Help in the fire

Then King Nebuchadnezzar was astonished; and he rose in haste and spoke, saying to his counselors, "Did we not cast three men bound into the midst of the fire?" They answered and said to the king, "True, O king." "Look!" he answered, "I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire; and they are not hurt, and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God." – Daniel 3.24-25

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were cast into the fiery furnace, heated so hot that some of the men who threw then in died. I reckon that everyone thought that was the end of the story. You get the idea from the king’s reaction that he was not so sure about his decision. He was following the events and responded with haste when it appeared that there were four, not three, men in the furnace. There was something different about the fourth one. He looked like an angel or, as they put it, ‘like the Son of God.’

There are several places in the word of God where God talks about being with His people ‘through the fire.’ ‘When we walk through the fire’ we read in Isaiah 43, ‘you will not be burned.’

The experience of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego surely speaks to the truth of God going with His people through the fire. Unlike these lads sometimes the trials and fires of life do hurt. Sometimes they do burn. But even then we have the comfort to know that Christ is there with us to give us strength and patience to get through the fire.

We have Someone with us in the fire. May we find our strength in Him.