The following sermon was presented by the Reverend John W. Howe, Rector of Truro Episcopal Church in Fairfax, Virginia, on January 15, 1989. The title is, But If Not, and the scripture reference is the book of Daniel, chapter 3, verses 1, 4-6, 8, and 12-14. 

The quotation of C.S. Lewis, used by Mr. Howe, is from an essay titled, The Efficacy of Prayer, from the collection of essays named, The Advent Papers. 

A reading from the book of Daniel, the third chapter, Selected Verses. King Nebuchadnezzar made an image of gold whose height was 60 cubits and its breadth 6 cubits. He set it up on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon.

And the herald proclaimed aloud, You are commanded, O peoples, nations, and languages, that when you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, bagpipe, and every kind of music, you are to fall down and worship the golden image that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up. and whoever does not fall down and worship shall immediately be cast into the burning fiery furnace. At that time certain Chaldeans came forward and maliciously accused the Jews.

There are certain Jews whom you have appointed over the affairs of the province of Babylon, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. These men, O king, pay no heed to you. They do not serve your gods or worship the golden image which you have set up.

then Nebuchadnezzar in furious rage commanded that Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego be brought then they brought these men before the king Nebuchadnezzar said to them is it true, O Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego that you do not serve my gods or worship the golden image which I have set up? Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego answered the king O Nebuchadnezzar we have no need to answer you in this matter if it be so our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace and he will deliver us out of your hand O king but if not be it known to you O king that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image which you have set up Then Nebuchadnezzar was full of fury, and the expression of his face was changed against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. He ordered the furnace heated seven times more than it was wont to be heated.

The word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. I was specifically asked to preach on the passage that we heard a moment ago read from the book of Daniel. last week when I was at All Souls Church in Jacksonville. I don't usually let other people pick my topics for me, but they asked if I would, and actually they couldn't have picked something that I would have preferred because I think, first of all, it is enormously important.

It's an area where I myself have been wrestling a good deal of late, and secondly, I think that there is so much bad teaching. on the very subject that that passage deals with, bad in the sense of unbalanced teaching within the church today, especially in renewal circles. Teaching that goes by a variety of names.

You've heard it referred to perhaps as the faith teaching or the prosperity teaching or seed faith teaching. There are all kinds of phrases. name it and claim it, use it or lose it.

What you say is what you get. Confess it and possess it. Doubt it and go without it.

You've heard some of these phrases, right? There is an element, a very important element of truth in every one of those phrases. And I want to acknowledge that.

You know what, heresy? Heresy is truth taken out of context or truth that has gone unbalanced. I don't want to say there's an element of truth there.

But when you make it an absolute, I think you risk some very serious consequences. If it becomes the teaching that it is always God's will for his children to be healthy, successful, rich, I think we're in trouble. It's a kind of Christianized Pollyannaism that says God's in his heaven and all's right with those who know and trust him.

So, for instance, if you are sick, simply go to the Bible, find some of the passages that say such things as, By his stripes we are made whole, and begin to confess that. By his stripes I am healed right now. I may still manifest the symptoms, but I am healed.

and I just confess it until it becomes a reality in my life. You've run into that teaching, haven't you? It's made its inroads everywhere.

In one sense, the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego puts us at a great disadvantage because, first of all, we know the ending. We know the story so well, and we know how it comes out. And it turns out very well.

Very well indeed. It may seem, in fact, at first, to prove the very thing that I'm troubled about. These three young men put their trust in a mighty God and he delivers them, he saves them, he destroys the enemy.

We know the end of the story. And precisely because we do, it may be very difficult to get back into the story to the point of tension and conflict. The reality of what they had to struggle with.

The terror, the horror of what they had to go through in order to get to the end of the story. We know our God is able to save us. But if not, but if not, we're still going to serve Him anyway.

Can you say that? We know our God is able to deliver us. But if not, so many of the stories in the scriptures are like that they turn out well thank God they turn out well and we know that they turn out well and we rejoice in the way they turn out and it encourages us but maybe to the point that it's hard for us to get back into the middle of the story at the point of struggle Abraham taking Isaac up the steep slopes of Mount Moriah knowing that God himself is able to provide a sacrifice Abraham knows that Isaac says I see the wood but where's the sacrifice and Abraham says to him God is able to provide the sacrifice he knows that but if not but if not Jacob going back to face his brother Esau whom he had defrauded years before hoping that somehow Esau will forgive him you know that story where Jacob sends ahead of him a whole caravan of presents, one after another.

Finally, his kids and his wives go to kind of prepare the way with Esau. Maybe he'll receive me. Maybe he'll forgive me.

But if not, the story turned out well. But if not, or Joseph's brothers having to face him, now that he's become the vice regent of all Egypt years, years after they had sold him into slavery. They have to face him hoping that he'll be magnanimous toward them because of his love for their father and maybe he'll find forgiveness in his heart.

And he does. The story turned out well. But if not, David going up against the Philistine giant Goliath the little five stones from the brook and a slingshot, knowing, proclaiming, the God of Israel is able to deliver us from this Philistine.

But if not, you see what I'm saying? We know how the story turned out. Wonderfully.

Can you get back into the point of saying, but if not, I'll trust him anyway. Daniel, going into the den of lions, ravenous lions, going in there alone, trusting God. Esther, knowing that to approach King Ahasuerus unbidden, uninvited, could mean her death.

She's willing to go face him in order to plead for the Jewish people, and she hopes that the king will welcome her. But if not... Or Jesus himself, praying in the Garden of Gethsemane, Father, if it be possible, please let this cup pass from me.

But if not, did you notice something different about that one? All the others turned out well. The prayers were answered, the requests were granted, the enemies were defeated, and they all lived happily ever after.

But Jesus' most urgent personal prayer request was not granted. The cup did not pass from him. He had to face betrayal, false accusation, the miscarriage of justice, mockery, beating, crucifixion, and terrible death, and in the midst of all that, abandonment by God himself.

My God, why have you forsaken me? That, by itself, that most pivotal event in all of our history seems to me to give the lie to any simplistic or one-sided faith teaching. C.S. Lewis put it this way, he said, When God becomes man, that man of all others is least comforted by God at his greatest need.

There is a mystery here which, even if I had the power, I might not have the courage to explore. Meanwhile, little people like you and me, if our prayers are sometimes granted beyond all hope and probability, we had better not draw hasty conclusions to our own advantage. If we were stronger, we might be less tenderly treated.

If we were braver, we might be sent with far less help to defend far more desperate posts in the great battle. Prayers are answered. Aren't you glad?

God does heal sick bodies. Aren't you glad? The day of miracles isn't over.

Praise his name. But if not, Oswald Chambers put it even more succinctly. He said, if it was God's will to bruise his own son, why should he not bruise you?

Some of you can't take that word. I know it. But we'd better face up to it sooner or later.

If it was God's will to bruise his own son, doesn't he have the right, if he chooses, to take my bruises into his plan, even though I might not understand it? I have a very dear friend in another part of the country who, it seems, is dying of cancer. He's gotten into a church that with every good intention has tried to encourage him and his family to believe that it's God's will for him to be healed, and he may yet be.

And I'm praying with them that he will be, but at this point, All the signs seem to suggest the opposite. And as his strength and health and vitality have continued to deteriorate, these same very well-meaning Christians have turned their encouragement into a kind of accusation. You're not being healed because you don't have enough faith.

Just feel what that has to feel like to that man's young children. who are very clearly getting the message your daddy is dying because you don't have enough faith. You've failed him.

You are killing your daddy. And at the very point where the church of Jesus Christ needs to come alongside and be a comfort and a source of consolation, it becomes a vehicle of condemnation. We need to be very careful about this, friends.

Not for one moment do I want to discourage anybody for praying and looking for God to do wonderful things and heal sicknesses. But if not, but if not, in the middle of that great 11th chapter of the book of Hebrews, a sort of hall of fame of the heroes of the Old Testament, success story after success story and victory after victory just briefly alluded to. You know the chapter in the middle of it.

Hebrews 11. It says this. And what more shall I say?

For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, received promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword, won strength out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to fight, to flight. Women received their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release that they might rise again to a better life.

Others suffered mockery and scourging and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned. They were sawn in two.

They were killed with a sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, ill-treated, of whom the world was not worthy. The problem wasn't that they didn't have enough faith.

Wandering over deserts and mountains and in dens and caves of the earth, and all these, though well attested by their faith, did not receive what was promised. We know. We know our God is able to save us.

But if not, be it known to you, O King, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image which you have set up. I believe the Lord is looking for men and women like that. Men and women who are in this thing for His sake, not primarily for what they're going to get out of it.

I've been wrestling with that in a very personal way. Some of you can't imagine what I'm talking about because you know I've just been elected bishop and what a great honor that is. I want to tell you something.

It is a great honor. To me, what it feels like is, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me. But if not.

And I think that's where we need to get to. That we need to be willing to go where he wants us to go, to do what he wants us to do, to be what he wants us to be, whatever the consequences. And if it's costly, it's costly.

And if there are sacrifices to be made, there are sacrifices to be made. And if there's a loss of creature comforts, we absorb that. And if there's a battle to be waged, we're willing to fight it.

Or are there strings attached? At the end of the last service, a lady came up to me and said, I carry this in my Bible all the time and I wanted to share it with you. It says, When we read the story of Daniel, the question cannot but come to our minds, what if the lions had devoured him?

The answer is still the same. He still would have won. The important thing is not the deliverance, but God's will.

It was not God's will that Jesus be delivered. They nailed him to a cross. It was not God's will for Stephen to be delivered.

They beat out his life with stones. It was not God's will that Paul be delivered. The executioner on the Ostian Way outside Rome cut off Paul's head.

When you visit the Colosseum in Rome, remember in that place, thousands of Christians were fed to the lions. Sometimes it is not God's will that the Christian be delivered, but it is God's will that we should have a triumphant life. You get it?

We know our God is able to deliver us. But even if he doesn't, I'm his. I'm going to close with a little vignette.

Some of you have heard it before because it happened right here a number of years ago. There was a word of prophecy at a prayer and praise service one night. Something like this.

There is someone here who has been compromising on your job. Your employer, your boss has been asking you to do things that you know wound and hurt the heart of Jesus and you've been going along for the sake of your job and the Lord would say to you, stop doing that. Strong word.

And a woman came up to me a couple of weeks afterward and she said, that word was for me. She said, that's exactly what was going on. She didn't go into details and I didn't want her to, but she said, that was for me.

And I went to my boss and I told him, I'm not going to do that anymore. And he fired me on the spot. And when his boss heard about it, he fired him and I got the job.

But if not, D.L. Moody had a saying for his life. The world has yet to see what God can do with one man, one woman, fully dedicated to him.

And with God's help, I hope to be that man. Let's bow our heads together. Lord Jesus, you meet our needs so wonderfully beyond what we can hope or imagine.

And we confess you to be a great and good Lord. I ask you to help me to get to the place where even more than I care about your provision, I care about you. Amen.