Courageous
Scripture: Daniel 3
Sermon on the centrality of courage as a character trait. Text: Daniel 3.
Key Quote: “Courage is not simply one of the virtues, but the form of every virtue at the testing point, which means at the point of highest reality. A chastity or honesty or mercy which yields to danger will be chaste or honest or merciful only on conditions. Pilate was merciful till it became risky.” CS Lewis
3 Some time later, king Nebuchadnezzar built a golden statue, making it 60 cubits[a] high and six cubits[b] wide. He set it up in the Dura Valley[c] within the province of Babylon. 2 Then King Nebuchadnezzar summoned the regional authorities,[d] governors, deputy governors, advisors, treasurers, judges, magistrates, and all of the other[e] administrators of the provinces, ordering them to come to the dedication of the statue that he[f] had erected.
3 So the regional authorities,[g] governors, deputy governors, advisors, treasurers, judges, magistrates, and all of the other[h] administrators of the provinces assembled to dedicate the statue that King Nebuchadnezzar had erected. They took their places in front of the statue that he[i] had erected. 4 Then a herald proclaimed aloud:
“People of all[j] nations, and languages are commanded: 5 Whenever you hear the sound of the trumpet, the flute, the lyre, the four-stringed lyre, and the harp, playing together along with various instruments, you are to fall down and worship the golden statue that was set up by King Nebuchadnezzar. 6 Anyone who does not fall down and worship is immediately to be thrown into the blazing fire furnace.”
7 Therefore, when all of the people “heard the sound of the trumpet, the flute, the lyre, the four-stringed lyre, and the harp, playing together along with various other[k] instruments,” all the “people, nations, and languages” began to fall down and worship the golden statue that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up.