With Us In the Fire

is Introduction

Almost every age feels like a time of great anxiety. Our present age is no exception

A global trade war makes our economic future uncertain

The wars in Gaza and Ukraine drag on with the danger of drawing in other nations, widening the conflict

Rising political polarization makes it hard to develop consensus on much of anything, which paralyzes our governments in the face of real challenges.

A generation of kids experiencing a frightening array of mental health challenges without a clear picture of what exactly is causing it.

With all that uncertainty, it’s easy to doubt God’s presence with us.

In the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, we see an extreme example of how God’s people must learn to trust in his presence when things feel out of control.

The three friends are among Jewish exiles who have been recruited (against their will) to work as officials at the Babylonian court.

God was with them and their friend Daniel as they resolved not to defile themselves with the food and drink that King Nebuchadnezzar had assigned them.

Their duties as government officials put them in the line of sight of the king who is trying to create a shared sense of Babylonian identity by creating a shared religious cult among the officials who represent his conquered people.

This leads to the story we read in Daniel chapter 3.

Daniel 3 NIV

1 King Nebuchadnezzar made an image of gold, sixty cubits high and six cubits wide, and set it up on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon. 2 He then summoned the satraps, prefects, governors, advisers, treasurers, judges, magistrates and all the other provincial officials to come to the dedication of the image he had set up. 3 So the satraps, prefects, governors, advisers, treasurers, judges, magistrates and all the other provincial officials assembled for the dedication of the image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up, and they stood before it. 4 Then the herald loudly proclaimed, “Nations and peoples of every language, this is what you are commanded to do: 5 As soon as you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipe and all kinds of music, you must fall down and worship the image of gold that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up. 6 Whoever does not fall down and worship will immediately be thrown into a blazing furnace.” 7 Therefore, as soon as they heard the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp and all kinds of music, all the nations and peoples of every language fell down and worshiped the image of gold that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. 8 At this time some astrologers came forward and denounced the Jews. 9 They said to King Nebuchadnezzar, “May the king live forever! 10 Your Majesty has issued a decree that everyone who hears the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipe and all kinds of music must fall down and worship the image of gold, 11 and that whoever does not fall down and worship will be thrown into a blazing furnace. 12 But there are some Jews whom you have set over the affairs of the province of Babylon—Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego—who pay no attention to you, Your Majesty. They neither serve your gods nor worship the image of gold you have set up.” 13 Furious with rage, Nebuchadnezzar summoned Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. So these men were brought before the king, 14 and Nebuchadnezzar said to them, “Is it true, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, that you do not serve my gods or worship the image of gold I have set up? 15 Now when you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipe and all kinds of music, if you are ready to fall down and worship the image I made, very good. But if you do not worship it, you will be thrown immediately into a blazing furnace. Then what god will be able to rescue you from my hand?” 16 Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to him, “King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. 17 If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. 18 But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.” 19 Then Nebuchadnezzar was furious with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and his attitude toward them changed. He ordered the furnace heated seven times hotter than usual 20 and commanded some of the strongest soldiers in his army to tie up Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and throw them into the blazing furnace. 21 So these men, wearing their robes, trousers, turbans and other clothes, were bound and thrown into the blazing furnace. 22 The king’s command was so urgent and the furnace so hot that the flames of the fire killed the soldiers who took up Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, 23 and these three men, firmly tied, fell into the blazing furnace. 24 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.” 25 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.” 26 Nebuchadnezzar then approached the opening of the blazing furnace and shouted, “Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out! Come here!” So Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego came out of the fire, 27 and the satraps, prefects, governors and royal advisers crowded around them. They saw that the fire had not harmed their bodies, nor was a hair of their heads singed; their robes were not scorched, and there was no smell of fire on them. 28 Then Nebuchadnezzar said, “Praise be to the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who has sent his angel and rescued his servants! They trusted in him and defied the king’s command and were willing to give up their lives rather than serve or worship any god except their own God. 29 Therefore I decree that the people of any nation or language who say anything against the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego be cut into pieces and their houses be turned into piles of rubble, for no other god can save in this way.” 30 Then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the province of Babylon.

The three friends stand against the arrogance of the king in the face of death trusting that God is able to save them from the King’s wrath.

The friends know that although Nebuchadnezzar defeated Judah, he didn’t do so by subduing their God.

As readers of Daniel, we see behind the curtain enough to know that God ordained Judah’s defeat as a consequence of their unfaithfulness.

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego believe that the Lord is more powerful than King Nebuchadnezzar, his government, his army and his gods, so even when Nebuchadnezzar arrogantly says that no god can save them from his hand, they choose to believe in God.

They trust that God will never abandon them

Likewise we too can trust that God will not abandon us, and this should give us the courage to stand in faith, trusting God when we end up in life’s trials, our metaphorical fiery furnaces.

God is able to deliver, and God is faithful to deliver

Although, as we shall see, that deliverance doesn’t mean he spares us from every ordeal

Rather it means that when all is said and done, we can trust that God will have been completely faithful to his people.

I want to look at how God is with us in the fire.

God Saves Us From the Fire

There are times when we find ourselves in overwhelming situations, we call out to God and he delivers us. I’ll call this being saved from the fire.

What Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego go through is undoubtedly an ordeal

They’re accused by coworkers who maliciously resent the advancement of these ‘foreigners’.

They’re hauled before the king and threatened

They’re thrown in the fire

In the ordeal, they must learn to trust God

The NIV translation smoothes over the difficulty of translating one verse in particular: verse 17.

Daniel 3:17 NIV

17 If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand.

Compare that with the Common English Bible

Daniel 3:17 CEB

17 If our God—the one we serve—is able to rescue us from the furnace of flaming fire and from your power, Your Majesty, then let him rescue us.

Because there is no punctuation in the original language, it’s hard to know conclusively how to read this verse

Expressing certainty in God’s existence, his ability and willingness to save them. (We know God can and will save us)

Or hopeful uncertainty. (We’re pretty sure he can, and we hope he will)

We have to remember that they don’t know the end of the story. Like any of us, they would be, they are terrified.

Faith doesn’t mean we don’t fear. Faith means we follow despite our fears.

They choose faithfulness, and they find themselves in the company of those who God saved from difficulty.

Sometimes God delivers people from the furnace. He does this to demonstrate his power. Some examples

The children of Israel were delivered out of slavery in Egypt, by God striking down the firstborn of Egypt but sparing the Israelites.

In fact, God even describes this as him taking the Israelites out of the furnace

Deuteronomy 4:20 NIV

20 But as for you, the Lord took you and brought you out of the iron-smelting furnace, out of Egypt, to be the people of his inheritance, as you now are.

We see God’s salvation when God uses King Saul to deliver the Israelites from the Philistines despite the Philistines’ better weapons and King Saul’s inexperience

We see God’s salvation when God wiped out the Assyrian Army laying siege to Jerusalem when the Assyrian King Sennacherib mocked God and said that the Lord was no more able to save the Judahites than the gods of the other nations he had vanquished were able to save them.

God is more powerful than all that can come against us. And sometimes he shows us this by delivering us from the ordeal.

We should note that when God delivers Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, he is with them in the fire.

Nebuchadnezzar throws the three men in and someone else is in the fire with them.

Some commentators see this as the Angel of the Lord

In the OT that is a term not just for an angel, but an angel uniquely identified with God’s presence. God in the flesh?

Other commentators see it as a pre-incarnate Christ

Regardless of exactly who, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego are saved by God’s presence with them in the fire.

God Saves us Through the Fire

Lest we become triumphalist, we must honestly admit that God doesn’t always save his people, at least not in the way we hope.

While there are Biblical stories of God miraculously saving his people, there are other stories where the righteous aren’t delivered

Uriah the Hittite: one of David’s mighty men whose wife, Bathseba, has an affair with David. When Bathsheba gets pregnant, Uriah is eliminated.

Naboth the Jezreelite: A man who refuses to sell his family’s vineyard to King Ahab because such a sale would run afoul of Jewish inheritance law. Ahab’s wife Jezebel conspires to have him murdered.

The prophets of the Lord: While God saves the prophet Elijah from wicked Jezebel, we are told that she put to death many other prophets who confronted the wickedness of her husband Ahab’s reign.

Faithful Jews: During the period between the NT and OT, the Syrian King Antiochus IV Epiphanes tried to stamp out Judaism in favour of Greek paganism. He reportedly put people to death for refusing to break Jewish dietary laws.

The most striking example of God’s deliverance not coming in the time we might hope would be Jesus on the cross.

Jesus is the only truly righteous man who ever lived. That makes his death at the hands of sinners that much more shocking.

In the Garden, Jesus pleads with God to take the cup of suffering from him

Yet in faith, Jesus submits to the Father’s will - “not my will but yours be done”

Jesus knows he’s going to die on the cross, and yet, in Luke’s gospel, his last words invoke a Psalm written by David in which he expresses confidence in God’s deliverance

“Father, Into your hands I commit my Spirit” Quoting from Psalm 31.

Is Jesus just naive, still clinging to the idea that God won’t actually allow him to die?

No, he’s already forewarned the disciples that this is where the story is going.

Instead, Jesus expresses his confidence that God will deliver him by raising him.

Did God deliver Jesus?

If we mean did God save him on this side of death, the answer is clearly, no.

But if we widen our view, we see that God delivered Jesus through death

Though humiliated on Good Friday, Jesus was raised triumphantly on Easter Sunday.

While it’s true that Jesus’ death is unique in what it accomplishes, his calling—to give his life in faithful obedience to God—is not unique.

After all, Jesus calls his disciples to deny themselves, take up their crosses and follow him.

The Apostles who wrote our New Testament trusted in God but, almost to a man, they were killed for their faith

They weren’t mistaken that God would deliver them, rather they understood that the promise of resurrection means that we need to think about God’s deliverance with a wider lens.

Just as God vindicated Jesus in his resurrection, so he will vindicate and deliver us from death.

So when we face the hard challenges in our life, we can trust that God is able to deliver us from them. And he may.

Or God may choose to allow us to go through the fiery furnace, and he will deliver us even if it’s on the other side of death.

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were delivered from the fire through God’s presence with them. But all those God saves through the fire are saved by God’s presence with them.

Even When we suffer, Jesus is there with us.

First, Jesus identifies with us in our suffering, hardship and weakness

Jesus experienced poverty, political oppression, religious persecution, racial prejudice, dislocation, false accusation and about the most terrible death humans can devise.

God doesn’t know what we’re going through in an abstract sense, he knows it from experience.

Second, Jesus lives in and through us, as Paul says, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me” (Ga. 2:20a).

God is not detached from our suffering. He experiences it in solidarity with us.

So whether God saves us from the fire, or whether he saves us through the fire, he is with us. He cares for us. He promises he will deliver and vindicate us, even if he walks through the fires of death to do so.

Standing Firm In God’s Salvation

If you ever face death on account of your faith, know that no matter how grave your troubles, God is with you.

In our culture, we probably don’t expect that standing for our faith will cost us our lives.

We should pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ around the world who face such choices

Yet, standing faithfully for God may mean we will experience hardships and difficulties. God may deliver us from them

Or he may sustain us by his presence as we go through them.

Faithfulness to God often comes with a cost

Maybe you refuse to go along with shady practices everyone is doing at work and you lose your job for not going along.

Maybe it’s owning up to your past failures, even if know that will be costly, and even if you know you could probably ‘get away with it’.

The choices we make to be faithful to God can make our lives more difficult in the short term.

Jesus can relate to our situation. He always did the right thing and often paid a price for it.

So when we find ourselves in life’s furnaces, we can pray with confidence.

Maybe God will deliver us from the situation, vindicating us here and now.

Maybe God will walk with us in the furnace. Maybe deliverance doesn’t happen right now. Instead, it might come on the other side of death.

In either case, we know that God is always with us and that his salvation is assured because he is with us in the fire.

Questions for Reflection

In what ways does this story illustrate the relationship between faith and fear?

How can we interpret the 'fourth man' in the furnace in light of biblical theology?

How can we apply the example of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to our everyday challenges?

What does trusting God in difficult circumstances look like for you personally?

In what ways can remembering God’s past faithfulness help us when we face our own 'fires'?