Our text for today allows us to see God working in the
lives of his people bringing salvation to them in the midst of the "heat" and pressures of life. And while we would all agree that this is the purpose of our faith and could draw a pretty good lesson from this fact for our lives, I don’t want us to just leave it there.
I have been particularly impressed by this passage
lately. Sometimes God takes a text and brings new light to it when you are reading it at different times in your life... Anyway, this is another of those Old Stories that is familiar to those of us who grew up in Sunday school... you may even remember singing songs about Daniel in the Lion’s den and three Hebrew children in the fiery furnace. So this story, perhaps more than many others is rooted deeply in our being from an early age. We almost always focus in this story upon the fact that God sustained the Hebrew children throughout this ordeal by being with them in the fire. Rewarding them for their faithfulness.
However, I would propose to you that at least one of the reasons that God chose to intervene so powerfully in this situation is because he knew that it would bring Nebuchadnezzar to faith in him and the power that this King wielded among the people of the earth could be turned into a great evangelistic influence on behalf of the Kingdom of God.
Remember that Nebuchadnezzar was the one who looked into the furnace and was so impressed by what he saw there that he ordered the Hebrew children out of the
furnace and then commanded that everyone in the kingdom
should worship the one true God of the Israelites. This is the command from the same man who moments earlier had thrown these Hebrews into the furnace for not worshiping him. Amazing, isn’t it, how God can bring transformation into the lives of those who are confronted with his power. From a self serving, hate filled, man of corruption one moment to a Man who is willing to fully submit his own life and his entire
fortune and reign over to the God who walks through fire to save his children. This is a pretty amazing proposition.
Our text is preceded by several examples of Daniel and
his three friends had trying to bear witness to God and being repeatedly rejected for their witness and now just a few verses later we read how their witness was made even more powerful as they submitted themselves to God in prayer and relinquished control of their destinies to God’s hands.
Now, you and I may feel that we have done everything
in our power to win others to Christ and we may have, but that is exactly the point. We have tried to do everything in OUR power! We have not fully handed over our outreach efforts to God. It was not really the fact that the Hebrew children were not destroyed by the fire that puzzled Nebuchadnezzar. Rather, it was the presence of the fourth man in the fire. It was the fact that someone larger than himself was in control of the situation that he had so carefully
orchestrated. This is bound to have an impact.
Think about times when you have made careful plans
and then those plans are interrupted by situations that are totally out of your own scope of control. This may make us angry, especially at first... but, we almost always seek to understand the cause behind the failure of our plan. If we, like Nebuchadnezzar, had devised a plan that was as murderous and contrary to the will of God and then, that plan was interrupted and overpowered by God we would be just as fearful as Nebuchadnezzar was and would be just as willing to admit that God was in fact great enough for us to acknowledge as the one who is truly in control.
Nebuchadnezzar was truly a powerful man and as such
was more feared than any other man in his time. He, then, admits that he is nothing before God and it is out of obedience to this man that other people begin to worship God. God has a tendency to use this type of person. There are several times in scripture when God had chosen to use people who were of influence to bring others to faith. This, however, was never accomplished without that person being stripped of their own power and brought to a point of reliance
upon God. Out of an event which was clearly an
embarrassing one for Nebuchadnezzar, he was brought to
faith and became an “evangelist” of sorts within a few mere moments. This is an amazing testimony to the power of God to transform lives in any way that he sees fit.
But there are other players in this divine drama that
deserve our consideration. The Hebrew Children who were thrown into the furnace are certainly near the center of this story. Think about their situation as people who had violated the commands of the king and were then sentenced to death. They did not fight or rebel but spent what they believed would be their last few moments on earth in prayer and dedication to the God who they believed would deliver them from this
present threat. How many of us would maintain this attitude if faced with a similar threat? I doubt if many would. And yet the story goes on to tell how Nebuchadnezzar saw not three but four men walking unharmed and unbound in the midst of the flames. "and the fourth has the appearance of a god..." said Nebuchadnezzar... I don’t think that the writer of Daniel had any intention to suggest that it was God himself that was walking through the fire with the three children of God, rather, when the terminology that is used in the Hebrew in this passage is examined it becomes rather clear that the writer is referring here to an angel who was sent by God to protect these obedient servants. In any case, another safe way of
stating what it was that protected them would be to say that whether it was an angel, or God himself with them that day, it was clearly the unswerving love and presence of God that maintained these men’s faith and kept them safe from harm.
This is the same thing that we discover throughout scripture, but particularly when we read the Old Testament stories of servants of God who overcame threats and obstacles such as these men did.
It was the presence of God who led Moses and the
Children of Israel through forty years of wilderness
wanderings, it was the presence of God who led Joshua to be victorious as he led the Children of Israel to become a nation within the promised land. The stories of God’s presence are too numerous to mention in a short period of time, but always, without exception, God’s presence brought victory to those who were faithful.
This is all well and good when we read the stories of
God’s watchcare over his children in the Bible stories of our childhood, but we must make a connection to today if these stories are to be of any use to us whatsoever. This is where our faith comes into play. For centuries after the establishment of Israel as a nation, people had seemed to drift hopelessly from the plan of God. It became clear to God that there could never be a right relationship in place until people realized once and for all that God would indeed walk
with them if they would but yield themselves to his guiding presence. Jesus Christ came so that those who would profess faith in him could experience firsthand the grace of God in their lives throughout the firestorms that life was sure to deliver. In the gospels we begin to see this story unfolding and it is deeply rooted in the history of these old testament
bible stories. In the same way that God’s presence was the sustaining element for the faithful ones in our story, God’s presence can sustain you and me through the fiery furnaces of life because Jesus Christ has drawn near to us.
When Jesus Christ comes into our lives and we
acknowledge his presence and power to forgive sins, then we are looked at differently in the eyes of the world. Just as Nebuchadnezzar saw someone else walking through the fires and it brought him to faith, So too, when others look into the furnace of torment of our lives they ought to be able to witness the one who walks with us. When Jesus Christ came into this world he made God personal and accessible to all who would believe and other people are then able to see Christ in action by looking at the lives of those who serve him.
I guess the point is that we should accept Christ as Lord and Savior so that we can be sustained through the fires of life, but then celebrate and acknowledge that God will be glorified in the eyes of the world as well if we remain true to him. Shadrech, Meshec, and Abednigo were not the only ones saved that day... Nebuchadnezzar was saved from himself and an entire nation was saved from destructive behavior. In the same way, when we are faithful, of course we are saved, but so too are others brought to salvation by
witnessing in the lives of Christians the power of the God who is willing to come to us personally and walk beside us through the fire.
Life may indeed be a “furnace” from time to time. But,
God can and will be glorified even in the hottest of times. Of this we can be assured!
