousand churches were burned to the ground last year in Indonesia alone. Nobody says a word. The Indonesian government admits to a 7.5 percent Christian population but it is pushing 25 percent. They killed over 300,000 in East Timor, they killed over 30,000 born-again Christians in the Moluccan Islands. The UN does not say a word. I go there to teach these young people about the Word of God. Those brave young people teach me what the Word of God is about. I have the privilege of teaching them about the Word of God. They teach me what the Word of God is about. I get much more from them than I could ever give them. I have seen the full story. It is not they who lack faith, it is the Church of Laodicea that lacks the real faith. It is the people sending money to con-artist Televangelist who don’t have a biblical faith.

No, I cannot promise there will not be affliction. Jesus said, “You will have tribulation in the world.” Thlipsis, it comes with the turf, it is a guarantee. If you are not getting some kind of opposition, you better make sure you are saved. But in the Last Days, this intensifies. I cannot promise you will not go into the oven. What I can promise is this; Jesus Christ will be in there with you that I can promise you. That I can promise you. You will not be in there alone.

I have known believers who have suffered. I had the blessing, with my wife, to have known Richard and Sabrina Wurmbrand, the Romanian Jews like my wife. My wife could speak to them in Romanian, of course. The testimony he told me, people saved in communist prisons in Romania. I will never forget the story I heard from him. He thought they were going to kill him next because they had killed several people in a holding cell that had 30 or 40 people locked in a small, confined area and they would take them out and kill them, they would not be heard from. They just kept beating this one guy over and over because he was a Christian and there was a scientist, who was not a Christian, he was an atheist, but he was locked up simply because he was not a communist. So Ceausescu put him in prison and they were doing the same thing to him. This guy began to mock this other Christian after he got beat up—“Look at your Jesus, look at your Jesus, why didn’t your Jesus help you, they are doing the same thing to you they do to me, how come your Jesus didn’t help you.” He said, “My Jesus does help me.” “Well, why doesn’t your Jesus get you out of here?” And he said, “You really want me to tell you?” “Yeah, if he loves you so much, why doesn’t he get you out of here?” This believer, who was a simple man, said: “Because he loves you too, and he wants me to tell you about him before it is too late, that is why I am here.” But the scientist continued to mock. Richard Wurmbrand is just watching this. “What does he do, does he talk to you?” “Oh, yes, he talks to me.” “When he talks to you, does he smile?” “Oh, yes, he smiles.” “So, what does he look like?” He said, “He looks like this.” The scientist just fell to the ground and began pounding his fist saying “You’ve seen Jesus Christ, you’ve seen Jesus Christ.” Richard Wurmbrand and this Romanian peasant led him to the Lord before he was killed.

No, I cannot promise there is no furnace of affliction. What I can promise is that if you or I ever face it, God forbid, but believers face it now, that Jesus will be there with us. Go in bound perhaps, come out free, for certain. And when they came out, others saw it and then others believed. Tertullian said, “The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church.” It is in places where Christians are persecuted, like Indonesia, where the churches are growing. Can you imagine a mid-week Bible study in a hall this size, two-thousand people in it for a midweek Bible study on the floor crowded in? Hot, steamy under the equator to hear Jacob Prasch, why? It is the Word of God! They are persecuted. When I was there, the Moslems were threatening to get rid of the building and burn it and everything. The government would not do anything! Crowding in by the thousands for a midweek Bible study. Prayer meeting—“Oh gotta go to the prayer meeting” packed in like you could not believe, that was just midweek. They are being persecuted but those churches are growing. They have got something that those Moslems in Banda Aceh didn’t have. Those Moslems in Banda Aceh saw it was Christians who helped them after the tsunami. Saudi Arabia did not give a sixpence.

Indonesian Church Burning Down

They came out. In these Last Days, we will have Shadrachs, Meshachs, and Abed-negos. We will have those who will stand, others will not. We will have those who will bow the knee, others will not. We will have those who will follow the Interfaith Ecumenical agenda, others will not. We will have those who will follow the New-Age, purpose driven, Emergent lie and others will not. Some Jews, certain Jews…..

But then we see something that happens in Chapter 6. Understand the book of Daniel paints a picture of what the Last Days will be like. With the Assyrian captivity, everybody was afraid of Assyria. They took the Ten Northern Tribes into captivity and everybody was terrified of them. They were the barbarians who made war by siege. Overnight Assyria collapsed, overnight! And then they were looking down the throat of something much worse, Babylon. As Daniel predicted, overnight Babylon goes, there’s Medo-Persia. And, as Daniel predicted, there goes Medo-Persia, here is Greece, and as Daniel predicted again, there goes Greece, here is Rome and Rome must come back, the iron and the clay. As we speak, those same countries in the Roman Empire are reconfederating into a non-democratic Europe. They have a big problem though, trying to make iron stick to clay. If you look at Ireland, it is a Celtic country. If you look at Poland, it is a Slavic country. If you look at Portugal, it is a Latin country. If you look at Austria, it is a Germanic country. What does somebody in Ireland, Austria, Poland and Portugal have in common? Not language, not history, not culture, not cuisine. There is only one thing that have in common. In Nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritús Sancti. They need to reverse the Reformation to bring about an artificial unity in Europe. This is what is happening as we speak. Remember, once the Beast has no further use for the woman, he gets rid of her. It is all a political agenda to bring about Antichrist’s kingdom. But in the middle of all these things that happened in the days of Daniel, a rise and fall of world empires happening very quickly, the Jews were in the middle of it coming back to their land as Jeremiah predicted. The Last Days are the same. My grandparents were born in Britain. If you told my grandparents the sun would set every 24 hours on the British Empire they would have laughed at you but now it does. Britannia no longer rules the waves, bye bye Britain, French Empire gone with it. If you told somebody of my generation that overnight the Soviet Union would have disintegrated it would have seemed impossible if you grew up in the era of the Vietnam War and the Cuban Missile Crisis to say that the Soviet Union would self destruct but it did. Japan was going to be the new economic giant; then they had four recessions in ten years. Now we have a reunited Germany. Oh yes, once again, Deutschland, Deutschland, uber alles the economic dynamo of Europe—they are broke. The rise and fall of world empires and once again the Jews are in the middle of it coming back to their land. If you want to know what is going to happen, look at what did happen, read the book of Daniel. A change happened here, now it was the Persians, no longer the Babylonians, and Daniel had a problem.

Daniel 6:1-4 It seemed good to Darius to appoint 120 satraps over the kingdom, that they should be in charge of the whole kingdom, and over them three commissioners (of whom Daniel was one), [again, he was a big wheel] that these satraps might be accountable to them, and that the king might not suffer loss. Then this Daniel began distinguishing himself among the commissioners and satraps because he possessed an extraordinary spirit, and the king planned to appoint him over the entire kingdom. Then the commissioners and satraps began trying to find a ground of accusation against Daniel in regard to government affairs; but they could find no ground of accusation or evidence of corruption, inasmuch as he was faithful, and no negligence or corruption was to be found in him.

At any time in history, there has been one particular race or nation that has been prolific. At one time it would have been the Greeks: Aristotle, Socrates, Plato, Herodotus, Hippocrates, Pythagoras, Euclid, Archimedes, everybody was a Greek. In the Renaissance everybody was Italian: Machiavelli, Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Dante, they were all Italian. During the age of Empire, everybody was British, Irish or Scottish. Everybody has their hour. When Europe was plunged into the Dark Ages, the Arabs had their Golden Age. Now, seven out of ten Nobel Prizes go to Jewish scientists, medicine, chemistry and physics, seven out of ten. They are resented. “Why should this little nation have so many….” If it were not for Jewish scientists, Hitler would have had the atomic bomb first, that is obvious. We would all be speaking German; we would all be under the Nazis. It is only because of Jewish scientists that America beat them to the punch. The Germans are very good engineers. Hitler’s thinking, “There could only be one master race, one Ubermensch, it is either going to be the Jews or the Aryan,” that was his thinking. He was a Darwinist.

They get resented so people have to accuse them of things, but they could find nothing. And it goes on:

Daniel 6:5-13 Then these men said, “We shall not find any ground of accusation against this Daniel unless we find it against him with regard to the law of his God.” Then these commissioners and satraps came by agreement to the king and spoke to him as follows: “King Darius, live forever! “All the commissioners of the kingdom, the prefects and the satraps, the high officials and the governors have consulted together that the king should establish a statute and enforce an injunction that anyone who makes a petition to any god or man besides you, O king, for thirty days, shall be cast into the lions’ den. “Now, O king, establish the injunction and sign the document so that it may not be changed, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which may not be revoked.” Therefore King Darius signed the document, that is, the injunction. Now when Daniel knew that the document was signed, he entered his house (now in his roof chamber he had windows open toward Jerusalem); and he continued kneeling on his knees three times a day, praying and giving thanks before his God, as he had been doing previously. Then these men came by agreement and found Daniel making petition and supplication before his God. Then they approached and spoke before the king about the king’s injunction, “Did you not sign an injunction that any man who makes a petition to any god or man besides you, O king, for thirty days, is to be cast into the lions’ den?” The king answered and said, “The statement is true, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which may not be revoked.” Then they answered and spoke before the king, “Daniel, who is one of the exiles from Judah, pays no attention to you, O king, or to the injunction which you signed, but keeps making his petition three times a day.”

Notice that if there is a choice between believing the civil authorities or believing the Word of God, you believe the Word of God. Notice also that the authorities were both religious and civil, same as in the book of Acts, chapter 4.

Daniel 6:14 Then, as soon as the king heard this statement, he was deeply distressed and set his mind on delivering Daniel; and even until sunset he kept exerting himself to rescue him.

Notice how it works. The politicians seem to be benevolent to God’s people. “Oh, nothing will happen to us, he is a good man, we supported him, we voted for him,” or whatever. But people with the agenda simply want to get a law on the books. That is how it works; they just get the law on the books. It seems innocuous; it could even seem like a good law in some ways. Every time I get on an airplane, my constitutional rights are violated. Search without a warrant, because our government is too corrupt and too owned by oil whores to protect the rights of Americans; therefore, in order to please whoever they have to please, they’ll deprive American citizens of their rights. They don’t want to security profile Moslem passengers; that might offend the Saudi Arabians who own them. “Oh, it is necessary to stop terror. Now we are going to have laws against religious extremism.” We have this in England already. Those same laws ostensibly passed to stop Islam have not stopped radical Islam, those laws are being used against Christians. Just get the law on the books. “Don’t you want to stop hate crime?” Yes, I do. Well, then you get the law on the books, but as soon as you find out that if you say “Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, nobody comes to the father but by him,” “No you’ve blasphemed Islam, you’ve blasphemed Buddhism, you have blasphemed other religions, that’s a hate crime.” “Are you saying homosexuality is wrong? That is a hate crime.” Just get the law on the books. The laws seem innocuous initially but they are not innocuous, they all have an agenda. The king wanted to be benevolent. Darius wanted to be benevolent. Don’t believe it, don’t believe it.

Ronald Regan promised us he was pro-life and the first thing he did was appoint a pro-abortion judge to the Supreme Court. Don’t believe it, it is no different. “Oh, what about Scott Brown in Massachusetts?” He is pro-abortion; he is simply against federal funding for it. “Well, Romney is a Christian.” No, he is a Mormon; he believes Jesus is the spirit brother of Satan. He passed socialized medicine in Massachusetts and Scott Brown voted for it, don’t trust politicians. You see, the Jews were making a mistake, they were trusting the political authorities to look after them to do what was right. We can pray for them but you are a fool to trust any politician. Even if you get one who wants to be benevolent, his hands will be tied by the system, just like Darius was. “Okay, arrest Daniel. That is the law.” Okay, I know these laws were passed to stop radical Islam but they have to be applied against Christians as well, equal justice under the law. “You’ve got people like Rosie O’Donnell comparing born-again Christians to Moslem terrorists and there are people who believe her. Why? Because born-again Christians don’t approve of her lesbianism, therefore you are a terrorist. Do you understand what they have done? They have redefined tolerance. Tolerance used to mean or according to Webster’s or Oxford Dictionary, tolerance means “Even though I don’t agree with you I accept your right to do that or believe that, as long as it does not interfere with the right of anybody else, that is what tolerance means by definition. In practice, it means if you don’t approve of it, you are intolerant; if you don’t approve of homosexuality, if you don’t approve of Islam, if you don’t approve of these things, you are intolerant. Just get the law on the books. That is what happened in the days of Daniel and that is what is going to happen in the Last Days. They will just get a law on the books. Even if you get a benevolent politician his hands will be tied.

Daniel 6:15-17 Then these men came by agreement to the king and said to the king, “Recognize, O king, that it is a law of the Medes and Persians that no injunction or statute which the king establishes may be changed.” Then the king gave orders, and Daniel was brought in and cast into the lions’ den. The king spoke and said to Daniel, “Your God whom you constantly serve will Himself deliver you.” And a stone was brought and laid over the mouth of the den; and the king sealed it with his own signet ring and with the signet rings of his nobles, so that nothing might be changed in regard to Daniel.

Now understand here we are dealing with typology. Daniel is a figure of Christ. When Jesus was put in the tomb for dead, he came out alive but what happened in Matthew 27:66? They put the seal on the stone. Do you understand that he was a type of Christ? Daniel was put in, the imperial seal was put on the stone that covered up the den and then when the stone is taken away, he comes out alive. It is a picture of the resurrection of Christ. All these things are shadows of the New Testament.

Daniel 6:18-24 Then the king went off to his palace and spent the night fasting, and no entertainment was brought before him; and his sleep fled from him. Then the king arose with the dawn, [remember, Jesus rose at dawn?] at the break of day, and went in haste to the lions’ den. And when he had come near the den to Daniel, he cried out with a troubled voice. The king spoke and said to Daniel, “Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you constantly serve, been able to deliver you from the lions?” Then Daniel spoke to the king, “O king, live forever! “My God sent His angel and shut the lions’ mouths, and they have not harmed me, inasmuch as I was found innocent before Him; and also toward you, O king, I have committed no crime.” Then the king was very pleased and gave orders for Daniel to be taken up out of the den. So Daniel was taken up out of the den, and no injury whatever was found on him, because he had trusted in his God. The king then gave orders, and they brought those men who had maliciously accused Daniel, and they cast them, their children, and their wives into the lions’ den; and they had not reached the bottom of the den before the lions overpowered them and crushed all their bones.

God will vindicate his people. He will destroy them if you persecute those who are His.

Daniel 6:25-28 Then Darius the king wrote to all the peoples, nations, and men of every language who were living in all the land …

Remember, whenever you see somebody conquering the whole known world, it is a picture of the Antichrist. Only Christ is to have dominion over all nations and peoples. When you see somebody in the Old Testament ruling over all the nations, tongues and peoples, it is a type of the Antichrist who intends to usurp the unique position of Jesus.

…”May your peace abound! “I make a decree that in all the dominion of my kingdom men are to fear and tremble before the God of Daniel; For He is the living God and enduring forever, And His kingdom is one which will not be destroyed, And His dominion will be forever. “He delivers and rescues and performs signs and wonders in heaven and on earth, who has also delivered Daniel from the power of the lions.” So this Daniel enjoyed success in the reign of Darius and in the reign of Cyrus the Persian.

What happened to Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego under the Babylonians would happen to Daniel under the Medo-Persians. “Put him in there to die.” Who closed the lions’ mouths? He came out alive. They may put you in there to die but you will come out alive. You don’t need my guarantee, you have the guarantee of Christ, you will come out alive. Either he will close the mouth of the lions or you will come out with the resurrection power of Christ. One way or another you come out alive and those who persecute you will come out dead. Their death will be the second death. It’s quite a thing. That is the way it was in the days of Daniel. We are going to see a very rapid change politically along the lines we have been seeing that is going to continue, a very rapid series of political changes, meteoric changes and in the middle of all of it you are going to see Israel being a controversy. It happened this weekend. You are going to see more and more laws passed that will be used against Christians, that even benevolent politicians who mean us no harm will not be able to intervene on our behalf, they will be trapped by a corrupt system. You are going to see people with devious motives demanding you be criminalized, the Satraps, the governors, etc., etc. They did it in Daniel 3; they did it in Daniel 6, they will do it in these Last Days. There will be a furnace of affliction. Some of us will go in bound. All of us will come out free. Christ will be in there with us. Others will see it and believe. Many will see and fear and trust in the Lord.

“Do not imagine that you in the king’s palace can escape any more than all the Jews. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance will arise for the Jews from another place and you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not attained royalty for such a time as this?” Esther 4:13-14

That is what happened to Shadrach. That is what happened to Meshach. That is what happened to Abed-nego and that is what happened to Daniel. Not many years after that is what would happen to Esther and Mordecai and in these Last Days, it is what is going to happen to us. The furnace of affliction—quite an adventure! We will see the judgment of God against our enemies. Sudden destruction will come upon them. We will see this intervention on behalf of His people. We will see His Lordship. We will see His power and not only will we see it, others will see it, and then they will believe. The world will become hard of heart in the developed world. People are not interested any more. When I was saved it was the Jesus movement, hippies were looking for truth and meaning. That is over now. It is very difficult to see people saved now. It is not that open; there is not a move of God’s Spirit, it is not the same. There are counterfeit revivals and frauds and deceptions in Toronto, Pensacola and Lakeland but there is no real revival, only lies and deceptions. What will make people believe? When they see not three in the furnace of affliction but they see four. They see Shadrach, Meshach, Abed-nego and Jesus. They see us and then they will see Him. That is what it took 400-plus years before Jesus. That is what it is going to take in these Last Days. The book of Daniel is not a past history, the book of Daniel is a future history and even as we speak this evening, the book of Daniel is becoming our history. That is the way it was; that is the way it is … that is the way it is going to be. Praise Jesus.