Trinity Baptist Church

 

This is the third exciting scene of the story about the three Hebrew young people who were being cast into the burning fiery furnace. They had refused to bow to the king's image of gold. The king has now tried to bend them and force them to do his will. They have stood tall and refused to yield to the pressure of the king. They have backed the king into a corner now and he has no choice but to carry out the threat. Into the burning fiery furnace they go.

 

When you study this third chapter, one thing that becomes very apparent is that Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego are very special to God. I believe that as you read through this chapter you will discover that their names are mentioned thirteen times. It's as if God is so very proud of them that their names are being shouted up and down the corridors of heaven. These three young men, who refused to bow to the image and who refused to bend to the pressure of the king!

 

These young men are so famous that they are included in the New Testament in Hebrews chapter 11. In that great chapter of the heroes of faith, verse 34 referring to these young men says this: "That through faith they quenched the violence of the fire." They had a faith which was fit for the fire. They had a faith which carried them through the fiery furnace.

I want to talk to you about faith for the fire. Sooner or later all of us are going to go through a burning fiery furnace experience.

 

 

There are some lessons that can be learned in the fiery furnace which can be learned in no other place.

Lesson one is, there is,

 

The king has said, into the furnace they will go. I can imagine that people began to rush to the furnace. They are scrambling for the front seats before the furnace so they can see these boys being thrown into the burning fiery furnace.

 

What we have here is an illustration of persecution which will inevitably come to those people of God who refuse to bow and bend.

 

Notice the king's fury. We are told in verse 19 that the king is full of fury. That means he is absolutely overcome in his fury. He loses it. He is totally out of control.

 

You can see the anger on his face. You can see the fury as it comes across his countenance.

 

Our faces are mirrors of our emotions. Sometimes the face can show the emotion of anger. At other times the face can show emotion of surprise. Sometimes the face can show the emotion of disappointment. At other times, the face can show the emotion of joy.

 

Here is the king and his face is contorted with anger. Listen to his hoarse voice as he shouts, "Heat the furnace seven times hotter than it’s ever been!"

 

What we have here is an illustration of what persecution is all about. Heat the furnace more!

The truth of the matter is that the further we go along, the more we can expect the pressure to increase on God's people.

 

In II Timothy 3, verse 1, says this: "This know that in the last days perilous times shall come."

 

I do not believe things are going to get easier for Christians. I believe things are going to get tougher for Christians. I believe that the heat of the furnace is going to be turned up on God's people as we approach the end time. The king's fury!

 

Now notice the king's furnace.

 

There are many furnaces of persecution which God's people may experience along the way. You may have a furnace experience before the week is over. You may be cast into a fiery furnace of persecution in your own experience.

 

Sometimes it is the furnace of criticism. If you are successful, somebody will criticize you. If you are not successful, somebody will criticize you.

 

It may be the burning fiery furnace of intimidation. There will be those will try to intimidate you and try to force you to compromise your convictions.

 

 Sometimes you are cast into the furnace of isolation. They will isolate you if you stand true to the Lord. They will push you away and put tremendous pressure by their isolation to cause to go along with the crowd and do what everybody else is doing. A burning fiery furnace experience!

 

Have you ever wondered why God allows us to be persecuted? Have you ever wondered why persecution comes through the permissive will of God for your life? Sometimes persecution is used of God to refine and purify our motives. God allows persecution to draw us closer to Him. God has purposes when persecution comes.

 

Don't you love the promises of God? Let me share a promise with you about persecution from II Timothy 3, verse 12, it says this. "And yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution." That's a promise. That's what God said. God says if you live godly you WILL suffer persecution.

 

In a way that only God could design, persecution is good for a Christian. A Christian is like a tea bag. He's not worth much until he's been in some hot water. The same thing is true of you and me. When we go through that fiery persecution it draws us closer to the Lord. It makes us pray more. It causes us to grab hold of our convictions a little bit more. God gives us the experience of persecution in the fiery furnace.

 

There is a lesson to be learned in the furnace. It is the lesson of persecution. Though the world persecutes you and tries to destroy you, God is at work in that persecution. God can use EVEN persecution.

 

They are going into the fire.

 

 

 

 

 

There's a second lesson we learn from our faith in the furnace. It is,

 

 

Let's read about it in verse 24.

 

They were thrown into that fiery furnace. He is expecting them to disintegrate. He is expecting them to go up in flames. Yet, verse 24 says the king was astonished. That means he was amazed. 

 

24-27

 

They were thrown into the fiery furnace, yet they had no harm. You are aware that we are in the presence of a miracle. We know that when people are thrown into a fire, they are burned. These young men would not bow, they would not bend, and they do not burn. It is clearly a miracle.

 

These young men went into the fiery furnace. They walked on coals of fire and felt no harm. They washed in basins of fire and felt no pain. God miraculously preserved them. The lesson of preservation!

 

This is such an interesting miracle. Notice that the king gets up and he looks. He cannot believe his eyes. He rubs his eyes and looks again. He knew that three men had gone into the fire. Now, he sees four men in that fire. Do you see what he said at the end of verse 25? "The form of the fourth is like the Son of God."

 

 

 

Now I am pretty sure he was speaking as a pagan. In fact, the Hebrew text says that he said, "He is like a son of the gods." That was the pagan way of putting it. This old pagan, godless king didn't have a spiritual vocabulary to describe what he was seeing.

 

He thought it was an angel. In verse 28 he makes mention of the fact that God had sent His angel down. But from a Christian perspective, there is no doubt about who that fourth one in that fire was. The fourth one in the fire was none other than the Son of God. This is the Lord Jesus Christ. That's who it was!

 

This is one of several pre-incarnate appearances of the Lord Jesus Christ before He was born in Bethlehem. They are known in theological language as theophanies. 

 

The Lord Jesus Christ appeared unto Abraham in the Old Testament. The Lord Jesus Christ wrestled with Jacob in the Old Testament. Now, the Lord Jesus Christ assumes human form before His birth in Bethlehem and the Son of God, Jesus Himself, comes down into that furnace.

 

I can imagine it was like this. The Lord was looking down from heaven at these magnificent boys who wouldn't bow or bend. I can imagine that somebody on earth said, "They are fools." I can almost hear the Lord saying, "I don't think so." And the Lord steps down from the throne in glory. The Lord comes down and assumes human form. The Lord walks into that furnace and He walks over to those flames of fire and says, "Cool it!" When He does the flames lose their power to hurt. The flames lose their ability to burn.

I have a wonderful thing to say to you tonight. Whenever you go through the fiery furnace you can count on it. The Lord will be there. The Lord will protect you from the fire.

 

Isaiah 43 says: “But now, thus says the Lord, who created you, O Jacob, And He who formed you, O Israel: "Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name; You are Mine.

2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; And through the rivers, they shall not overflow you. When you walk through the fire, you shall not be burned, Nor shall the flame scorch you.

3 For I am the Lord your God, The Holy One of Israel, your Savior.”

 

Every fiery furnace experience of your life, you can count on it. God will be right there. Jesus will be right there. He will not leave you alone. He will walk through the fiery furnace with you.

 

They look in and see these three in the fire. He says, "I saw three men bound." Now he says, "I see four men loose." They were bound but now they loose. Instead of writhing in agony, they are walking in victory. The flames in this furnace become very selective.

 

The only thing that the fire burned was the ropes that bound the boys. That is exactly what happens when we go through the furnace. God sets us free from those things that would bind us.

 

I think about Martin Luther, that monk who was trying desperately to find God and salvation. When he discovered "the just shall live by faith" he was excommunicated from his church.

Those were just the bonds that bound him. God set him free to be a blessing to the whole world.

 

They wouldn't let John Wesley preach in the established churches of the day. He was too radical for them. They kicked him out. So he started preaching out in the open air. Thousands of the common people came to hear John Wesley preach. God burned off the bonds of ecclesiasticism and set him free to preach the gospel to the masses of the people.

 

When you go through the fire, you just keep in mind that God will use that fire only to set you free from those things that bind you. God is at work in your life to do something to set you free to be a blessing on this earth.

 

There's Jesus walking in the fire with them. It's time for the math test. How many young men were thrown into that fiery furnace? Three. When the king looked into that fiery furnace, how many did he see? Four. Then when the three Hebrew boys came out, how many came out? Three.

 

When these three young Hebrew men came out of that fire, the king got his cabinet together and they began to examine them. The Bible says that the fire had no power on their bodies. Their bodies would not burn. Not a hair of their head was singed. Their coats had not been changed, nor the smell of fire had passed on them. It's very difficult to get around fire and not have the smell of fire on your clothes.

 

We like to eat at El Chico’s and Lisa loves their fajitas, except she gets the smell on her clothes.

 

God preserved these boys in the fire, so much so that the Bible says there was not even a mark of soot on their bodies. There wasn't even the smell of fire in their garments. That means that when God delivers, He does a complete job. That means that whatever God does, He does it completely and perfectly.

 

Lessons in the furnace! Number one, a lesson of persecution. Lesson number two, a lesson of preservation.

 

Lesson number three,

 

Notice verses 28-30

 

For the second time in this book, Nebuchadnezzar praises their God. He says there is no God like this. God has convinced him that their God is the true God. When you go through the fire and those around you in an unsaved world see how you go through that fire and they see the great God you serve who has power to deliver you, it will be a tremendous testimony to them.

 

God is working in the life of Nebuchadnezzar. The Bible says he promoted these three young men. Maybe he enhances their position in government. Perhaps he gives them better living quarters. Maybe they get a raise in salary. I don't know what he did, but very often the pathway through the furnace is the pathway of promotion.

 

 

 

God has a way of using suffering to bring God's people to glory. Romans 8, verse 18, says this. "For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time, are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us." Do you see that? Suffering and glory. The pathway to glory is paved with burning bricks.

 

Listen to II Corinthians 4, verse 17. "For our light affliction." The furnace doesn't seem light when we are going through it, does it? "Which is but for a moment." It doesn't seem like it's just a moment. It seems like an eternity; "worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory."

 

He is saying that fiery furnace you are going through, God is going to use that experience to bring about a far more great exceeding and eternal work of glory in your life.

 

Are you going through a fiery furnace tonight? I want to give you an encouraging Scripture. There's a verse in Malachi that will be an encouragement to you if you are going through the fire.

 

Chapter 3, verse 3, says this: "And he (the Lord) shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he shall purify the sons of Levi and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness."

 

That is an amazing picture of God. God is pictured here as a silversmith. A silversmith takes the silver and puts it in a crucible. Then he turns the fire up under the crucible. As the fire begins to heat that crucible, the silver turns to liquid and settles to the bottom. The impurities in the silver rise to the top. The silversmith takes a skimmer and skims the dross, that impurity, from the top and casts it away. Then he carefully regulates the flame. It is not the purpose of the silversmith to ruin the silver, but to purify the silver. So the heat goes up and the impurities rise and he skims them off.

 

How long does he keep that process up? When does he know that the job is done and he won't burn the silver and spoil it?   It's very interesting. I am told he knows the silver is ready to come out of the fire when he looks into the silver and sees the reflection of his own face. He knows it's time to take the silver out of the fire.

 

Are you in the fire tonight? Does it feel like it's might hot and you wonder when you will ever come out? God is getting the impurities out of your life. God is refining and purifying you. He will do it until He sees His image in you. When you become like Jesus in that experience, He will take you out of the fire.

 

I want to challenge you to be like these young men who through faith quenched the violence of fire. Don't bow to this world's golden images. Don't bend to the pressures of those who would try to make you conform. If you won't bow, if you won't bend, you won't burn. One of these days you will come out on the other side and you will be more like the Lord Jesus Christ.

 

Let's bow our heads in prayer.