Recently I reread the story of the three men in the fiery furnace from Daniel Chapter 3, because I am observing that this world is absolutely full of "gold statues" and I wanted to review what God has to say about them. In this account, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon erects a 90 foot tall gold statue and commands all the leaders of all the nations to dance in front of it when the music plays, or they will die.

Consider this: Nebuchadnezzar had enough gold to make a statue 9 feet wide and 90 feet tall! Some scholars think it was a statue of himself, but those are odd measurements for a man. It was probably a gigantic statue of Nebuchadnezzar's penis. Not even joking, that was a thing back then--and still is today if you consider the Washington monument in DC and many other obelisks worldwide.

Why on earth would Nebuchadnezzar want a statue that tall of his penis? And why on earth do we need one of George's?

I try to empathize with Nebuchadnezzar but I can't. Even if I had enough gold to build a penis that huge I wouldn't do it. Rather, I would mint my gold into coins and go on a shopping spree! Nebuchadnezzar didn't do that. He knew that his gold had more value not as money but as a "magnet of people's attention." If he could get people to worship his penis, then he would have their minds, their hearts, and their labor lined up like iron filaments under a magnet's attention, or like sperm in his testicles ready for deployment. Nebuchadnezzar knew that the enslaved hearts of the nations were worth way more to him than a dragon's pile of gold coins, which is what he would have had if he had minted his gold instead.

I am currently viewing many of the choices put before us Americans as gold statues they want us to dance in front of. We are told for example, to dance along with the TikTok nurses.

If we don't dance to the jabba jabba ding dong song, we could die of covaids! But if we do dance we have access to travel, work, restaurants, etc. Hegelian Dialectic rinse and repeat. Examples of this in our lives go all the way back to kindergarten when they told us Santa is watching to see if we've been naughty or nice. They've plunged their claws into our minds with a Santa clause that doesn't exist. Most children soon realize that Santa is not real. Nevertheless every year grown up children worships Santa by dancing to his beat on Black Friday. Rinse and Repeat.

I don't like these rides at the American Carnival anymore. I want to get off. I want to make my own choices for my life, as God designed me to do. I don't want to be driven by fake fear designed to enslave me. And the only thing stopping me from getting off the carousel is me. Only my fear keeps me on.

Shadrack, Meshack, and Abednego were not afraid. They refused to dance, and when Nebuchadnezzar threw them into the furnace, they did not burn up or die. God sent his angel to protect them. The very last verse of the chapter says that Nebuchadnezzar promoted the three men, which shows just how much the world does not understand the children of God. Previously, they hadn't even wanted the king's food. Why would they now want his promotions?

Every time I worship a gold statue in this world, I am proving that I am relying on it for my blessings instead of God. I'm looking for the world's promotions. And it really is so much easier to rely on gold penis statues. God never says, "On this date and this time, you will receive this blessing." But the world offers us these sorts of contracts all the time because we like to know the blessing in advance. "Work this many hours, get this much pay." "Get jabbed, get these accoutrements." etc etc etc And the more I bow down to them in fear the less I trust God.

I'm done with all that. I know where dancing to the rhythm of lies will get me. I'm relying on God and not on a government that is proven to lie and manipulate and brainwash its own people. I am going sideways to culture. I am doing my own thing, as God intended for me to do, with God's blessing. Which is why I am creating art and posting it on my webpage. To God's glory!

The problem is, art can sometimes feel meaningless--as any pursuit on this earth can.

Prior to reading Daniel I was reading the book of Ecclesiastes. In this book Solomon declares all pursuits meaningless. Like for example, all the art I am making will burn up one day. Nevertheless Solomon ends his book saying, "This is the conclusion of the matter. Everything has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments. For mankind, this is everything" (Ecclesiastes 12:13 - EHV). I think what Solomon is getting at is that we are in a realm where everything is meaningless but! God is the one who put us here and nothing God does is ever meaningless. So don't look at being here as meaningless, even though this realm is meaningless. We have a purpose in this meaningless realm, namely, to fear God and keep his commandments. So I fear God, who fearfully and wonderfully made me and forgives me, and I use the gifts he gave me to bring him honor in my own way. I make art. And avoid gold penises.