CHARLO, New Brunswick, April 11, 2024 – Our trials, when they come (and come they will), don’t always announce themselves in advance. Sometimes our trials are meant to blindside us because our raw response is part of the test.

Daniel’s good friends and colleagues, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego (hereafter “SM&A”), weren’t entirely blindsided by their trial, but they also didn’t have months to prepare for the furnace. In the book of Daniel, we read that Nebuchadnezzar, the then king of Babylon, had a 60-foot-high golden idol set up. He was so proud of his idol, he decreed that everyone – regardless of cultural background – must fall down and worship it whenever they heard the sounds of certain instruments playing, kind of like Pavlov’s dogs responding to ringing bells. The punishment for failing to prostrate before the abomination was death by fiery furnace.

From the get-go, SM&A wanted nothing to do with the decree. Note that they didn’t lobby against it or protest it or start a petition to protect their minority religious rights. No, they didn’t engage in any kind of public protest or encourage others to do so. Instead, they just didn’t go along with it and remained quietly and resolutely standing when everyone else around them fell down.

Their decision to remain standing marked them for trouble. Soon enough, trouble came in the form of a gaggle of envious Chaldeans who gleefully snitched on them to the king. Furious, the king hauled SM&A before him and offered them a calculated deal: He promised them that if they would fall down on cue from that point onward, they’d be off the hook for their previous failings and free to go. But if they chose not to fall down, they’d be thrown into the furnace and burned alive. The king then addended his offer with: “and who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?”

Who, indeed.

SM&A, knowing their God and choosing to stand firm in his promises rather than those of the king, quickly but respectfully schooled Nebuchadnezzar, stating:

If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up. (Daniel 3:16-18)

Their refusal to submit to him sent Nebuchadnezzar into a blind rage, and he ordered the furnace to be heated seven times hotter than usual and that the men be thrown into it fully dressed and bound, and without further ado.

We can only imagine what was going through the minds and hearts of SM&A while they were being hauled off to their fiery end by the king’s brutes. Whatever it was, it caught God’s attention, and he immediately sent his angel to protect the faithful trio, who ultimately emerged unscathed, unsinged, and even fresh-smelling from their trial. Humbled by what he’d witnessed, the king then decreed that anyone who spoke anything amiss against God should be dealt with accordingly.

All’s well that ends well, certainly, but I believe there’s a deeper lesson to be learned here than simply that God comes to the rescue of those who are faithful to him or that God gives you exactly what you’re asking for in prayer. In their statement to Nebuchadnezzar, SM&A not only pointed out that God was indeed able to save them from the furnace, if he so chose, but that even if God chose not to save them from the furnace, they would still remain loyal to him. In stating this, SM&A were showing that they were not putting any conditions on God or making assumptions about what he would or would not do: they were only stating what he was capable of and affirming that their loyalty and submission would remain to God and to God only, regardless of how their trial played out.

My dear fellow born-again believers – this is the crux of our faith: that we stand on the witness of our heart, not our eyes, and that we put no conditions on God or make assumptions about what he will or will not do for us. We love God and are loyal to him because we love him and are loyal to him. Full stop. We don’t stop loving him (that is, give up on him and turn from him to worship other gods) if he doesn’t deliver us from our trials in the way we think we should be delivered, or if he doesn’t deliver our loved ones from their trials.

We put no conditions on God. That, I believe, is the deeper lesson taught to us by the fiery trial of SM&A. Yes, they were delivered by God who showed he was well and easily able to do so, but even if he hadn’t delivered them (like he didn’t deliver Isaiah from being sawn in half or he didn’t deliver Jesus from being crucified), their faith (I believe) would have remained sure.

We stand on the witness of our heart, not our eyes. We love God with everything we have and everything we are and submit fully to him and to him only not because of what he can do for us, but because he is. That’s the first and what Jesus called the greatest Commandment.

If you’re not there yet in your faith, you need to get there, and the sooner the better.