Courage in the Fire!

The way I see it, we ought to be willing to die. In the military, we were taught that to obtain our objectives we had to be willing to be expendable. Missionaries must face that same expendability. (Newell, Expect Great Things, 51)

I would simply add that every follower of the crucified Nazarene should have that same sense of expendability. Jesus is worth it. And he will give you the courage and strength to do it. After all, our God is able!

DANIEL 3:19-30

The great missionary to Burma, Adoniram Judson, wrote,

How great are my obligations to spend and be spent for Christ! What a privilege to be allowed to serve him . . . and suffer for him. . . . But in myself I am absolute nothingness. . . . Soon we shall be in heaven. Oh, let us live as we shall then wish we had done! (Newell, Expect Great Things, 51).

How I love this man’s heart! I think our Hebrew friends would have loved it too.

Once again the head of state is “filled with rage” (cf. v. 13). “The expression [lit. ‘image’] on his face changed” against the three Hebrews, and “he gave orders to heat the furnace seven times more than was customary” (v. 19), meaning, “Heat it as hot as you possibly can.”

He ordered “some of the best soldiers in his army,” his Army Rangers, to bind the three men and “throw them into the furnace of blazing fire” (v. 20). Most certainly they would have dropped them down through an opening at the top of the furnace. Another opening at ground level in front would give the king and his subjects a clear view of what happens to those who put their trust in a puny god and disobey the gods of real power. Remember, Nebuchadnezzar had soundly defeated Israel. Therefore it only seemed reasonable to assume his gods were superior to any god these Hebrews had to offer. Their immediate cremation would certainly leave no doubt!

The three Hebrews “were tied up and thrown into the furnace of blazing fire” fully clothed (v. 21). No doubt this would add fuel for the fire. The furnace was so hot the mighty men from the army were immediately consumed and killed (v. 22). As they perished, their last act of submission and obedience to the megalomaniacal king was to push Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego “bound, into the furnace of blazing fire” (v. 23). Nebuchadnezzar and his loyal, pagan, idolatrous subjects could now sit back and watch what would certainly be a brief human barbecue, an object lesson for all who pledge their allegiance to a god no one can see instead of to the gods of this world who wield true power.

But then something unexpected happened. The king himself was astonished and “jumped up in alarm” (v. 24). “Didn’t we throw three men, bound, into the fire?” he asked his advisers. They responded in the affirmative, at which point the king knew he had a problem. First, the Hebrews did not die. In fact, they were no longer bound and were walking around unhurt as if being in a burning fiery furnace was no big deal (v. 25). Second, and more important, there were now four guys walking around in the furnace, and the fourth had the appearance “like a son of the gods.” In verse 28 Nebuchadnezzar calls the fourth person an angel. However, I think there is a better answer. Some believe this is a theophany, a manifestation of God’s presence. I believe it is this, but more. I believe this is what is called a Christophany, a preincarnate appearance of the Second Person of the Trinity, the Son of God. The Lord was in there with them. The God who did not deliver them from the fire was the God who met them in the fire and delivered them out of the fire!

Nebuchadnezzar invited the three Jewish men out of the furnace for all to see “that the fire had no effect” on them (v. 27). In fact “not a hair of their heads was singed, their robes were unaffected, and there was no smell of fire on them.” He rightly attributed this to “the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego” (v. 28), the God he called “the Most High God” (v. 26), the One he earlier had called “God of gods, Lord of kings” (2:47). God “quenched the raging of fire” (Heb 11:34), delivered those who “trusted in him” (Dan 3:28), and saved those who “yielded up their bodies rather than serve and worship any god except their God” (ESV; cf. Rom 12:1-2).

As a result of the miracle in the furnace, the king issued a universal decree that if anyone spoke against this God, they would be summarily executed and their houses destroyed (3:29). Since only the Most High God can deliver from such an end, their fate would be sealed. They would die with no hope of rescue.

In the process of events, the king rewarded the three Hebrews in his kingdom (v. 30). Nebuchadnezzar once again experienced (as in chapter 2) conviction when he met the Most High God. However, conviction is not conversion! Like the beast of Revelation 13, the antichrist, Nebuchadnezzar would still have an image that citizens must worship or die. Like that beast he thought he would have a kingdom that never ends. Like that beast he too was badly mistaken.

Charles Spurgeon said it so well: “Beloved, you must go into the furnace if you would have the nearest and dearest dealings with Christ Jesus” (Sermons on the Book of Daniel, 3). These Hebrew men did just that. And they experienced exactly what Spurgeon says will happen when we do. When you walk into a fiery furnace, rest assured, Jesus is already there waiting for you.

When Nebuchadnezzar looked into the fiery furnace, he saw four men, not three. The fourth, he said, “looks like a son of the gods” (v. 25). Later he said he was an angel (v. 28). That is not a bad guess for a pagan polytheist. We, however, know better. We can say with confidence the fourth person in the furnace was the one we know as Immanuel, “God is with us” (Matt 1:23). Some are hesitant to make a specific identification with the heavenly being as a preincarnate appearance of the Son of God. In all honesty I feel no such hesitation. I believe the One who walked with them in and through the fire is also the One who walked through the fires of hell on our behalf, in order that we too would not have a single cell of our souls singed by the fiery flames we actually deserve. This should not surprise us. The promises of an ever-present Savior with his people are a resounding theme throughout the Bible:

Then he continued, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God. . . . “I will certainly be with you, and this will be the sign to you that I am the one who sent you: when you bring the people out of Egypt, you will all worship God at this mountain.” (Exod 3:6, 12)

I will be with you when you pass through the waters, and when you pass through the rivers, they will not overwhelm you. You will not be scorched when you walk through the fire, and the flame will not burn you. (Isa 43:2)

All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age. (Matt 28:18-20)

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom 8:37-39)

I will never leave you or abandon you. (Heb 13:5)

Dear friends, don’t be surprised when the fiery ordeal comes among you to test you as if something unusual were happening to you. Instead, rejoice as you share in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may also rejoice with great joy when his glory is revealed. If you are ridiculed for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. (1 Pet 4:12-14)

I love the way James Montgomery Boice closes his sermon on Daniel 3 entitled “Faith in the Furnace.” It brings encouragement, hope, and joy to my soul; and it is my prayer it will do the same for you as you demonstrate courage in the fire for the One who has delivered us from an eternal fire, a fire he endured in our place!

It is not difficult to know who that fourth person was. He was Jesus Christ in a preincarnate form—perhaps the form he had when he appeared to Abraham before the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah or in which he wrestled with Jacob beside the brook Jabbok. It is a vivid portrayal of the fact that God stands with his people in their troubles. We sing in one of our hymns:

When through the deep waters I call thee to go,

The rivers of woe shall not thee overflow:

For I will be with thee thy troubles to bless,

And sanctify to thee thy deepest distress.

When through fiery trials thy pathways shall lie,

My grace, all sufficient, shall be thy supply;

The flame shall not hurt thee; I only design

Thy dross to consume, and thy gold to refine. (Daniel, 47)