Series: Dog Daze
Daniel 3:26-27 ESV
Now…the great and mighty King Nebuchadnezzar WAS the great and mighty King who was part of the Chaldean Dynasty and the Neo-Babylonian Empire. He conquered the area of Palestine, Syria, and Judah.
This was a King who was respected and who expected everyone (and everything) to bow down to worship him. I’m certain he believed because he had conquered everything in the entire region he couldn’t even fathom anyone who would not obey him in all things.
That’s why when the three men from a nation he had conquered refused to bow down to worship the large golden statue they were thrown into the fiery furnace.
They did not obey his command.
Because they did not obey him he decided they would burn…
The problem was they DID NOT BURN!
Even in this, in a sense they refused to obey him. But, beyond that the King would have been aghast that even though he heated up the fire to be extremely hot, they did not burn up.
So… in Daniel 3:26-27 we are told, “Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the door of the burning fiery furnace; he declared, “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out, and come here!” Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego came out from the fire. And the satraps, the prefects, the governors, and the king's counselors gathered together and saw that the fire had not had any power over the bodies of those men. The hair of their heads was not singed, their cloaks were not harmed, and no smell of fire had come upon them.”
We cannot begin the know what the mighty King of the entire region was thinking when he took a peek in the furnace and saw four men inside the furnace!
He KNEW three men were thrown in so, how could it be possible that four men were in the furnace.
Where did the fourth man come from?
And more to the point who was the fourth man?
It seems like the King’s next actions tell us a great deal about this mighty King!
Not only had he conquered numerous empires, he was capable of knowing where he stood and when to know the source of power.
In other words when the King looked into the furnace and saw a fourth man he knew this was not a mortal man.
He knew this was a god.
He knew it was a powerful god.
He knew it was unlike anything he had encountered before!
Because he was able to recognize this was a ‘game changer’ he readily admitted the figure in the furnace was THE GOD!
Notice by the language he used: the King recognized this God WAS the Most High God!
In that moment the King did a complete turn about.
The King…the mighty King of the entire region bowed down to Yahweh God and recognized this was THE Most High God!
Once the King recognized the Most High God Yahweh, the people in his kingdom would have also recognized the power of Yahweh God.
I’m fairly certain word would have spread like a wildfire (pun intended). The fire in the furnace was out and the name of the fire was Yahweh.
So essentially when the King commanded the four to ‘come out’ it was Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, and the one sent by Yahweh God.
Word was OUT!
When the King commanded that they should come out, he was telling everyone in his kingdom he endorsed Yahweh God.
The impact of his declaration would have reverberated throughout his mighty kingdom!
Undoubtedly word of the Most High God Yahweh would have spread throughout the King’s Kingdom because of his command.
We might also note those who were in the fire did not smell of smoke at all. When they came out it was as if they were never even IN the fire!
Do you see the irony?
Yahweh God made it so the really really hot bad fire didn’t even exist in that part of the furnace.
That’s because God IS THE GOD.
GOD is the creator of heaven and earth and of all things. Nothing has power over THE GOD.
Spiritual Practice: GOD
Is there something you want to ‘give’ to THE God?
In God, Deborah
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