Who Is Equal to Such a Task?

“The king’s command was so urgent and the furnace so hot that the flames of the fire killed the soldiers who took up Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, and these three men, firmly tied, fell into the blazing furnace.” Daniel 3:22.

We can only imagine this scene in our minds as we read the story of these devoted men of God being ushered to what appeared would end in death. They climbed the stairs to the mouth of the furnace bound and fully dressed as they prepared to die for their wholehearted devotion to God. The men who worshipped Nebuchadnezzar led them up the steps with the heat of the furnace intensifying with every step. The soldiers couldn’t even take the heat of the mouth of the furnace, as we are told they were killed. Our amazing men of God however not only survived the heat of the entrance but survived the full fury of the fire without ‘burns or even the smell of smoke.’

Every one of us will peer into the mouth of the furnace and some of us will actually fall directly into the fire. The degree of our burns will be determined by the level of intimacy for which we possess with Christ. We can be destroyed at the beginning of the fire if our faith is flimsy. It is only when we are walking with God in the midst of the fiery furnace that we are able to escape the flames’ lasting effects. We will not be consumed by the heat of the season but will be carried right out of the mouth of our furnaces triumphantly.

Like the soldiers of Nebuchadnezzar, when we worship something other than God it becomes instantly clear when the fire engulfs us that we will be burned. But when we live our lives ‘firmly tied’ and led by the Trinity we will not fear but be delivered from our sentence of death. We will possess the aroma of Christ instead of the smell of smoke from our fires. ‘But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him. For we are to God the aroma of Christ…To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life. And who is equal to such a task?'

And who is equal indeed?