Today we finish the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace and focus on the fourth person who appears with them in the fire. Their story reminds us that faithfulness doesn’t mean we will never face difficult seasons—in fact, sometimes we can find ourselves in the fire precisely because we are trying to be faithful to God. But the promise of Scripture isn’t that we will never walk through the fire; it is that we will never walk through it alone. God is present with us in the hardest moments of our lives, and when we aren’t the ones in the fire, we are called to be willing to walk into it with someone else. We may not be able to fix their situation or explain their suffering, but sometimes simply being present and reminding someone that they are not alone is exactly what they need.
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Good morning. It’s good to be with you on this Monday morning. I hope you are well and had a great weekend. I hope everything is good as we start this week together. We’ve got a lot of good stuff going on, and I’m looking forward to the week ahead.
And hey, I think this is the week football starts, isn’t it? A lot of college football is getting started this week, so pray for us all.
And if you’re planning your trip up to Starkville for a State football game, make plans to stay the night and come worship with us at First UMC. We’d love to have you. Wherever you’re coming from across Mississippi, if you’re coming to Starkville for the ballgame, come stay the night and come to church with us downtown. We’d love to see you.
Today we’re going to finish the story of the golden statue and the fiery furnace. We’re going to look at Daniel 3: 19-30.
Nebuchadnezzar becomes furious with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego because they refused to bow down to his statue. He orders the furnace to be heated seven times hotter than normal, and he commands some of the strongest soldiers in his army to bind them and throw them into the fire.
The furnace is so hot that the men who throw them in are killed by the flames.
And then Nebuchadnezzar looks into the furnace.
And he sees something he wasn’t expecting.
He says, “Didn’t we throw three men into the fire?”
They say, “Yes, King.”
And he says, “Well, I see four men walking around in the fire, and they aren’t hurt.”
And then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego come out of the furnace, and everybody looks at them.
Their clothes aren’t burned.
Their hair isn’t singed.
They don’t even smell like smoke.
And Nebuchadnezzar says, “Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who sent his angel and delivered his servants who trusted in him.”
So we have this incredible scene of these three men being thrown into the fire, and yet they aren’t alone in the fire.
There are four people in there.
And there are different traditions about who that fourth person is. Some Jewish traditions understand the figure to be an angel. Some Christians have interpreted it as an appearance of Christ. The text itself talks about an angel, and that’s where I tend to land. I think this is an image of God’s presence with them, God’s angel being sent to protect them and to be with them in the fire.
And I think that’s a beautiful image.
It reminds me of Isaiah 43, where God says that when you pass through the waters, God will be with you, and when you walk through the fire, you will not be burned.
Because that’s the thing I really want us to remember today:
God is with us in the fire.
We don’t always like the fire.
None of us want to go through difficult times. None of us wake up in the morning and say, “Boy, I hope today is really hard.”
We don’t want the opposition.
We don’t want the challenges.
We don’t want the difficult seasons.
But sometimes we make the mistake of thinking that if something is difficult, that must mean God doesn’t want us to do it.
“If I’m facing opposition, maybe I’m going the wrong direction.”
“If this is so hard, maybe God is telling me to stop.”
And sometimes that’s true. Sometimes we need to listen when we’re going in the wrong direction.
But that’s not always true.
Sometimes the hardest thing is exactly the thing God is calling us to do.
God doesn’t always call us to easy things.
In fact, I would say God very rarely calls us to things that are simple and easy.
Think about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
They did the right thing.
They were faithful.
They refused to worship something other than God.
And where did their obedience get them?
Into a furnace.
Their trouble wasn’t because they were wicked.
Their trouble was because they were faithful.
It’s a little bit like Job. Job didn’t suffer because he was some terrible person. In the story, Job’s suffering comes precisely in the midst of his faithfulness.
So we need to be careful about assuming that every difficult thing in our lives is a sign that we’re doing something wrong.
Sometimes life is just hard.
Sometimes we find ourselves in a fire because that’s where we are.
And sometimes the fire is the consequence of doing the right thing.
But here’s the good news:
We’re not alone in the fire.
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego went into the furnace, but they weren’t alone.
God was there.
And I think that’s one of the great promises of Scripture.
God doesn’t promise us that we’ll never walk through fire.
God doesn’t promise us that we’ll never have trouble.
God doesn’t promise us that everything will always work out exactly the way we want it to.
But God promises us that we won’t be alone.
The psalmist asks, “Where can I go from your presence?”
And the answer is nowhere.
If I go to the farthest edge of the dawn, you’re there.
If I go into the depths, you’re there.
Wherever I go, God is there.
Jesus promises that he will never leave us or forsake us.
So if you’re in the fire today, if you’re in the middle of something that’s difficult, if you’re facing a trial or a challenge or opposition, I want you to hear this:
You are not alone.
Maybe you’re being tested.
Maybe you’re being persecuted.
Maybe you’re dealing with the consequences of something that happened.
Maybe you’re just in a difficult season of life and you don’t even know why you’re there.
Whatever the reason, you’re not alone.
God is with you.
And here’s another thing I think we need to remember.
If you’re not in the fire right now, chances are somebody you know is.
You’ve got a friend who’s in the pit.
You’ve got somebody in your family who’s hurting.
You’ve got somebody at work who’s struggling.
You’ve got somebody sitting beside you at church who’s walking through something you know nothing about.
And sometimes God sends an angel into the fire.
And sometimes God sends you.
You may not feel very angelic. I certainly don’t most of the time. But sometimes you may be exactly what somebody needs when they’re in the pit.
Sometimes they just need somebody to sit beside them.
Sometimes they need somebody to pray with them.
Sometimes they need somebody to remind them, “You’re not alone.”
So if you’re in the fire today, don’t give up.
God is with you.
And if you’re not in the fire today, find somebody who is and get in there with them.
You don’t have to fix it.
You don’t have to have all the answers.
Just let them know they’re not alone.
Because sometimes the greatest gift we can give somebody isn’t an explanation for why they’re hurting.
Sometimes it’s simply our presence.
God was present with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fire.
And sometimes God makes his presence known through people who are willing to walk into the fire with us.
So today, if you’re in the fire, hold on.
God is with you.
And if you’ve got somebody in the fire, don’t leave them there by themselves.
Go stand beside them.
Let’s be the people who remind one another that even in the hottest, hardest places of life, God is still there.
Hey, thanks for being with me today. I hope you have a great Monday and a great start to your week. We’ll pick up tomorrow with Daniel chapter 4.
Thanks.