The road to true promotion
Key Passage: Daniel 3
Date: June 7, 2024
My Bible is Daniel chapter three. Daniel chapter three. My favorite line of the whole song is that last couple words: “Oh, for grace to trust him.” What a great truth. He will give you grace to trust him. He gives you everything, even the grace that you need to trust in during difficult times. It gives you that, and it is a great, great song there. And I was thinking there.
Daniel chapter three of God’s Word. The title for tonight would be “The Road to a True Promotion”—not just promotion, but a true promotion. The Road to a True Promotion. We will talk about the story here a bit before we read it, but we will kind of wait until we all get settled in here. Good deal. By the way, I am thrilled you are back on Sunday night. That is right where you ought to be. That is just great. Is it stuffy tonight? Is it stuffy to you? Can we get the fans? Let us get the fans running. That would be great. Brother Patterson is already snoring over there. No, he is not. But we will get a little airflow here going.
That would be a good thing. Good to have guests back tonight. I am honored to have y’all. Thank you for being back with us. That is just great. Let me kind of get us up to speed.
Many of you know the story here, but the children of Israel are captive in Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar is king. There is, of course, Daniel, but his three friends: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They are in the capital there in that province. Old Nebuchadnezzar is a proud man, I believe, very haughty. I think he got saved and got just the beginning of God really working on him. A little later on, I think he gets saved in the book of Daniel, through God, of course, and Daniel, these three men here. By this point, I think he is very, very proud. He makes this image. Now, we do not know what the image is of. It is of gold; we know that, but I tend to think it was of Nebuchadnezzar himself. But it is 90 feet tall. I just try to think of it, grasp that a little bit. I think the closest building that is about 90 feet tall is St. Thomas Rutherford, down in Murphysboro, the hospital, about six, seven floors there. You know the hospital down there? You know the hospital? Yeah, there you go. Got to get you on board there, you know? And I think it is somewhere around 90 feet tall, that building.
Can you imagine an image of a statue that tall? And he said, “Look, I want everybody—everybody—to come into D.C., if you will, you know, all the leaders, come on into the Capitol, you know.” And in his image, he was—I do not know if he unveiled it or what. And he said, “Now, the time they start playing music”—I imagine it was rock and roll music. Man, you hear the bands and all that playing. By the way, that rock and roll music usually goes along with devil worship and false worship, you understand. Y’all say amen there? Come on now. And when the band starts playing, you know, I want everybody to bow down to this image. I do not know, but I imagine thousands were there. They are in D.C., if you will, and they are unveiling this image, and the music is playing. And boy, can you imagine as by the hundreds they start bowing down? I mean, just all over. And the more they bowed down, the more of those three fellas, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, stood out. And by the way,
We talked about the end times on Sunday morning. Hey, you might stick out a little bit more in our day and time, but praise the Lord, light shines brighter than darkness, amen. And those three boys said, “No, we are not bowing. We only bow to Jehovah.” And everybody else just bowing down, and well, those three boys are standing. And by the way, praise the Lord, they had each other. I tend to think, not technically all right, but a little bit, they had a church right there, amen, a called-out assembly, amen. Anyway, those three boys stood, and there is always a tattletale around. You understand that? You know, just everywhere you go, there is tattletale. And boy, they were, “Oh, King,” you know, and I went to Nebuchadnezzar, “Those Hebrew boys you put in charge around here, and they are not bowing.” And old proud, cocky Nebuchadnezzar, the Bible says he got fury. Boy, he got mad. He said, “What in the world? Who are these guys not bowing down? Go get those boys.” And they brought them in. It seems like he likes them. And he says, “Hey, is this true? I have heard you are not bowing down.” And the three boys said, “It is true. We are not bowing down. We are just going to stay true to Jehovah God.” And the King got mad, and the boys said, “Be it known unto you, O King, our God can deliver us. But if he does not, be it known to you, we are not going to bow down either way. He can handle what happens after death anyway.” I like it. No matter what, we are not bowing.
Boy, the Bible says, man, he got full of fury. His vision, his face changed. He liked those boys. They turned from a smile to a frown real quick. Boy, people can change and turn on you on a dime. Do not put too much value in people, you know. And boom, he is just mad, he is angry. He goes into fury. It is like he is in a fit of temper; he lost it. Somebody standing up to me, you know, and he could not take it. And the Bible says he heated a furnace up seven times hotter than it should be, if you will. I do not know, but maybe they made that furnace to go to 1,000 degrees. Turn it up to 7,000. It is only supposed to go to 1,000. I do not care, 7,000 degrees. Something like that.
And put those boys in there. I imagine it was like their SWAT team, special ops, you know, best of the best. Man, they came in there and grabbed those three Hebrew boys. I do not know exactly how it worked. The furnace must have been pretty close because Nebuchadnezzar could look in there, so it must have been pretty close. I imagine those special guards, they grabbed them, probably did not give them a chance to walk, and probably dragged them, you know, pushing around, looking like they were all that in front of the king and all that. And they took those boys and threw them in the furnace, and you know the story, but the furnace was so hot—hotter than it ever had been. Just the heat of it coming up, just the heat—when those special ops, they got it, they threw them in there, the heat was just overwhelming, and it killed the bodyguards or whatever they were that threw them in there. And they got killed.
And somehow Nebuchadnezzar could look down in there. I do not know if he was far enough away he could look down, or maybe it is so high up he could look down in there. I do not know if maybe it is Babylon—there is the head of gold, if you remember all that—but maybe Babylon, they had learned enough or they could make a little bit of a heatproof window or something. I do not know, but somehow Nebuchadnezzar could look in there. And Nebuchadnezzar says, “Hey, wait a second. Come over here, look, look at that.” He said, “Did we throw—hey, did we throw three boys in there?” “Yeah, yeah.” Everybody was afraid of Nebuchadnezzar, besides those three boys. And they might have had a little fear, but they stood for Jehovah. Oh, for grace to trust him more, amen. And, “Hey, what in the world? We threw three of them down there. I see four. And the fourth is likened to the Son of God.” Is Jesus down there, amen, friend? And he said they are all walking around and they are free. The ropes, whatever, and all, man, they are just walking around. They are having a good time down there. And Nebuchadnezzar just said, “Wow. Now, there is something to that, Jehovah God.”
And they brought the three Hebrew boys up before the king, and they did not even smell like smoke. I mean, just God took care of them. And I want you to notice this. We are in Daniel 3. Would you look in verse number 28? Would you please stand if you are able? Daniel 3 and verse number 28. And I remind you of the title of the message: The Road to True Promotion. Now think about that. Now look at verse number 28, Daniel 3, verse number 28.
Then Nebuchadnezzar spake and said, “Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who hath sent his angel and hath delivered his servants that trusted in him.” I like that. I am going to underline that all. I apologize. That is important right there: trusted in him. And have changed the king’s word and yielded their bodies that they might not serve nor worship any God except their own God. Therefore, I make a decree that every people, nation, language, which speak anything amiss against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego shall be cut in pieces, and their houses shall be made a dunghill, because there is no other God that can deliver after this sort." Then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the province of Babylon.
Did you notice the road, the path to promotion? It was not a wonderful, pleasant, easygoing road. It was a time of testing. When God allows you to be tested, he very often has promotion in mind at the end of the road. The road for them to get promoted by the king, yes, but by the real King, really.
The road to promotion was through testing. God often works like that. You realize Job, that was blessed twice as much? He went through major testing. That is the way promotion often comes for a godly man, a godly lady, a godly young person. It comes through testing.
God told Abraham, “Abraham, I want you to offer up your only son, Isaac.” Remember that? And Abraham was willing, you know the story. And right before he took that knife and offered up Isaac, God said, “Hold on!” Send that angel of the Lord, and there is a ram caught in the thicket. And what happened at the end of it? Let me read it for you, Genesis 22:17: “That in blessing, I will bless thee, and in multiplying, I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the seashore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemy; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed because thou hast obeyed my voice.”
Let me just add—I am not trying to add to the Word of God—but obeyed during testing. My friend, I am telling you, when testing comes, do not look at it as negative, do not get down in the dumps, do not have pity parties. Say, “Hey, God might be having promotion in mind.” He allows his children to be tested. Jesus himself, before he went in power in Galilee, he was led of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted, to be tested.
Then we wonder, “God, would you promote me? Would you bless?” But God says, “Hey, usually the road to promotion comes through testing.” These three Hebrew boys, they were testing. By the way, God knows how to test you where it hurts sometimes, and he knows our weakness. A. J. Gordon, a great preacher of years gone by, he used to say, “God, be thorough with me. Be thorough with me.” And I want you to keep that in mind. I am going through times of testing. Often God tests us, but at the end he has something in mind. For these three Hebrew boys, hey, he has promotion in mind. Praise the Lord for old Job: “When I am tried, I shall come forth as gold.” God sees that. God uses that road to promotion.
You know, Job was way, way 10,000 times better Christian than I am. I am not trying to say anything against Job per se. He did much, much better than I ever do. But can I say Job had a whole lot of self-righteousness? If we took time to read Job 29, you would find 51 times in that one chapter. The next chapter is about the same thing. But in that one chapter, you would find 51 times at least Job saying, “I, me, or mine.” “I did this, I did this, I did this,” and “when they saw me, they closed their mouth and they looked and they stood when I was around,” and “boy, look what all I did!” At the end of it, he said, “Oh, to be close.” Someone said God had to knock the self-righteousness out of Job. God was purifying him. And God always has a reason for those things we are going through. Praise the Lord, Job did say, “But he knoweth the way that I take; when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.” God has a reason that test to come in our life.
What about the Church of Laodicea? Remember that over there? You know that, Revelation chapter 3, the seven churches, Asia Minor. And the Church of Laodicea, and they were—God said, “I want to spew you out of my mouth because they were what?” What were they from? You know, Luke 1? Yeah. You know, God gave them advice how to solve that. I cannot read for you the advice God gave you. Well, let me just give you everything you want. Now let me just—let me have you. You got an easy road, Church of Laodicea. So, no, here is how to fix your problem. Remember, I read for you Revelation 3:18. He said, “I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see.” By the way, when you go through the fire, you come out on the other side, you see things a whole lot different. And God said, “Hey, Church of Laodicea, you need some fire or some tough times, some trials in your heart.” We often use trials as bad, bad, bad, but God may be trying to get us down the road of promotion. Shame on me when I go to the pity route: “Now nobody knows what I am going through and all the rest of that.” And God might be saying, “Paul, I am trying to grow you here.”
Look, if you will, over in James. We have seen this several times, but I feel like the Lord wants us to look at it just briefly tonight. James chapter number one. What a wonderful, wonderful chapter and verses here. James chapter number one. And look at verse number two, if you would please, there, James one and verse number two of God’s word. He says there, “My brethren, count it all joy when ye fall into divers temptations.” I have not had a tough time with that. Can I just say a word here? It does not say when you go through trials, you have to say, “Ha ha, ha ha, this is wonderful.” No, that would be weird if we did that. He said, “You count it all joy.” You are going to have a tough time. Sometimes you just have to endure like Jesus endured the cross, but you count it all joy. Why? This helped me so much when I learned it. How can I count it all joy? The next verse—let us keep reading. He says, “Knowing this”—how do you count it all joy?—“because you know this, knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience.”
I will be honest with you. I do not value patience as much as God does. God is trying to get me in line. He is working on me. But it does not end with patience. That is not the end of the formula here. What you are trying to get to? Knowing this, that the trying of your faith worketh patience. Look here, but let patience—you have to let it. By the way, it is a shame when I go through trials, I do not let it grow. I do not let it grow up. God wants it to go. You have to let it. But let patience—watch this—have her perfect work. God values patience because it does not work to you. Have her perfect work that ye may be—here is the end product—perfect, that is mature, that is full grown, perfect and entire, wanting nothing. So God looks out and he says, “Hey, Pastor Paul, you are lacking in certain areas, in certain areas of your life. You are not as mature as I want you to be.” And God says, “I am allowing these trials in your life because I see the end product. I want you to be perfect and entire, wanting nothing.” And this process—God growing us in the areas we lack—that is going to be going on until the day we go home. But when you go through tough times, do not get mad and bitter. He sees an area that I am lacking in, and he knows the right angle, the right road, the right path down to promotion that I need to go. And he takes you right that right way. So the end product, God is trying to make me perfect. He has a reason for that. I know it hurts. I know it is no fun. And God knows that, but God says, “I see a finished product, and I can work in and through you more when it is true.” You see the pathway to promotion from the Lord usually comes down the pathway.
What about David? David, hey, I want you to be king, but I have a long time before I am going to promote you. I mean, your brother is going to be mad at you. It seems like the family problems there. And then you have got to fight Goliath. And after that, you know, Saul is going to get jealous and chase you for years out there. And you have got to kind of live off on your own. I think he backslid for a while, then you get right. God just did all kind of things. And God says, “All right, after all these trials, now you are ready to be king.”
Moral from the monotonous—how it works. Something else about this thing. Look, look back at verse number 28, would you please? Just very briefly tonight. Look at verse number 28 again there in Daniel 3, verse number 28.
Then Nebuchadnezzar spake and said, “Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.” I do not know at that point if he understood fully it was Jehovah. It does not say anything about Jehovah here at this point; it does elsewhere. But it is just the way he calls him twice. He says, “The God of Shadrach, Meshach.” “Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who hath sent his angel and delivered his servants that trusted in him and have changed the king’s word and yielded their body, that they may not serve nor worship any God except their own God.”
“Therefore, I make a decree that every people, nation, language which speak anything amiss—watch how he words it—against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego shall be cut in pieces, and their houses shall be made a dunghill, because there is no other God that can deliver after this sort.” Here is the thing: God gave those boys more influence for the Lord.
You say, “Lord, I would like to make my influence known at my job. I would like to make an impact where they can see you through me. Lord, I would like to be a testimony that some of my relatives get saved.” Praise the Lord, Brother Josh, and I believe his son, got baptized in Britain at this moment. What a wonderful thing. I love all that. How do I make a difference in my family? I want to make a difference in my neighborhood, and not so I can be big-headed and everybody knows about me. Fooey on that. It is for the Lord—salvation for them to get to know Jesus Christ. I say, “Lord, I would like to have a little bit more influence so I can sway people to do things your way, God.” But usually that comes through Christ. These boys had such an impact. Can you imagine as they spread around not just Babylon, but the known world? They were the leaders of the known world at that time. And the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Now, hopefully, eventually, he learned it as Jehovah. But you see, God uses people. You are the branch; he is the vine. But the fruit typically is not on the vine. That is where the life and the energy and power are. The fruit is on the branches. I do not know why God wants to use this, but he does. I would like to have more influence, Lord, but typically that comes through trial. Boy, after this time of testing and trial, these three boys, they had such an impact. I may be around the known world. “The God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.” Have you heard about the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego? Those boys may have gotten tired. They said, “Well, just call him Jehovah. That is what he is.” It does not matter. But God uses people. That matters; they got to their head.
I think about Ron Hamilton. We mentioned, I think, last Sunday, but he passed away. The funeral was yesterday. God used him so greatly. I mean, some of his songs, “Rejoice in the Lord,” it is just such a wonderful song. I grew up—how many of you grew up listening to Patch the Pirate Club? Yeah, I mean, you know, yeah. I mean, all those cassettes, they are just awesome. Patch the Pirate, I mean, he was my hero, you know. And I love it. How many grew up with “Misty Slipper River Race”? I mean, remember that came out? Man, that was the bomb.com when it came out. You know, I liked it, man. I still know it, you know. And but Patch and all that, you know, he is just a layman in the church. He worked in the music ministry as a church until he had a major trial. He had cancer in his eyes. Some of you probably know more details than I. And the Coopers’ daughter, Kelly, got saved through his ministry. But he got that cancer in his eye and had to take it out and had to wear that patch. And, you know, you wear a patch, well, they are going to point it out from time to time. You know, they are going to point it out from time to time. You know, I mean, they are just going to talk about it. So you might as well use it for the Lord. And God turned it into Patch the Pirate. And God just promoted his ministry and gave him influence, really in some ways around the world. And it came through tragedy, through trials. Boy, I would like influence in my day and time, and that is a God-given desire. The more often than not, that comes through trials.
I am thinking about a lady; she lost her child at birth, and it was just a tragic, just heartbreaking. And yet out of that, she turned it into ministry. And they say ladies that have lost their child come from all over just to spend some time with her. And God gave her influence. More often than not, that influence that comes through hard times—that is so often the road to God promoting and using you is…
You know, even fishing line is tested. 10 pound, 12 pounds, 14, 16, 18, 18, 20. Wow, because man, when you get that big old bass on there, you want to make sure that thing is tested. God’s most precious thing is people. And if he is going to use you in life, God tests us. And usually the path, that road to promotion, comes through testing.
Real quickly, would you look over in Psalm 75? Psalm 75, just briefly here tonight. I know when I say briefly, there comes a shockwave over the church when I say it. You notice it did not say it at the beginning because you would not believe me anyway. I am going to try to be short tonight, but we are working on it. Amen, we will see what happens. We are working on it. Psalm 75. Brother Chip tempted me right before service. He brought the cookies out. I said, “Man, we are going to preach for five minutes now. We have cookies afterwards,” you know. I knew what he was doing, you know. He is trying to get us to preach short, you know. But, hey, man, we are going to move right along. I am teasing, of course. Psalm 75. Look at Psalm 75. And would you look at verse number six? Psalm 75 and verse number six of God’s word. Notice what he says. He says, “For promotion cometh neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south.” He left something out. What do you leave out? “But God is the judge: he putteth down one, and setteth up another.”
The world and fleshly Christians look horizontal for promotion. They jockey for position. They are always kind of trying to maneuver and trying to somehow manipulate promotion from the world, but true promotion does not come from the south or the east or the west. It comes from God. What is amazing is how the world—and sometimes us fleshly Christians—will step over each other trying to get promotion. We will sell out; we will sell our standards down the road; we will lower everything just to get a little promotion somewhere. The root of it is, the problem is we think promotion is horizontal, but true promotion never comes here. God uses middlemen like Nebuchadnezzar, but true promotion does not come from a king with a lower ‘K’; it comes from the King.
This is such an important lesson if we get it in not just our head but in our heart: True promotion comes from the Lord. By the way, that will take away the temptation to be just in love with money. That will take that away. It will not be about an extra buck, extra buck. It will say, “Hey, Lord, what do you want?” Because at the end of the day, you are the one that gives me true promotion in my living of my life.
By the way, you can have a whole lot of money and not really be promoted. You can work day and night, night and day, and work your life away, and lose your marriage and your kids and the joy of life. True promotion—true promotion—your eyes on the Lord. He is the one. It comes from God. He puts down and he raises up.
I think about that verse. You know what? Psalm 127: “Except the Lord build the house, they labor in vain. Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain.” You say, “What about America? Does it have the hand of God on it?” I am for Christians being involved in politics. Praise the Lord, we are talking to Brother for the county coalition. I love it. Wonderful Christians need to be the light and salt in that arena. But friend, at the end of the day, it is going to be God that blesses America. We must be looking to the Lord. And by the way, when you look to the Lord, you want godliness in the political arena.
And, oh friend, you say, “Boy, we sometimes we fight and do everything to get a little bit of promotion in our home.” No. If true promotion comes to your home, your marriage, your status in the home, whatever it be—let me say this, I am trying to hurry along—let me just say this little point: If you get this, seek the Lord. Seek the Lord, not promotion. You seek him; he will change you where you are a little bit more worthy, if you will, to be promoted. He will grow you. “Delight thyself also in the Lord, and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart.” We have talked about it. It does not mean he gives you whatever you want. It means you change your heart, and your heart is not set on all these fleshly things. Your heart is set on God’s agenda. And God says, “Hey, you have been delighting in me, and now I will change your heart where it fits so I can give you what you want.” By the way, that is the next verse, verse 5. So I am going to say, oh, friends, seek the Lord, not promotion.
And I mean, we are just going to end with this: the ultimate of God’s promotion. Praise the Lord, we do not have to worry about that. I mean, if you are a born-again Christian, you are washed in the blood of the Lamb, you have been saved, you are a child of God, you have been to the cross, you are trusting fully in Jesus—friend, you can be assured, praise the Lord, promotion day is coming one day. And boy, that is the true promotion. I would rather be a pauper down here living in a little hut and barely getting by, driving an old ragged, two-tone car—you know what two-tone is? The hood discolored from the junkyard, the trunk is another color from the junkyard, and the side rails are, you know—I would rather drive all that and go to heaven and have God’s blessing than have all the cars and houses and die and go to hell. That comes in heaven.
But you know, is it not interesting? In some ways, that promotion comes from the ultimate trial, too: death. I mean, unless the Lord comes back and we bypass that, it could be. Signs are there. But if the Lord tarries, we will get that promotion through the death of our body and out of our soul.
Yeah. I thought it was so fitting just to finish this way. This barred last night—I thought about Brother Larry. Brother Larry leaving, singing—Miss Barb always over there. They are a team. And Brother Larry, he never could—I do not think I ever saw one time sing that song or lead that song, “What are they that will be? My Jesus, I shall see without him shedding tears.” Every time they are shedding tears. By the way, he is seeing Jesus. He has got a promotion. He has the Lord. He will get his reward. Judges you to Christ. Hey friend, promotion does not come from this horizontal way. We want to blame everybody and everything. It comes from the Lord. By the way, typically God’s road to promotion comes from trials. Pray, Lord, I think of little Brother Larry. He has got his promotion today. Would you bow your head and close your eyes, friend, would you?
Original File: Pastor Paul Chisgar - - The Road To True Promotion - Sunday PM 04302023