A New Look at the Fiery Furnace

Even if you did not grow up with a lot of religious training and you had post-modern parents who thought they'd let you choose your own religion when you were older, if you were really an All-American Child, then at least once during your childhood somebody invited you to either a Sunday school class or a VBS (Vacation Bible School) and at some point in your youth you heard the story of the Three Hebrew Children who were thrown into the Fiery Furnace by the King of Babylon because they refused to worship an idol, and they came out unscathed.

If you were raised by a progressive atheist, you may have heard the expression "fiery furnace" used as an idiom in classic literature meaning "an ordeal successfully survived." 

Or if you did go to church regularly as a kid, you may have heard the story taught something like this one The Wonder Book of Bible Stories — Logan Marshall — The Story of the Fiery Furnace   You would have had fun trying to pronounce the foreign sounding names:  Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, and King Nebuchadnezzar.  And you were probably told that being thrown into the furnace was a "punishment" for not obeying the king.

It is that "punishment" worldview that opens up a crack of wiggle room just big enough to miss the bullseye.

At least, that is the way it was taught in my Sunday school. We looked at the fear of punishment, not the passion of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to serve their God. They had a fiery furnace of intimacy with God, not a fire of affliction.  It became a reward where they met God face to face. They stood. God said, "Well done!"  The only thing that burned were the ropes that bound them. It did not cause them to stumble but to reap reward. Standing in faith set them free, but even that freedom turned out to be the second prize. First reward was being with the Lord face to face.
How often is such intimacy with the Lord taught as the Biggie?  In my experience the answer is "rarely."

  "What god is there who can deliver you out of my hands?" Nebuchadnezzar had pompously demanded, Daniel 3:15.  But Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were passionate. They spoke with united wild abandon:

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to the king, "O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to give you an answer concerning this matter.  ~Daniel 3:16

Obviously, once viewed from the reward perspective instead of the punishment perspective, we see that there ARE things that we MUST NOT BOW TO. Popular culture is full of things that we must not bow to. False religion must not be bowed to. We cannot trade off our souls for political correctness.  

Sure, it is great and all to teach that God can deliver.  But why did He deliver? On a whim? No. A lucky spin of fate? No. He delivered in response to the men's passionate desire for intimacy with their God, a desire that been practiced all along and built into a steady relationship; not newly discovered as the logs for stoking the furnace were being removed from the storage crib. God acted in response to the men's refusal to bow to the world and the appeasement of men. This really is a two-sided coin. One cannot serve two masters. They chose to love one and not give a flip about the other.

As we move into 2017, the knowledge that God can deliver does not get us to the finish line. It is a good first step, but hey, I know a guy who can fix cars too! It does not mean that he will fix mine.  For that to happen, we need a contract, a covenant, a relationship, or such active love for each other that not having a functional car is unthinkable!

The deliverance of the 'Three Hebrew Children,' (and it could be just as accurate to call them college students,) was not all 100% God.  They knew their covenant, They had built a relationship. They made a decree that God could use and act upon. It was a co-labor situation. They supplied their testimony; God supplied the supernatural.