Fiery Faith

Not great. Not great that it was a surprise, such a surprise, to most of us. 40 folks showed up at work and got handed a box. And severance, but not what they were thinking the day held!

Don’t you wish you new what was coming tomorrow?

Especially, don’t you wish you knew what God was going to do about it?

God, protect my job! God, help me find a new better job! God, give me a billion dollars so I don’t need a job anymore!

Even if the answer isn’t your favorite… at least you could plan! At least you would know. It’s the wondering, the waiting, the uncertainty.

Those are hard!

Maybe the best prophets always know. Daniel seems like he just knows. That’s why I like his three buddies so much.

Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah.

Better known as? Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.

Never Bow

Recap:

There they were. Surrounded by all the smartest, most-powerful men in the known world, gathered together in the capital city of the largest kingdom in the known world… in the shadow of great Babylon, before a 90 foot golden statue… with the bagpipe music swelling to crescendo… and the king commands bow or die and EVERYONE bows…

Three men of courage stand alone and refuse to bow to anyone buy YHWH.

So the king gives them a 2nd chance.

Into the Fire

Daniel 3:15–17 ESV

Now if you are ready when you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, bagpipe, and every kind of music, to fall down and worship the image that I have made, well and good. But if you do not worship, you shall immediately be cast into a burning fiery furnace. And who is the god who will deliver you out of my hands?” Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king.

He is able to deliver.

He doesn’t say “God will”.

Don’t you wish you know what God was going to do?

I think Daniel’s gone. Daniel is the guy who speaks confidently about what God will and won’t do. He is the prophet. So maybe he could have said…

But Abednego can’t. He doesn’t know what God will do.

He knows God is “able” to save. But not if he will. In fact, he says that straight out.

Daniel 3:18 ESV

But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”

NIV, NASB, the Message, say “even if he doesn’t...”

Daniel 3:18 The Message

But even if he doesn’t, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference, O king. We still wouldn’t serve your gods or worship the gold statue you set up.”

Incredible courage.

Daniel 3:19–30 (ESV)

Then Nebuchadnezzar was filled with fury, and the expression of his face was changed against Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. He ordered the furnace heated seven times more than it was usually heated.

Is seven times hotter even possible? This furnace was probably there from making the statue. Used to melt gold and iron to build the thing. An ore smelter or brick kiln.

Are they burning stars in there? Cooking with plasma.

More of a proverbial saying: “Make it as hot as possible.”

Ever been in a situation where the “enemy” was turning up the heat?

And he ordered some of the mighty men of his army to bind Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and to cast them into the burning fiery furnace.

Then these men were bound in their cloaks, their tunics, their hats, and their other garments, and they were thrown into the burning fiery furnace.

Because the king’s order was urgent and the furnace overheated, the flame of the fire killed those men who took up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

So, look. We don’t know the temperature of the furnace. But we know it was hot enough to kill the men approaching. So there’s no hiding in “cold spots” approaching this thing, there’s no trick to surviving here. Hot enough to literally melt your face off and cook your brain.

And these three men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, fell bound into the burning fiery furnace.

Fell, so likely an opening in the top.

Then King Nebuchadnezzar was astonished and rose up in haste. He declared to his counselors, “Did we not cast three men bound into the fire?” They answered and said to the king, “True, O king.”

He answered and said, “But I see four men unbound, walking in the midst of the fire, and they are not hurt; and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods.”

Anyone confused as to who that is in the fire?

Yes, he is like a “son of the gods.” Could be an angel… but I (and most Christian scholars) read these kinds of appearances to be Jesus, the Son of God.

“He looks like a son of the gods.” He IS the son of the God.

Jesus is the Word of God, He has always been, the universe was created through him and for Him. John calls him the “Word”, the “Logos”, the “self-revelation of God.” Which means every time God is revealed, that in some profound way, is always Jesus.

When it says Jesus “reveals the Scriptures” to his disciples, I think it is Him leafing through the pages like a scrapbook. “Ooooh, that was me! Meshach was freaking OUT, it was hilarious!”

That’s Jesus.

And what are they talking about in there? Did they all have the same experience? Were they at peace? Did they see and experience the presence of God? Did they know, did they all know equally, that the “Son of God” was with them.

I don’t know what they felt… but we know by the testimony of King Nebuchadnezzar: God was with them in the fire.

Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the door of the burning fiery furnace; he declared, “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out, and come here!” Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came out from the fire.

And the satraps, the prefects, the governors, and the king’s counselors gathered together and saw that the fire had not had any power over the bodies of those men. The hair of their heads was not singed, their cloaks were not harmed, and no smell of fire had come upon them.

All the crowd of witnesses from all over the greatest Kingdom on earth at the time. They all see it.

And God did so much more than necessary. Saving was enough, but they are untouched. Down to the smell.

“We smell those guards over there… but not these guys!”

And then look, who gets the glory?

Nebuchadnezzar answered and said, “Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent his angel and delivered his servants, who trusted in him, and set aside the king’s command, and yielded up their bodies rather than serve and worship any god except their own God.

Therefore I make a decree: Any people, nation, or language that speaks anything 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 rescue in this way.”

Then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the province of Babylon.

God is able. But God doesn’t "deliver” Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego from being thrown in the furnace. He doesn’t "deliver” His people from the punishment being made seven times worse. God doesn’t deliver His people from the flames - He is with them in the fire.

Dad With Me

In 1996 I had the opportunity to graduate high school early and start at Community College. Not because I was any kind of genius: because I was home-schooled and California lets you test out early.

I look at my 15-year old daughter, or even at my 17-year old son who will be doing that for real next year… and I think of all the ways I should have been terrified. Walking on to a new campus, sticking out as a punk kid, don’t know how to register, how to navigate, first “real” school in years, people smoking and doing drugs and cage fighting. (Orange County was rough!)

Here’s what I remember… I don’t remember being scared at all. Not even nervous. Because my first class was a night class, C++ Computer Programming with Shin Karasuda. Wednesday nights from 5-10pm.

And I took it with my Dad.

And it all the things that could have been, SHOULD have been terrifying… they weren’t even relevant.

How will I get registered? Dad. How will I find the class? Dad. What about being out at campus late at night? Well, I’ll be with Dad.

Who will I talk to? Dad. And then I can meet other folks and stuff.

What if it’s hard? Well… any guesses? Dad will be there. And I can explain it to him :D.

What could have been one of the scariest and hardest transitions in my life was transformed into a meaningful shared experience with my Father.

Friends, that is the life you and I are invited into.

Another in the Fire

What were they talking about in there? No idea. But we know this… God was with them. The Son of God was with them in their hour of need, in the fires of tribulation.

What the enemy meant for evil became a relaxing sauna… More:

What the enemy meant for evil was used to God’s glory. And in this case, for their glory too. Before they were riding Daniel’s coattails, now they get their own promotions.

I don’t know what fires you are fighting right now.

I know God was with you then.

I know God is with you now.

I know God is will be with you in the flames.

Honestly, in a way Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego couldn’t even really know. They had no promise of Immanuel, except a future promise through Isaiah that they likely hadn’t heard yet. They had no Pentecost-indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

They just knew “God is able to deliver...” and they knew “only God is worthy of worship.”

They didn’t know that God would be with them.

But you do. You know with certainty that God walks with you because He has taken up residence within you.

If you have put your faith in Jesus Christ, He says He has sent His very Spirit, the Holy Spirit, God in person, to dwell within you...

So He is with you in the fire. And in the moments leading up to the fire. In the crowd, He is with you. Standing before power and pressure, He is with you. Walking up to the moment of truth, of crisis, He is with you.

I don’t know your every struggle. Maybe the enemy is turning up the heat. Maybe it’s 7 times hotter.

God is able to deliver. I know that.

But I don’t know what God is going to do. Maybe He will save you from the fire, maybe He will save you in the fire. He is smarter than me or you, more creative than all of us, wiser too… and gooder.

I don’t always know what God will do.

But I always know where He will be.

Immanuel. God with us. Even in the fire. Perhaps especially in the fire.

God has always been “incarnational.”

God is in person, incarnational, and the best (and ultimately only) gift He has ever given is Himself.

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