Forward to Zion: Ohio Hometown Camp Meeting 2014: Accountability

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Forward to Zion

Stevie Stennis

Who Are You?

Dear Heavenly Father, thank you, Jesus, for bringing us to this camp meeting.

And we pray, Heavenly Father, as we look at the Word of God, the examples that you have given us, that we will follow suit and hide me behind the cross so that Jesus and Jesus only can be seen.

All right, let's see how many young people we got here.

How many of you in this auditorium are ages, oh, and I see an infant back there, from the ages of infancy all the way up to 18 years old.

Okay, we've got 1, 2, the infant, 34567, okay, wonderful, 8.

It's good to see young people here at Camp Meeting too, David.

It's just not people with gray hair like me and you.

And so coming to Camp Meeting and seeing young people excites me because our young people are the ones who will be carrying forward this message and so we need to give them opportunity we need to give them time as well to be able to present for God and to show forth God's glory.

So I have a volunteer that is going to help me, but before I call my volunteer to the front, the message that I am bringing forth today, and it's listed in your bulletin, is entitled, Who Are You?

And you'll understand what that's all about in a little bit, but I'm going to call my friend that I met for the first time.

And some of you may know my young friend for the first time that I've met and this is a little David right here.

So it's great to finally meet 1 of David's kids.

And so what you're going to do, and I'm going to give you the microphones because see, they're recording this, and we want people to be able to hear the story that you're going to tell.

So I will disconnect, and I will place and stand beside the young man here while he gives you some of the backdrop of the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

So Daniel's friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they were told to worship Nebuchadnezzar's idol, which he had in a dream, but he didn't want it to be all just more than 1 kingdom, so he made it all gold for his kingdom.

But they didn't bow down to the idol, and they were arrested, and the king gave him another chance, but they told him that they weren't, he, they told him that they wouldn't bow down, so he put them in the furnace.

But when he looked in the furnace, he saw Jesus in there too.

And so he changed the rule that everyone is to worship the God that they worship.

That young man told the story better than I could and we did not even rehearse this.

I simply asked him if he would be willing to come forward and to tell that story and he said yes.

The Bible says David trained up a child in a way that they should go and when they're old, they will not depart from it.

So praise the Lord what you and your wife have been doing for your children and the family.

Sermon title, once again, or the subject that we're looking at is who are you?

And basically this story that little David talked to us about today is the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

And it seems evident to me that they knew exactly who they were and they knew exactly who's they were.

So when you open your Bible and you look over in the book of Daniel chapter 3, Daniel chapter 3 is where you will find the story obviously is throughout the whole chapter of Daniel chapter 3, but for sake of time, probably verses 16 through 18, first section, and then verses 19 through 25 in the finality of the portion that I would be looking at is what we are concentrating on.

But just a little earlier perhaps, illustration as to these young men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, when they were placed in an environment that was different than their own, different than their upbringing.

And today, when we look at our camp meeting theme, it's talking about accountability.

I can, in my mind's eye, I can see these young Hebrew boys, these young individuals, Daniel included, and their early upbringings and their mother and their fathers teaching them how they should carry themselves and how they should respect God.

I don't believe that they were just planted in Babylon and then while they were in Babylon, that is when they finally met God and accepted God into their lives.

But this was something that started off from the time that they were small children.

So by the time they arrived in Babylon, they were already set in their path that they were going to follow Christ Jesus no matter what come.

Come what may, I'm going to follow the dictates of God.

And as was so wonderfully told by little David right here, the decree had gone that everybody, when you hear the sound of the music that would be played, you were to bow to the golden image that Nebuchadnezzar had set up.

And there were people, spies out there, who were looking because I believe that individuals there in the hierarchy of Babylon knew that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego would not bow.

This was not the first time that they were tested.

You know how they were when they got to Babylon earlier on, and the king would have all of his wise men to eat from his table, And his table contained the best of the food, so they said.

And so on the table, I'm sure that Nebuchadnezzar had for himself and for his wise men, they probably had some lobster on the table and some shrimp on the table, and they probably had Mr.

But, you know, these young men knew that that's something that they should not partake of.

And you, in your early life, as perhaps you have grown up in Christian homes, hopefully your mothers and fathers as well, have given you examples, have given you indications as to how God wants you to order your life.

And I remember as a child, when I was baptized, I believe I was about 12 years of age, and the baptismal vows meant something, they really did.

They were plentiful, but they meant something.

And the Bible worker would sit down with us children, and she would go over this and that and the other.

And I could not help but to remember in my baptismal vows, David, where it talked about if I'm going to stand up and represent God and I'm taking these vows, then I need to be sure about what I put in my body, what I eat.

And so, from a child on, I decided, Yeah, I'm going to stay away from those foods that we're supposed to stay away from.

I'm going to look at Deuteronomy and I'm going to eat what Christ Jesus would want me to eat.

And looking at my baptismal vows and seeing that it indicated that I'm not supposed to put in my body alcoholic beverages.

I'm not supposed to place in my body illicit drugs.

I took those things seriously, as I'm sure you did as a child also.

And so when they found themselves in this situation, the Bible lets us know what happened.

And so just looking at chapter 3, verses 16 through 18, I'll read that for you.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and answered and said, O king Nebuchadnezzar, we're not careful to answer thee in this matter.

After they had been ratted off by some of the officials in Babylon that they did not bow down to the image that was set up.

And so they were called in front of Nebuchadnezzar and this is their response in verse 17.

If it be so, our God whom we serve, he's able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O King.

But be it known, but if not, Be it known unto thee, O King, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the image, the golden image, which thou hast set up.

These young men, as we see, they were accountable to God at all costs.

They knew that God was capable of delivering them from the furnace that would be their final, I would say, resting place, but their final crematory place.

But they rested upon the confidence that if God did not deliver them from this place, that they were going to stand true to what God had called them to do.

And then we go forward and we read verse 19.

Then was Nebuchadnezzar full of fury And the form of his visage was changed against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

Therefore he spake and he commanded that they should heat the furnace 1 7 times more than it was want to be heated.

And he commanded the most mighty men that were in his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and to cast them into the burning fiery furnace.

Sometimes folks, when you stand up for God's Word, sometimes when you remain true to God and the conviction that he's placed into your hearts and into your mind, Satan is angry and it is Satan's decision that he will try to bind us and that he will try to throw us and cast us into an awful situation just as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were thrown into.

Have you ever been in a situation where you were asked to compromise your principles, to go against something that you knew that your heart, that Christ Jesus was telling you not to do.

But have you ever been in a situation where it was a life and death compromise?

Because some of us say, well, you know what, if the compromise is not too stiff, if it is not life-threatening, perhaps I'll go over.

But this was a life-threatening decision that they needed to make.

And when we continue on in the story of what happened and he commanded that this furnace be heated 7 times more than before.

Verse 21 says, then these men were bound in their coats, and they were in their hats and their other garments, and they were cast in the midst of the burning fiery furnace.

Therefore, because of the king's command was urgent that the furnace was exceedingly hot and the flame slew these men that took up Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.

And these 3 men, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, they fell down bound into midst of the burning fiery furnace.

They were cast into this awful situation.

So they had made a decision, you know, I'm not going to compromise.

I'm going to stay true to what God has called me to do.

I am going to be accountable to the King of King and to the Lords of Lord, and I am not going to bow to this image.

The Bible says as they were thrown in there that the mighty men were slain by the intensity of the heat.

Sometimes what people do, individuals who don't necessarily believe in the Word of God, they will look at Instances like this in the book of Job and they will say, this is a wonderful analogy.

This is a story, an illustration so that when people read the Bible, they can understand the importance of obeying God.

That's all right, I'll speak a little bit louder.

Well I don't need to speak louder, it's back.

Who Are You?

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