Somewhere in the world … right now as I am speaking to you … a Christian has a gun pointed at their head because of what they believe. Somewhere in the world someone is going to lose their head or their life today because they refuse to give up their faith or deny Jesus Christ. Right now, as we are worshipping and praising Jesus … right out in the open without fear … some of our sisters and brothers in Christ are sitting in jail or being tortured because the police somehow found out that they were holding a Bible study in their home.
That used to sound so distant and unreal … something that was happening in some far-off country … but now it’s moving much closer to home. We have groups in our own country who are pulling down statutes and destroying historical sites and they have made it clear that churches and religious places are next. They’ve already attacked and vandalized an historic church in Washington, DC.
I’m not trying to sound like an alarmist, but we are dealing with a possible new reality … one that I never dreamed of happening here in the United States … which reveals something about me and my complacency. So far, being a Christian hasn’t really cost me very much … not really. Becoming a Christian was a decision that didn’t carry much danger … a little ridicule … a little ostracization, maybe … but not much in the way of actual sacrifice or the possible risk to life or limb. But … if these people carry out their threats … first it’s just statues and stained-glass windows … next it’s the actual church buildings themselves … and then it’s us. I pray to God that it never comes to that, but I also confess that I’ve gotten very comfortable with being a Christian because there hasn’t been any real risk in being a Christian to me personally. How many times have I heard Jesus say that His followers would be reviled and persecuted because of their faith and belief in Him? “If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you” (John 15:20). How many times did He tells His disciples that they would be betrayed “even by parents and brothers, by relatives and friends, and they will put some of you to death. You will be hated by all because of my name” (Luke 21:16-17). How many times did Jesus try to warn His disciples about the cost of following Him? Honestly, how many times have you or I had to truly consider the cost of following Him?
As your pastor, I feel a responsibility … a duty … to follow Jesus’ example and be up front and honest about the realities of being a follower of Jesus Christ with you. We have been blessed … very, very blessed so far … but one day it maybe you or me staring down the barrel of gun for what we believe. One day the politically correct police may do more that just mock us and or deride us or silence us on TV or Facebook or Twitter of YouTube. One day it may be illegal for us to carry a Bible around or hold Bible studies in our homes. One day we may have to ask ourselves: “Will I bend the knee to public pressure or will I stand tall and put it all on the line for what I believe?”
As I said, Jesus and the Bible are pretty clear about his. Becoming a Christian … standing up for what we believe … can have dire … even life-threatening … consequences. “Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth?” Jesus is asking you … asking me … and He gives us the answer … “No, I tell you, but rather division! From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three” (Luke 12:51-52).
Hananiah … Mishael … Azariah never thought that the Temple … the House of God … would ever be destroyed. That Jeru-salem … the city of God’s shalom … God’s peace …. would ever be reduced to rubble. They never thought that they would be led away in chains and forced to be slaves and servants in Babylon. They never thought that they would lose everything … their families … their homes … their friends … even their names … names give to them by their families … names that held special meaning for them … names that described their connection to the great God of Israel. Hananiah’s name meant “Jehovah was gracious.” Mishael’s name meant “God is our resemblance.” Azariah’s name meant “God is my helper.”
You see, for centuries it had been the custom of captors to change the names of their slaves as a way of disconnecting them from their past … their history … their heritage … and their hope of ever seeing their family or their home again. This was dramatically illustrated in the book and television series “Roots” when Kunta Kinte refused to change his name to “Toby” and why it was so important to his slave master that he did. When we don’t know our history, we lose our sense of connection to our past … to our families … to our traditions … our heritage … our homeland … when we lose those things, we lose hope. Think about how degraded and powerless you would feel if someone with authority came along and just took your name away and gave you another … zap! Just like that … whether you wanted them to or not.
Hananiah … whose name meant “Jehovah was gracious” … was changed to “Shadrach” … which, in Babylonian, means “Under the Command of the Moon God Aku.” Again, think about this. Every time that someone called Hananiah by name … “Hananiah” … he would be reminded of his connection to God. God was part of his name. And then to be called “Shadrach” … a reminder that he was now a slave to a pagan people every time he heard it … “Under the command of the moon god Aku.”
Mishael’s name meant “God is our resemblance.” His name was changed from Mishael to “Meshach” … which means “Who is like Aku” in Babylonian. He went from being reminded that he resembled the God of Israel to being called someone who resembled a pagan god.
Azariah’s name meant “God is my helper.” He would go from being reminded that God is his helper to being called “Abednego” … “a servant of the Babylonian gods.”
From “God is gracious” to “under the command of the moon god Aku.” From “God is our resemblance” to “Who is like Aku.” From “God is my helper” to “a servant of the Babylonian gods.” And yet, even though Jerusalem lay in ruins … it’s walls and towers destroyed … the gates ripped off their hinges … Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah knew that Jehovah was still gracious. Even though their families had been decimated or scattered, perhaps led off as slaves as they had been … Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah still believed that their lives could be a reflection of Jehovah. Even though they were being forced to serve their captors, they would never serve their gods.
The Babylonians were a pagan and polytheistic people who worshipped many gods. One of the unique features of Babylonian religion was its focus. Whenever a new king would ascend the throne, they would introduce a new god or gods … create a new order of worship … and institute new ways to practice their faith. In other words, they would switch gods when they switched kings. It might sound strange and confusing to us, but the Babylonian people were accustomed to this practice. As soon as a new king was appointed, they would drop the old god or gods and dutifully begin to worship the new god or gods chosen by the new king.
When King Nebuchadnezzar came into power, he erected a solid gold image on the pain of Dura … a province in Babylon. It was 60 cubits tall and 6 cubits wide. I know … what’s a “cubit”? By our measurements, the tower was 90 feet tall and nine feet wide. Imagine a nine-story tall golden needle standing in the middle of a vast, flat plain that could be seen from a very long ways off.
Nebuchadnezzar’s plan was to kill two political birds with one stone … or one god … if you will. The first was to unite his polytheistic empire under one god … symbolized by the towering gold monument. The other was to inspire tribute to himself … King Nebuchadnezzar, the “Golden King.” It was an attempt to unify his nation around a single religion with himself at the center of that religion.
Imagine getting this party invitation in the mail:
“Come to the Plain of Dura on Saturday, July 21st, and gather with us to meet the new king … and the new god of Babylon. There will be lots of food and celebrities … along with live music … so bring your appetite and your dancing shoes. P.S.: Any time you hear the music start playing, you must immediately stop whatever you are doing and begin worshipping the golden image of our new god or, by order of the new king, Nebuchadnezzar, you will be thrown into a furnace and burned alive. Hope to see you there … if not, we’ll come and find you.”
It is estimated that over 300,000 people gathered to worship the “Golden King” and to bow down before the golden monument to Babylon’s new god. Like all good subjects, once the music started to play they all obediently bowed down before King Nebuchadnezzar and his golden image … everyone that is, except … [pause] … Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah.
They may have lost their families … they may have lost their homes … all their possessions … even their Jewish names … but they never lost their love and their faith in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, amen? God’s laws were still deeply etched upon their hearts. One of them … carved on a stone tablet and brought down from Mt. Sinai by Moses commanded: “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them” (Exodus 20:4-5). For Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah that meant not even under the threat of death from some megalomaniacal king like Nebuchadnezzar.
It is hard for us to image the courage that it took for them to do that. Two hundred ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-seven subjects of the king … from the highest to the lowest … dutifully bow down to Nebuchadnezzar’s golden image … while you and your two friends stand there … sticking out like sore thumbs … three sore thumbs that are about to be burned alive.
Well … it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that word of this got back to the king … muy pronto! Nor is it difficult to imagine what King Nebuchadnezzar’s reaction was going be. Verse 19 says that Nebuchadnezzar heard about what Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah had done … well, more accurately, hadn’t done … and it says that Nebuchadnezzar was so filled with rage that his face was “distorted.” “Distorted” is putting it mildly. A more accurate interpretation of the scripture would be that his face was twisted into a mask of rage. These young men … slaves no less … had the nerve … the unmitigated gall … to openly disobey him … publicly … during one of the most significant and important ceremonies of his reign as the king of one of the most powerful kingdoms at the time. There were no words to describe their insolence and his indignation and rage … no excuse. “Fire up the furnace, boys! … make it good and hot … make it glow! … it’s time to make an example of these … these … well, just go get them and bring them to me!”
At this point, let’s take a look at how Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah’s faith in Jehovah gave them strength and courage in the face of such overwhelming adversity. First of all, their faith gave them the strength and courage to stand tall. In verse 15, King Nebuchadnezzar offered them a second chance. “Look here, boys,” he tells them, “all you have to do is go back out there and bow down to my golden statute when the music starts. Why are you making such a big deal out of this? Nobody else seems to be having any trouble following my orders. Just bow down and I’ll forget the whole thing. What’d ya say, huh?”
Nebuchadnezzar doesn’t make this offer because he respects the boys or have compassion on them. It’s a purely political move. If Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah back out … if they go out before everyone and bow down to the golden statute in public … it would make a powerful statement about the power and authority of Nebuchadnezzar’s new god over the God of Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah and it would make a powerful statement about Nebuchadnezzar’s power and authority over his subjects. It would be better for him to publicly break their wills than to have them celebrated as martyrs … although, throwing them into a super-heated furnace alive would make a pretty clear and powerful statement about what happens to anyone who disobeys or opposes him, amen? Besides, I suspect King Nebuchadnezzar would have had them thrown into the furnace any way, even if they went out and recanted of their sin, so to speak.
For Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah there was nothing to discuss. They didn’t need any time to think the matter over. “King Nebuchadnezzar,” they reply, “we don’t need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God that we serve may deliver us from the fire and from your hand … and He may not … that’s up to Jehovah. Either way, we’d rather die in a blaze of glory than live in shame because we betrayed our God” (Daniel 3:16-18; paraphrasing mine).
Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah’s faith in Jehovah gave them the strength to stand tall and to stand straight. When they told the king of the most powerful nation at that time that they refused to bow down to his demands and worship his god, they knew what Nebuchadnezzar would do. He would not bend and neither would they. Obeying Nebuchadnezzar meant disobeying God. Obeying God meant that they would be disobeying Nebuchadnezzar. For them, the choice was clear and they were ready to face the consequences of their decision no matter how hot Nebuchadnezzar made things for them, amen?
Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah’s faith in God gave them the strength to stand tall, to stand straight, and to stand firm. For Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah there was no doubt who was in control … the living God of Israel or some golden statute made by human hands. Nebuchadnezzar had the power of life and death over them, that’s true, but what power did a pile of metal have over them? Actually, as Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah pointed out to Nebuchadnezzar, the only one who really had power over them, including the power of life and death, was the living God of Israel. “If our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire … let Him deliver us. If we live, it’s because God wanted us to live. And if we die, then it was part of God’s plan that we die in your furnace. Either way, furnace or no furnace, our fate is totally, one hundred percent in the hands of our God and not in your hands, King Nebuchadnezzar, or some pile of junk that you erected out there in the plain of Dura” (Daniel 3:16-18; paraphrasing mine).
I want you to understand this. When they told King Nebuchadnezzar that they would rather defy him than disobey Jehovah, their strength didn’t come from some misguided hope that God would somehow pluck them from the flames. They said it knowing that they were absolutely going to be thrown into an incredibly hot furnace. Maybe God could change Nebuchadnezzar’s mind at the last minute and give them some royal pardon or reprieve … other than that, however, their fates were pretty well seared … I mean, sealed. They were pretty certain about what lay ahead but more importantly they knew who was right beside them and that gave them the strength to stand tall, to stand straight, and to stand firm.
One of the early church fathers … a man by the name of “Athanasius” … was a fervent champion for the doctrine of the deity of Christ. He fought a lot of battles with many powerful religious leaders because of his convictions. On one occasion, someone came to Athanasius and said to him: “Athanasius … the emperor is against you … the bishops are against you … the church is against you. In fact, the whole world is against you.” Without batting an eye, Athanasius replied: “Then I am against the whole world.” Like Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, the choice was obvious. If the choice is to go against God or to go against the world, the world loses every time … period! Amen? The phrase, “Athanasius against the whole world” became a slogan to describe a follower’s absolute and total confidence and commitment to God. Any Athanasius here today?
When Martin Luther was on his way to appear before King Charles the Fifth, the Roman Prelate, and the princes of the realm to hear if they were going to excommunicate him from the church or not, this is what he said: “My cause shall be commended to the LORD, for He lives and reigns, who preserved the three Hebrew children [Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah] in the furnace of the Babylon king. If He is unwilling to preserve me, my life is a small thing compared to Christ. Expect anything of me except flight or recantation. I will not flee, much less recant, so may the LORD Jesus strength me.” Martin Luther was excommunicated from the church that he loved and had given so much for.
The heart and soul of the Christian life has always been … is … and will always be … absolute obedience to God and His Word … an absolutely unbending obedience to His will, His plans, and His purposes for our lives. Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah refused to negotiate with Nebuchadnezzar … they didn’t have to discuss it among themselves … they didn’t have to ask for more time to think about it or pray about it.
Let me ask you … Are you committed to God like that? We often hear about how many evangelicals and Christians there are the world and in this country … which begs the question: If there are billions of evangelicals and Christians in the world and millions of evangelicals and Christians in the United States, then why is this country and this world in the sorry shape that it is now, hum? Howard Hendricks, a former professor at Dallas Theological Seminary, said that the reason we are making such a poor showing in the world is that the evangelical movement is 40 miles wide and only an eighth of an inch thick. Well, guess what, my brothers and sisters … the way things are going, we may find out just how wide and deep our commitment to God really is. We just might have the opportunity that these three young men got to find out if we have the courage and the confidence in God that Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah had. Does that frighten you? Or does it cause your heart to swell and say, “Bring it on, world! Do your best … for He who is in me is greater than he, she, or it that is in the world” … amen?!
Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah’s faith gave them the strength and the courage to stand tall, to stand straight, to stand firm, and to stand in the fire unscathed. Verse 22 says that Nebuchadnezzar was angry, so “hot,” that he ordered that the furnace be made seven times hotter than usual. Yikes! The furnace was so hot that the heat killed the soldiers who lifted up Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah to throw them into the fire. When Nebuchadnezzar looked in the furnace to admire his handiwork … well … the only way to explain it was the power of God. What he saw was three men walking about in the flames unscathed … but then he saw something even stranger than that. “Weren’t there three men that we tied up and threw into the fire?” he asked. His servants answered him: “Certainly, your majesty.” “Well, come over here and take a look. I see four men walking around in the fire, unburned and unharmed” (Daniel 3:24-25; paraphrasing mine). Nebuchadnezzar described the fourth man as the “son of the gods” … “gods” … plural … but we know who he saw, don’t we? He didn’t see the son of the gods but Jesus … “THE” Son … singular … of the Living God … singular.
Do you remember what God said to the Prophet Isaiah about experiences like this? In Isaiah 43:2, He told Isaiah that when the prophet passed through the waters, He … meaning God … would be with him; and when the prophet passed through the rivers, they would not sweep over him and drown him because He … God … would be with him; and when the prophet walked through fire, he would not be burned … why? Because God would be with him.
Have you ever passed through the waters and felt like God was holding you up so that you would not drown? Have you ever walked through rivers of trouble and they didn’t not sweep over you because God had a hold of your hand and wouldn’t let you get swept away? Have you ever been in the midst of the fires of hell and looked around and felt God’s Presence in the flames with you? Maybe it was when you were sick in the hospital. Maybe it was in the middle of a divorce. Maybe it was when your family was being torn apart by a crisis. Maybe it was during something unexpected, like losing your job or your home. God is always present but we become … well … more sensitive … more aware of God’s Presence when we are in the midst of the flood or the fire, don’t we?
The Bible says that not a single hair on the heads of Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah were burned … they weren’t even singed or smell like smoke. Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah may not have been burned but there were some things that were consumed in the flames. The first were the soldiers who threw Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah into the furnace. I want you to notice something about that. Nebuchadnezzar tried to kill Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, right? … but he actually ended up killing some of his own men instead.
The other thing … or things … that burned up in the fire were the ropes that bound Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah’s hands and feet. Nebuchadnezzar had ordered his strongest guards to bind up Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah (Daniel 3:20) but when he looked into the flames, what did he see? Hananiah, Mishael, Azariah, and the mysterious fourth person walking about in the furnace.
Let’s think about this for moment. The only things burned were the soldiers that King Nebuchadnezzar had ordered to throw Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah into the furnace and the ropes that King Nebuchadnezzar used to bind Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah’s hands and feet. Hummm … what burned? The guards and the ropes … things that belonged to Nebuchadnezzar. The things that belonged to God … Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah … weren’t even singed by the fire. The fire that was meant to burn up Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah was, in fact, the very means that God used to burn the ropes that bound them and set them free. When we elevate the things of this world … when we bow down to them … when we put our faith in the power and the people of this world … they don’t protect us because they can’t protect us despite what they say or the promises that they make. They can’t free us but they can bind us and they can consume us, amen?
Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah’s faith gave them the strength and courage to stand tall, to stand straight, to stand firm, to stand unscathed, and, finally, they stood before Nebuchadnezzar and the nation of Babylon redeemed. The fiery furnace is a powerful image to help us remember that God sometimes put us in the fire so that He can purge us from the thing or things that bind us … the things that are holding us back or holding us down … so that we can walk freely in the will of God. Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah were bound hand and foot when they were thrown into the furnace but when they came out of the furnace the glory of God was “unbound,” amen?
Sometimes our journey through the flames can have a powerful effect on those around us. Look at the effect that Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah’s ordeal in the furnace had on King Nebuchadnezzar. When Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah were first brought before King Nebuchadnezzar for their defiant disobedience of his order, he demanded to know who this god … with a little “g” … was that they were so loyal to that they were willing to die. “… who is this god that will deliver you from my hand?” he demanded. Certainly not the pile of metal in the middle of the Plain of Dura. Certainly not any of the make-believe gods of the Babylonians.
But when King Nebuchadnezzar sees them being delivered out of his hand and out of the flames that he ordered be stoked seven times hotter than normal, he sings a different tune, doesn’t he? When he sees them strolling around in the roaring flames, he calls out to them … “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego … come out … come out here” and he calls them “servants of the Most High God” (Daniel 3:26) … servants of the Most High God. Not servants of Aku, the Babylonian moon god or any of the other Babylonian gods that Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah’s Babylonian names suggested. Remember, Shadrach meant “under the command of Aku” … Meshach meant “who is like Aku” … and Abednego meant “servant of the Babylonian gods.”
“Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego” … Wow! “Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego who has sent His angel and delivered His servants who trusted in Him. They disobeyed the king’s command and yielded up their bodies rather than serve and worship any god except their own God” (Daniel 3:28). And then Nebuchadnezzar issued this decree: “Any people, nation, or language that utters blasphemy against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego shall be torn limb from limb, and their houses laid in ruins; for there is no other god who is able to deliver in this way” (Daniel 3:28-30).
Now, let’s suppose a follower of Aku disobeys King Nebuchadnezzar’s new decree and utters blasphemy against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego … do you think Aku or any other Babylonian God would deliver them from King Nebuchadnezzar’s hand and prevent them from being torn limb from limb? We all know the answer to that … and now, so does King Nebuchadnezzar apparently … or at least he appears to be moving in that direction.
I say “apparently” because Nebuchadnezzar sees Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah’s God as just another god, albeit a very powerful god … with a small “g.” Remember, the Babylonians are used to worshipping whatever god or gods the new king choses to worship and Nebuchadnezzar is willing to accept the supremacy of Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah’s God based on what he saw. If you look at verse 29, you’ll notice that King Nebuchadnezzar says that “there is no other god” … small “g” … “who is able to deliver in this way.” Listen closely to what he is saying. There is no other god or gods … but there are still other gods … just none that have Jehovah’s power. He still doesn’t take down his golden statute. A year later Nebuchadnezzar stands on the roof of his palace and declares himself almost a god. “Is this not magnificent Babylon which I have built as a royal capital by my mighty power and by my glorious majesty?” (Daniel 4:1).
Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah refused to bow to Nebuchadnezzar’s golden statute or to bend to his demands. They were bound and led to a fiery furnace. They were actually thrown into the furnace … and they all emerged unscathed. And … as if that weren’t cool enough … they all got promotions.
Now … you’ve got to admit … that’s a God thing, am I right? Who else but God … Jehovah … could pull off something like that? In fact, God loves to do stuff like that … impossible, unbelievable things … things so impossible, so incredible, so amazing that there could only be one possible explanation for it!
Another great church father was a man by the name of “Chrystom.” He lived from 347 to 407 A.D. As a very young Christian, he was brought before the emperor. The emperor told him that if he did not give up worshipping and following Jesus Christ that he would banish Chrystom from his kingdom and his father’s land … “father” with a small “f.” Chrystom said: “You cannot … the whole world is my Father’s land” … “Father” with a capital “F.” You don’t have the power or the ability to banish me from the whole world.”
Perplexed for a moment, the emperor came up with a new threat: “If you do not stop with all this Christ nonsense, then I will send you to a place so remote, so desolate that you will have no one to speak to.” Without missing a beat, Chrystom replied: “That won’t work. I have a friend who sticks closer to me than a brother. There is no where that you can send that He won’t be with me for He dwells within my heart.”
Feeling cornered, the emperor threated to kill Chrystom. Chrystom’s reply? “You can take away my body but my life will go on forever with Jesus Christ.” In exasperation, the emperor threw up his hands and exclaimed: “What in the world do you do with a man like that? Nothing threatens him” … and the emperor let him go. You know what? That is what the world ought to be asking about us. “What in the world do you do with a people like this? Nothing threatens them.”
Brothers and sisters … it takes courage to be a Hananiah, Mishael, or an Azariah. It takes the ability to say, “I don’t care what my friends are going to think or say about me. I don’t care what my friends or the world are doing … I am a Christian! I’m gonna stand up for what I believe and let the chips fall where they may. I am going to be God’s person in the midst of this world … no matter what it may cost me.”
Don’t hide who you are or who you belong to. Don’t water down your witness because you’re so concerned about being politically correct. Take the heat for it with pride, amen?
In one of his books, Charles Colson said that the problem with the church in our generation today is that it has become a “therapeutic center.” The main reason people come to the church nowadays is to get their wounds fixed and all their problems solved … and there’s nothing wrong with that … it’s a good thing … but it shouldn’t be our only reason. We should be about a lot more than that. We are called to be soldiers of the cross! Do you understand that? Do you know what that means? Do you know what it calls us to do?
We are to be out fighting the battle. We are to be out in the trenches living for God! Winning people to Christ … determined to take as many people to Heaven with us as possible … keeping our churches strong so that when the fire comes … and I believe that the fire has already started … we can stand the heat!
It’s almost as if we are living in a country we don’t recognize any more. Where Christians were once looked upon with respect, we are now being looked upon as second-class citizens unworthy of any toleration whatsoever. It is time, my brothers and sisters, that we rediscover our spiritual backbones and stand tall, stand straight, stand firm because we know that God will deliver us and if not, we can still stand tall, we can still stand straight, we can still stand firm in our trust and in our faith in God. As the great warrior leader Joshua once told his people, there is no sitting on the fence when it comes to God … it’s either God or the world. “Now therefore revere the LORD, and serve Him in sincerity and in faithfulness; put away the gods that your ancestors served beyond the River and in Egypt, and serve the LORD. But if serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD” (Joshua 24:14-15).
When confronted with a choice, we know what Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah chose. Are we a church of Hananiahs, Mishaels, and Azariahs? I pray to God we never have to find out … but if we do, I hope and pray the choice is clear. And speaking of prayer … let us pray:
Like Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, Father, may we sing Your praises in the midst of the fires that are beginning to rage all around us. May we profess You in the midst of our trouble. May our choices reveal the deep and steadfast faith that we have in You.
Bless you, LORD, for Your name is worthy to be praised and glorified no matter where we are … no matter what we are going through.
Like Your servants Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, we know that You will either deliver us from the fire or take us out of the fire and bring us home to You.
As we walk through this life, we pray that not a single hair on our heads be burned, nor our hearts and souls be singed but if we must be consumed by the trials of this life, we pray that we will stand tall, stand straight, and stand firm because we know that You are with us … even in the fires of hell.
May the trials that we face burn away anything of this world that will bind us or keep us down. Give us the strength and the courage to stand up for You and for what we believe and let the chips fall where they may.
In the name of the One who walks with us as we pass through the trials and challenges of this life, we pray.
And all God’s Hananiahs, Mishaels, and Azariahs make it so by saying: Amen.
