Fiery Furnace
333
In these and like words the king of Babylon endeavored to spread
abroad before all the peoples of earth his conviction that the power
and authority of the God of the Hebrews was worthy of supreme
adoration. And God was pleased with the effort of the king to show
Him reverence, and to make the royal confession of allegiance as
widespread as was the Babylonian realm.
It was right for the king to make public confession, and to seek
to exalt the God of heaven above all other gods; but in endeavoring
to force his subjects to make a similar confession of faith and to
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show similar reverence, Nebuchadnezzar was exceeding his right as
a temporal sovereign. He had no more right, either civil or moral, to
threaten men with death for not worshiping God, than he had to make
the decree consigning to the flames all who refused to worship the
golden image. God never compels the obedience of man. He leaves
all free to choose whom they will serve.
By the deliverance of His faithful servants, the Lord declared
that He takes His stand with the oppressed, and rebukes all earthly
powers that rebel against the authority of Heaven. The three Hebrews
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declared to the whole nation of Babylon their faith in Him whom
they worshiped. They relied on God. In the hour of their trial they
remembered the promise, “When thou passest through the waters, I
will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee:
when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither
shall the flame kindle upon thee.”
Isaiah 43:2
. And in a marvelous
manner their faith in the living Word had been honored in the sight of
all. The tidings of their wonderful deliverance were carried to many
countries by the representatives of the different nations that had been
invited by Nebuchadnezzar to the dedication. Through the faithfulness
of His children, God was glorified in all the earth.
Important are the lessons to be learned from the experience of the
Hebrew youth on the plain of Dura. In this our day, many of God’s
servants, though innocent of wrongdoing, will be given over to suffer
humiliation and abuse at the hands of those who, inspired by Satan,
are filled with envy and religious bigotry. Especially will the wrath of
man be aroused against those who hallow the Sabbath of the fourth
commandment; and at last a universal decree will denounce these as
deserving of death.