But If Not

I was reading today in Daniel 3 where King Nebuchadnezzar was threatening the Three Hebrews and something caught my eye. The king "said if you do not worship my idol I will have you thrown in the fire and who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?” And their reply was simple, they said our God is ABLE to deliver us and He will deliver us out of your hand. Wow what faith! They declared that they were going to trust God to take care of them in the heat of the battle. But that's not what caught my attention. The first three words in verse 18 are "But if not". Now wait a minute, they just declared their faith in God to deliver them right? Then why make such a negative statement like "but if not"? You see the truth is that regardless of how much faith we have in God, there are still going to be trials we have to endure. Just because we pray for God to fix our problems doesn't always mean that God IS going to fix them. These three Hebrews said, we believe God is able and is going to deliver us "BUT" even if He doesn't we will not compromise what’s right even if it cost us our lives. Now we all know that God did deliver them but they were prepared to suffer through it if they had to. Now that's faith! Will you be faithful when your "but if not" moment comes? Even if God doesn't heal your marriage, body, or finances, will you still devote your life to Him?

I will be preaching this sermon on January 2nd at 11am. Hope to see you there!