Then King Nebuchadnezzar leaped to his feet in amazement and asked his advisers, "Weren't there three men that we tied up and threw into the fire?"
They replied, "Certainly, Your Majesty." He said, "Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods." Daniel 3:24-25 [NIV]
This week we shall be following the readings from the book of Daniel. Daniel was a young man of noble blood who lived some six hundred years before Christ. He was exiled to Babylon when the kingdom of Judah fell in 605 BC. However, we shall start our week by looking at an incident that does not concern Daniel himself. Instead it concerns three of his friends Shadrach, Meschah and Abednego. Try saying that after a few pints!
Shadrach, Meschah and Abednego were given a simple choice by King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon: worship my gods or die. Their refusal to turn aside from the living God led to their death sentence. They were bound and thrown into a super heated furnace (kiln). Before sentence was passed on them they spoke boldly of their faith that God would rescue them - and sure enough a shining figure not only rescues them from the heat, but also allows them to walk in the midst of the flame unhurt. I want to make three brief point from this:
1) It was by faith that Shadrach, Meschah and Abednago proclaimed that God would rescue them. They had faith and not certainty. It's easy to forget the place of their faith and trust in God when reading the story having seen the end already.
2) God doesn't always rescue people in the way described here, that's why Nebuchadnezzar was surprised. More Christians have died for their faith in the last one hundred years than in the first four centuries of the Christian era put together. But sometimes God does intervene directly. Either way, God will be with you in the fiery furnace.
3) The emergence of Shadrach, Meschah and Abednego from the furnace had a profound effect on Nebuchadnezzar. He was a different kind of king after it. Who are the Nebuchadnezzars that you will face today?
Go and talk to God about them.
John Martin-Jones
Read the Bible in a year: Proverbs 29:1-9, Daniel 3:13-4:18, 2 Peter 2:1-22
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