Against The Flow: Conviction in a Tolerant World

Pastor Dennis Miller | June 7, 2026

I want to start with a story that has nothing to do with the Bible and everything to do with what I’m going to say.

A husband from Minnesota — and if you’ve ever been to Minnesota in winter, you already understand where this is going — decides to head down to Florida early while his wife ties up a few loose ends at home. Sweet plan. Before she flies down to meet him, he fires off a text to let her know he’s arrived safely, everything’s ready, can’t wait to see her. Classic husband move.

Except he sends it to the wrong number.

The woman who receives it had just walked out of her husband’s funeral.

And the text says, “My loving wife, I’ve arrived safely. Everything has been prepared for your arrival tomorrow. P.S. It sure is hot down here.”

I told that story Sunday morning and I’ll stand by it — it’s funny and a little haunting at the same time. But here’s why I told it: I wanted to talk about four guys who were in some serious heat of their own. Not Florida heat. Not even the metaphorical kind. Literal fire. And they not only survived — they came out the other side without even smelling like smoke.

You probably know them: Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. I learned about them in vacation Bible school, and I’ve been telling this story ever since. But the older I get, the more I realize just how much is packed into it.

Here’s the setup. These four young men — the best and brightest from Jerusalem, genuinely gifted guys, the kind who would have cleaned up on any reality show you can name — were taken as captives to Babylon. Not their choice. And King Nebuchadnezzar had a very specific plan for them: three years of full immersion in Babylonian culture, Babylonian food, Babylonian education. He even changed their names. Their Hebrew names all carried a reference to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Every time someone called them by name, they were reminded of who they were and whose they were. Nebuchadnezzar wanted to change that. He was essentially asking, Who’s your daddy now?

It’s not so different from what happens when our kids leave for college, is it? Mom and dad are a long way from home. The party starts at 8 in the morning on game day. I spent seven years in Athens, Ohio — I know what I’m talking about. The pressure is real, it’s constant, and it’s not always obvious when it’s reshaping you.

So what did Daniel do? Verse 8 is one of my favorite verses in all of Scripture: “But Daniel was determined.” He drew a line in his heart ahead of time. He refused to eat the king’s food — we don’t know exactly why, but he’d already decided before the pressure hit. And that’s the first thing I want you to hear: people with convictions draw the line before the test arrives. Because if you don’t decide ahead of time, the pressure will decide for you.

Think about it this way. Nobody plans for an affair on their wedding day. It doesn’t start with a dramatic moment of betrayal. It starts with one conversation, one coffee, one secret from your spouse. The slippery slope is real, and the guardrails have to go up before you’re anywhere near the edge.

That’s what Daniel understood. That’s what all four of them understood.

Fast forward to chapter 3, and things have escalated considerably. Nebuchadnezzar — and I say this with the full weight of the diagnosis — is an egomaniac. He’s had a 90-foot gold statue of himself built on the plains of Dura, and the law is simple: when the music plays, you bow. Everybody bows. Except Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

Now, I want to point something out here, because I think it’s easy to miss. When these three stood before the king and refused to bow, they weren’t red-faced and yelling about it. They called him your majesty — twice. They were respectful. Gracious. Firm, but not ugly about it. Colossians 4 says it plainly: “Let your conversation be gracious and attractive.”They embodied that.

That matters to me, and it should matter to all of us. The goal of a follower of Jesus is not to win the argument. It’s to win the person. You can be right and still be wrong if you speak truth without love. I’ve seen it. You’ve seen it. And it’s one of the things I’m most grateful for about Ginghamsburg — we hold both. Truth and grace. We don’t water down the gospel, and we don’t weaponize it either.

I’ll be honest with you. I had a small moment like this in graduate school. I was studying Eastern religions and our group visited a Zen Buddhist school in inner-city Chicago. At the end, the teacher invited us to bow to a small golden Buddha as we exited — part of their custom, he explained, just a way to humble yourself. Some of my friends and I looked at each other and said, We’re not going to do that. Not in a rude way. We just said respectfully, That’s not who we are. It wasn’t a fiery furnace. I know that. But the principle was the same.

Nebuchadnezzar, not exactly impressed by their response, ordered the furnace cranked up seven times hotter than normal and had the three men thrown in. And then — this is the part I’ve loved since I was a kid in VBS — he looked in and said, Wait. Didn’t we throw three men in? I see four. And the fourth one looks like a god.

They came out without a single singed hair. Without the smell of smoke.

Here’s what I want you to take with you: if you’re in the fire right now, you are not in there alone. There is a fourth man in the fire with you. Whether that was an angel, a pre-incarnate Christ, or God himself — the text doesn’t pin it down, and I don’t think it needs to. The point is clear. God walks with his people in the fire.

And I’ll close with this. John Adams — second president of the United States, patriot through and through — agreed to defend British soldiers after the Boston Massacre of 1770. The city was furious. His law practice took a hit. But he believed that justice had to apply even to people the crowd didn’t like. He later called it one of the best pieces of service he ever rendered to his country. Why? Because facts are stubborn things, and preserving principle matters more than preserving your applause.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego feared God more than they feared Nebuchadnezzar. John Adams feared violating his conscience more than he feared the mob.

In an anything-goes world, those are the people who change the narrative.

Draw the line. Hold it with grace. And remember — you’re not in the fire alone.