Miaowkat's Blog

The Old Testament has many wonderful stories that reveal a treasure of God’s truths and the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego is one of these.

It is a powerful story about how faith and obedience are central in a believer’s life. And the Bible’s account is significant for two reasons; firstly because it was “multi-miraculous”, if there is such a word, and secondly, because, irregardless of the result, they chose to trust and believe in the Most High God.

The story set in Daniel chapter 3, where the Israelites have been captive in Babylon and the ruler, King Nebuchadnezzar, had passed a law for everyone to worship a great statue of himself, and failure to comply will result being thrown into a furnace of fire.

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego refused to bow to the king’s statue and were brought in for questioning before Nebuchadnezzar, to whom, gave the 3 friends a chance again to bow before the statue.

Faith, faithfulness and fearless

The next part is when the 3 friends replied the king, and is what, I think, is the key moment where faith and faithfulness were expressed in one statement, to the point where they were fearless.

“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. 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.””

Daniel 3:17-18 ESV

Here are some precious truths which makes this account so remarkable and “multi-miraculous”:

1. They stood up against falsehood; they said no to the statue and to idolatry. (vs. 12)
2. They proclaimed their faith in God to save them. (vs. 17)
3. They chose to worship God alone, no matter the outcome. The result was not important to them, only their obedience to serve God. (vs. 18)
4. They were tied up and cast or thrown into the furnace; you would be physically hurt in some way if you were bound and thrown but they were not. (vs. 20)
5. When God leads you through a fire, it’s not to burn you, but your captors and enemies (vs. 22)
6. God sometimes makes us go through the fire instead of putting it out. And when He does, He appears to everyone in the fire with us. He will be the “fourth man” in the fire with us. (vs. 25).
7. They were unhurt from the fire and even recorded as without a trace of burn smell. It is amazing that the writer recorded this in order to give us the level of protection these men received. (vs. 27)
8. Their faithfulness resulted in the King’s change of heart (vs. 28)

If it hasn’t already, this account should revolutionalise your view of God and our trials. God’s plan is sovereign over our wish of how the outcomes should be. Remember Jesus Himself said to the Father, “not my will but yours be done!”

God said, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.”

Isaiah 43:2 ESV

Notice the Bible doesn’t say if you pass through the waters; it says when you pass through the waters. You will have troubles throughout life but fear not! Jesus will always walk through with you.

This entry was posted on March 20, 2019 at 3:55 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.