Three young men in Babylon refused to bow to a statue. The story has aged well. We will need its courage now — and the same God they trusted, who has not changed at all.
They were teenagers when they were carried into Babylon, deported from Jerusalem with the rest of the bright young men whose only crime was being Jewish at the wrong moment in history. Daniel got most of the chapters. But chapter three of the book belongs to the other three — Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. The names alone tell you what Babylon was trying to do. Their Hebrew names — Hananiah, Mishael, Azariah — meant Yah is gracious, Who is what God is, Yah has helped. Babylon renamed them after Babylonian gods. The empire understood that names are theology. Change the names, and you start to change the people.
Until the day the music played, and the empire commanded everyone to bow.
The setup
Nebuchadnezzar built a statue ninety feet tall, sixty cubits by six, and gathered the empire's officials to bow before it. The threat was simple: bow or die in the furnace. The crowd bowed. Three did not.
When word reached the king, he gave them a second chance. "But if you do not worship, you shall immediately be cast into a burning fiery furnace. And who is the god who will deliver you out of my hands?" (Daniel 3:15). Their answer is one of the great speeches in Scripture: "O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. 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 3:16–18).
The crucial three words
"But if not."
Their faith was not contingent on rescue. They believed God could rescue. They believed He might not. Either way, they would not bow. That is the kind of faith Babylon cannot break — and the kind every Christian needs in a world that increasingly will not understand why we won't bow to its idols.
The faith that bows when the rescue does not come is not faith. The faith that says "He could, and even if He doesn't, my answer is the same" — that is faith. That is the faith that walks into furnaces.
The fourth man
When the king looked into the furnace he saw four. "Behold, I see four men unbound, walking in the midst of the fire, and they are not hurt; and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods" (Daniel 3:25). Most teachers see Christ in that fourth figure — a pre-incarnate appearance, the Lord meeting His servants in the fire.
Whether or not it is Christ, the lesson holds. God did not keep them out of the furnace. He went into the furnace with them. The deliverance was not from the fire. It was through the fire.
Our furnace
We are not going to be thrown into literal furnaces, most of us. But the temptation to bow is rising. Bow to the cultural idols of self-actualization and sexual autonomy. Bow to the demand that everyone affirm everything. Bow to the workplace consensus that politely punishes the believer who will not call good evil and evil good. The pressure is real, and growing.
Three things to take from this old story:
Decide before the music plays. The three Hebrews did not figure out their answer when the orchestra struck up. They had decided years before. The day of pressure is not the day to decide what you believe. Decide now.
Say it plainly. Their answer was not equivocal. They did not split the difference. They did not bow halfway. The watching world reads our compromises as a vote of no confidence in our God. Speak plainly.
Trust the Fourth Man. Whatever furnace the Lord allows in your life, He will be in there with you. He has promised it. He has proved it. He has not changed.