Daniel 3:24-27 – God is with us.

God rewards audacious faith. He often does it in a way that surpasses one's ability to think or imagine. So, Daniel, in 3:24-27, records how this God amazingly rescued Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego. He was walking with the three amid the blazing fire. Nebuchadnezzar had only cast three persons into the furnace but saw four amid the flaming fire.

Couldn't believe his eyes, he turned to his high officials and asked alarmingly, "Was it not three men we cast bound into the midst of the fire?" "We certainly did, O King," they responded. "But look! There's a fourth man among them. They are all freely walking unbound and unharmed in the fire. And the fourth man looks like a son of gods," said the king. 

 

He then came to the furnace's door. Though the text is silent, Nebuchadnezzar must have asked for the furnace fire to be tampered with, or else he could not come near it without being slain by the searing heat. 

He could have recalled the last gallant words of the three friends and realized that their God had indeed shielded and saved them from being consumed by the fire. He then calls out to them, saying, "Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, come out, you servants of the Most High God, and come here!" 

 

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego had no hesitation in obliging. They came out amid the fire to the whole host of the king's officials watching. Everyone from the "satraps, the prefects, the governors, and the king's high officials gathered around and saw regarding these men that the fire had no effect on the bodies of these men…." Not a single blade of the hair on their heads was singed by the fire. 

 

Remember, they were tied together in their trousers, coats, caps, and other clothes. Yet the fire did not damage their pants, and no burnt smell could be detected. This is to say that they were protected from the fire, and none of it came near any of them.  

 

Daniel 3:24-27 demonstrates in a personal way the promise of God to be with us. Emmanuel, God with us, is one of Christ Jesus' names. He began His earthly ministry with Emmanuel and ended it with, "Lo, I am with you to the end of the ages!" Today, He is with us; nothing can separate us from God's love. Because God is with us, He will help us to accomplish His will. And God is with us to protect and help us overcome every Crisis. He may not take our crisis away from us or us away from the crisis, but he will be with us and walk with us through our crisis victoriously.