The king had a great idea! After conquering the known world, he thought about all the nations that had many gods. Why not have a new state religion? The king commissioned his architects and came up with a 90-foot-high statue of solid gold. A Greek historian noted that it looked just like King Nebuchadnezzar.
Nebuchadnezzar inaugurated this new religion with a command for everyone to bow down to his image, or else be thrown into a fiery furnace. Wow — talk about peer pressure! The band played, thousands hit the dirt, but three government employees stood upright, feeling very awkward. The Chaldeans, also government employees, rushed to tell the king of the holdouts. He was steamed and called for them to be brought in.
The employees, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, stood awkwardly before Nebuchadnezzar. He said to them (my paraphrase), What we have here is a failure to communicate! I like you guys — I even gave you jobs — so let’s try again. If you bow down, great! But if you don’t, you’ll be thrown into the furnace of fire. Then he said, “Who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?” (Daniel 3:15)
Instead of folding like cheap suits, they openly defied the king, saying, “If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.” (Daniel 3:17–18) The king then really loses it and commands his guards to throw them into the furnace that is now heated seven times hotter than normal. They were bound four times!
As the guards threw Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego into the furnace, fire came out and killed all of them. The king smiled, thinking that is one less problem to deal with — until he looked into the furnace and was startled by what he saw. He turned to his advisers and asked, “Did not we cast three men bound into the midst of the fire?” (3:24) They answered in the affirmative, but he replied, “Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God” (3:25).
The light bulb in the king’s brain came on and he called them out, saying; “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, ye servants of the most high God, come forth, and come hither” (3:26). They walked out of the furnace, untouched by the flames. The guards, however, not so much.
Let’s take a minute to consider this. As Godly Jews, they had done what was right for a Jew. The first commandment says to have no other gods. Yet they were thrown into the furnace.
As they were being tied up from head to toe, they had to wonder if serving God had its downsides. Doing right could cost them something. The king had given them a win-lose scenario. If you bow down, you’re in. If you don’t bow down, you lose. Their response was the opposite. God can deliver us, and He will, one way or the other. If He rescues us, that’s an awesome testimony. But if we perish, its graduation day for us as we go to Heaven. That’s standing strong under a type of pressure that we’ll never face, depending on what kind of nation America becomes.
These three men counted the cost of being faithful to God. Can we still find men and women today who have that kind of courage? I believe Charlie Kirk was that type of man. He did not bow before the culture; rather, he stayed faithful to God. It cost him his life, but for Charlie, it was graduation day!
May we have the same courage today to stand up to the rising tide of evil in our nation. There is a cost. I’m willing to pay it. Are you?
Something to pray about!
Semper Fidelis
