We’ve seen it, the gold-plated 22-foot statue erected at the Trump Doral Golf Club, blessed by one of his court priests, evangelical pastor Mark Burns, paid for by the Presidents Crypto Bros. The pose is his defiant hand raised at the presumed assassination attempt.
Another day at the office.
The kings of ancient Israel and Judah were not often so good, sometimes positively wicked. I like the biblical word “wicked” to describe human evil. We need no devil for that. Most kings had a cultus of priests reminding the people of the God-like stature of the king.
Stephen Shoemaker
This parade of kings prepared them well for Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar when they were dragged off into Babylonian captivity. He erected a giant golden statue of himself and commanded the citizens bow down to it, the penalty of not doing so being thrown into a fiery furnace.
It was reported to the king that three Jewish young men had refused to bow down: Shadrach, Meshah and Abednego. They had learned in the Ten Commandments, “Thou shalt have no other gods before me,” and faithfulness meant not bending their knees to the golden statue.
The king was furious and called the three before him and said, “Is it true that you will not worship the golden image? If you are now ready to go ahead and bow down to it, I’ll let bygones be bygones, but if you refuse, into the fiery furnace you will go.”
In one of the great moments of faith and faithfulness in the Bible, the three young men replied: “If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace; and he will deliver us from your hand. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods and worship them!”
“God did deliver them, but they were willing to die for their faith.”
“But if not!”
God did deliver them, but they were willing to die for their faith. When Pastor Mark Burns led the holy blessing of the golden statue, he defended himself against the accusation that the statue was the golden calf Moses’ brother led the Hebrew people rescued from slavery to worship. But he missed the real text that condemned his actions.
Later in the Daniel story, the king has a disturbing dream about a great tree being cut down. He calls Daniel in and asks him to interpret the dream. Daniel, being faithful to God and not the king, says the tree was him, the king.
The king went on with the dream: The stump of the tree had its human heart turned into a beast’s heart. He ate grass from the fields with the oxen, got wet with the dew of heaven, his hair grew long and matted and his nails grew long like a bird’s.
Daniel could have weaseled out at that point, but he went on.: That’s what’s in store for you, he said. You’ve gotten so used to being treated like a God, you’ve started believing you are one!
And so it happened. Nebuchadnezzar went insane for a while and took a medical leave of absence. In an American church all too eager to bow down to our false gold-leaf king, God is raising up Daniels unafraid to tell the truth.
Thus endeth the lesson.
Stephen Shoemaker most recently served as pastor of Grace Baptist Church in Statesville, N.C. He previously served as pastor of Myers Park Baptist in Charlotte, N.C.; Broadway Baptist in Fort Worth, Texas; and Crescent Hill Baptist in Louisville, Ky.