Walking With Christ

(Part 12 of 16)

Daniel 3:28–30 (28)Nebuchadnezzar answered and said, “Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent his angel and delivered his servants, who trusted in him, and set aside the king’s command, and yielded up their bodies rather than serve and worship any god except their own God. (29)Therefore I make a decree: Any people, nation, or language that speaks anything against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego shall be torn limb from limb, and their houses laid in ruins, for there is no other god who is able to rescue in this way.” (30)Then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the province of Babylon.

They came out of the furnace. They didn’t come out of Babylon. That distinction is easy to overlook.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego had refused to bow before the golden image Nebuchadnezzar had erected. They’d stood before the most powerful man in their world and made it clear that their obedience to God wasn’t subject to his approval.

They knew God could deliver them. They didn’t know whether He would. And they’d already decided that the outcome wouldn’t change their allegiance.

Nebuchadnezzar ordered the furnace heated beyond its normal temperature. The three men were thrown inside. But when the king looked into the furnace, he saw four men walking freely.

He called them out. Their bodies were unharmed. Their clothing was intact. Even the smell of fire was absent. It was an extraordinary deliverance. And then they went back to work.

The King Who Changed His Decree

Nebuchadnezzar’s response was remarkable. He acknowledged the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. He recognized that they’d trusted their God rather than obeying his command. He issued a decree protecting their God from being spoken against. And he promoted the three men within the province of Babylon. But read the decree carefully.

The same king who’d threatened people with destruction for refusing to worship his image now threatened people with destruction for speaking against their God. The object of his decree had changed. His methods hadn’t.

Nebuchadnezzar had witnessed something that challenged his authority, but he was still exercising that authority in familiar ways. He’d recognized the power of their God. That doesn’t necessarily mean he’d surrendered himself to God.

There’s a considerable difference between acknowledging that God is powerful and recognizing that His authority supersedes your own. And Daniel 4 would reveal that Nebuchadnezzar still had much to learn about that distinction.

A changed policy isn’t necessarily evidence of a changed heart.

The three men had received protection and promotion. But the kingdom in which they served was still governed by a man whose pride would eventually bring him to another confrontation with God.

Their immediate circumstances had improved. The larger system remained.

What They Hadn’t Asked For

There’s something interesting about the response of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego before entering the furnace. They didn’t demand that God overthrow Nebuchadnezzar. They didn’t insist that Babylon become a nation devoted to the Lord. They didn’t make their obedience conditional upon God changing the political environment around them. They simply refused to worship the image.

Their responsibility was clear. The outcome belonged to God. And when God delivered them, He didn’t remove them from Babylon. They remained in the place where their faith had been challenged. They continued serving within the kingdom whose ruler had ordered their destruction.

We aren’t told how they felt about that arrangement. We don’t know what conversations followed their promotion. We don’t know whether they trusted Nebuchadnezzar more than they had before.

Scripture doesn’t follow their individual lives beyond this episode. But it does tell us where they remained. Babylon. The place of their captivity. The place of their service. The place where their allegiance to God had already been tested. God had delivered them from the furnace without delivering them from the kingdom.

When the System Remains

We often pray for God to change the environment in which we’re struggling. We want the difficult leader replaced. We want the institution reformed. We want the culture around us to recognize what’s right. We want the circumstances that produced the conflict to disappear. And sometimes those things happen. But sometimes God brings us through a particular crisis while leaving us in the environment where it occurred.

The immediate threat passes. The underlying problems remain. The people involved may behave differently for a time. The structures that allowed the problem to develop may remain unchanged. And we’re left with a difficult question.

How do we continue faithfully when the circumstances that tested our faith haven’t fundamentally changed?

The answer isn’t necessarily to spend the rest of our lives fighting the same battle. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego weren’t introduced in Daniel as professional opponents of Babylon. They were men serving within its administration. They had responsibilities. They had positions. They had work to accomplish. Their refusal to worship the image didn’t mean they were incapable of serving the king in other matters. They understood that Nebuchadnezzar could direct their work. He couldn’t direct their worship.

They could serve Babylon without belonging to Babylon in the deepest sense.

That distinction allowed them to be faithful without making opposition the entirety of their existence.

Another King, Another Decree

Years later, Daniel would face a remarkably similar situation. The ruler was different. The empire had changed. The golden image was gone. But another decree would attempt to interfere with a faithful man’s relationship with God.

Daniel continued praying. He was thrown into the lions’ den. God delivered him. And the king issued a decree acknowledging Daniel’s God. Daniel continued serving.

The pattern is striking. Different rulers. Different threats. Different circumstances. The same fundamental question. Who possesses the authority to determine our allegiance?

Neither account ends with God’s people establishing control over the surrounding empire. Both demonstrate that God’s authority remains intact even when His people live under rulers who don’t fully recognize it.

Perhaps we’ve become too accustomed to thinking that faithfulness requires favorable circumstances. We want a world in which doing what’s right is rewarded, where integrity is appreciated, and where obedience to God doesn’t create unnecessary complications.

There’s nothing wrong with wanting those things. But they aren’t prerequisites for faithfulness.

Daniel didn’t need Babylon to become Jerusalem before he could pray. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego didn’t need Nebuchadnezzar’s approval before they could refuse to bow. Their allegiance wasn’t dependent upon the environment in which they lived.

The Fourth Man

There’s one more detail worth considering. When Nebuchadnezzar looked into the furnace, he saw a fourth figure. He described the figure in extraordinary terms and later spoke of God sending His angel.

Christians have long discussed the identity of that fourth figure. Some, including myself, understand the encounter as a manifestation of Christ before the incarnation. Others understand it as an angelic messenger.

Whatever conclusion we reach about that question, the account makes something clear. God hadn’t abandoned His servants inside the furnace. And we have no reason to believe He abandoned them when they came out.

The extraordinary manifestation of God’s protection occurred in the furnace. Their ordinary service continued outside it. But God’s authority wasn’t confined to the place where the miracle happened.

He was still God in the administrative offices of Babylon. He was still God when the three men returned to their responsibilities. He was still God when Nebuchadnezzar issued his next command.

The furnace had made His power visible. It hadn’t established the boundaries of His presence.

The God who was with them in the extraordinary moment was still their God in the ordinary days that followed.

Still in Babylon

There’s a danger in believing that the only meaningful evidence of God’s faithfulness is our removal from difficult circumstances. Sometimes leaving is necessary. Sometimes remaining would expose us or others to unacceptable danger.

The story of these three men isn’t a command to remain in every harmful situation. But it does challenge the assumption that God must change our surroundings before we can live faithfully within them.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came out of the furnace. They received promotions. They returned to their responsibilities. And Babylon was still Babylon.

The victory hadn’t given them control over the kingdom. It had demonstrated that the kingdom didn’t possess ultimate control over them.

Nebuchadnezzar could command armies. He could issue decrees. He could appoint officials. He could build furnaces. But he couldn’t make those three men worship his image. Their allegiance had already been settled.

Perhaps that’s the victory we should be paying more attention to. Not merely that they survived the furnace. Not merely that they received recognition afterward. But that their faithfulness had never depended upon Nebuchadnezzar becoming a different kind of king.

They knew whom they served before the furnace. They knew whom they served inside the furnace. And they knew whom they served when they returned to Babylon.

Babylon didn’t have to become Jerusalem for them to belong to God.

And the world around us doesn’t have to become everything we wish it were before we can faithfully belong to Him.