November 22
Daniel 3-4
Psalm 128
Proverbs 28:3-5
I Peter 3:1-12
Even If
“Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to him, ‘King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. 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. 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.”
Daniel 3:16-18 NIV
We all love to see the good guys win and get the happy ending. This makes us feel good and gives us encouragement and hope when we are in difficult circumstances. Verses 24 and 25 tell us that the king had three men bound and thrown into the fiery furnace, but when he looked in, he could see four men untied walking around in the fire. I have the image of four men running around dancing, laughing, and smiling. I don’t think they were running frantically trying to escape the fire. I think when they saw Jesus in the fire with them, they knew they were safe, and they were rejoicing that they were being rescued. Jesus didn’t just protect them from the fire, He was walking through it with them. This is a beautiful picture of what happens in our lives. Jesus does not just send help to us; He is right there going through it with us every step of the way. In verse 27 we see that “the fire had no effect on the bodies of these men, nor was the hair of their heads singed, nor were their trousers damaged, nor had even the smell of fire touched them.” This is amazing! The fire was so hot that even the men who threw them into the fire were killed by its heat and yet they didn’t even have the smell of smoke on them. I love to sit by a fire on a cool fall evening roasting marshmallows and talking with friends, but I hate the smell of the smoke on my clothes and body after. No matter how far away from the fire you sit, you still end up smelling like smoke until you take a shower. But Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego didn’t even need a shower after they got out of the fire. They weren’t sweaty, their clothes weren’t damaged, and they didn’t smell like smoke. A whole book could be written on all the lessons we can learn from this passage, but let’s focus on a couple.
Only God can take us through a fire and have us come out on the other side better than we were before. Whenever we go through a season of difficulty, we usually come out of it smelling like smoke. We often are wounded, and we have scars. It is inevitable that suffering and heartache can leave us battered and bruised emotionally and sometimes physically. It is not common to come out of difficulty with no evidence that the difficulty took place. And that’s ok because the difficulties shape us and mold us and make us better. My scars are evidence of my growth. I would not trade my scars in if it meant that I had to go back to the person I was before I got them. The lessons I have learned have made me who I am. I don’t want to experience the pain again, but I can rejoice that Jesus was with me walking through the fire every time and helping me out of the furnace when it was time to move on. If people can smell the smoke on me, it might give me an opportunity to tell them about Jesus and how He is always with me, even running around in the fire.
The other lesson that I think is crucial that often gets overlooked in this happy ending is what these three men told King Nebuchadnezzar before he threw them in the fire. They were completely confident that God was able to save them from the fiery furnace and from anything the king could do to them. As it turns out, they were right. God could and did save them. But they told the king that even if God did not save them, they would not bow down to him or anyone or anything other than the One True God. Even if. This historical account, (calling it a story makes it easier to think of it like a fairy tale and not an actual historical event), had a happy ending. They were rescued, but there are many accounts in the Bible of men and women who were not saved. We personally know lots of people who did not get the happy ending. The good guy does not always win. God does not always give us the miracle we want. Sometimes children die of cancer, women get molested, our loved one dies, we lose our job, and what we fear happens. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego knew that there was a good chance they were going to die that day. They knew that refusing to bow down to the king would most likely result in a horrible, painful death and yet they also knew that there is a fate worse than death. They believed that their God was the only God and that one day they would face Him and give account for the life they lived. King Nebuchadnezzar could kill their physical body, but he had no power over their soul. God had the power over their eternal fate. An eternal perspective helped them face earthly difficulties. That is key for us as well. Keeping our eyes on eternity puts things into proper perspective while we are here. Any pain and suffering we experience here is nothing compared to the joy we will experience in eternity with Him if we remain faithful. Life is hard sometimes but knowing that we are not alone in the fire and that God is using the fire to mature our faith helps us persevere.
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