A FIREMAN I KNOW once got trapped in a burning house…
He had gotten disoriented in a hallway when fire broke out at both ends of the hall. He believed that he was going to die that day. With smoke and flame all around him, he simply did not know which way to go. All he knew was that he did not have much time. At what seemed to be the last second, the smoke cleared a bit, and he saw sunlight coming into a window at one end of the hall. He ran to it, broke it out with an ax, and climbed to safety. His fellow firemen treated him as if he had returned from the dead.
Someone who has tasted death has a way of grabbing our attention. No wonder, then, that King Nebuchadnezzar was so amazed when the three young Hebrew men emerged alive from the furnace. Everyone in the palace knew what had happened. This was not some fluke in which the men managed to find a way out of danger on their own. Only God could have brought them out. The Scripture says it was as if they had never gone into the fire at all: “there was no smell of fire on them” (v. 27).
The king was moved to praise the one true God who had saved the men from the furnace. He even decreed that no one could even so much as speak against their God. Don M. Aycock & Mark Sutton, “Dead Men Walking,” Still God’s Man, 220-221
God still saves (cf., 1 Peter 3:20-22) from the fire (Jude 1:2-3). He still resurrects (cf., Romans 6:5) from the dead. Do you know Him (1 John 2:3-4; 3:1; 5:20; Philippians 3:10)?
26 Then Nebuchadnezzar went near the mouth of the burning fiery furnace and spoke, saying, “Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego, servants of the Most High God, come out, and come here.” Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego came from the midst of the fire. 27 And the satraps, administrators, governors, and the king’s counselors gathered together, and they saw these men on whose bodies the fire had no power; the hair of their head was not singed nor were their garments affected, and the smell of fire was not on them. 28 Nebuchadnezzar spoke, saying, “Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego, who sent His Angel and delivered His servants who trusted in Him, and they have frustrated the king’s word, and yielded their bodies, that they should not serve nor worship any god except their own God! 29 Therefore I make a decree that any people, nation, or language which speaks anything amiss against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego shall be cut in pieces, and their houses shall be made an ash heap; because there is no other God who can deliver like this.” 30 Then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego in the province of Babylon. Daniel 3:26-30
Mike Benson