Nebuchadnezzar must have been insecure on some level because one day he developed a plan to prove to everyone that he was the richest, baddest, mo-fo on the planet. He had a gold image made and placed in the middle of a huge field. This image was 70 feet tall and six and a half feet thick. He then commanded everyone with even a little bit of authority in his empire to attend the dedication ceremony for this image. At the ceremony the king’s herald announced that from that time forth, any time music was heard anywhere in the kingdom, everyone was to drop to the ground and worship this giant golden image.
If anyone chose to abstain from worship they were to be thrown immediately into a fiery furnace where they would die, consumed by the flames. Naturally the good little Jehovah lovers, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego did not worship the gold image as required and a group of Chaldeans ratted them out to the King.
Nebuchadnezzar was furious. He immediately had Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego brought before him and demanded to know if it was true they were refusing to worship the image. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego were honest Jehovah lovers so they truthfully told the king they would never serve any other god or image, no matter who told them to.
This made Nebuchadnezzar even more upset. He commanded the fiery furnace be heated to seven times the normal level. He had the strongest men in his army tie up Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego and throw them into the furnace. Due to a lack of proper foresight, and the haste required by the king, the furnace was so hot that the people who threw Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego in were overcome by the heat and died.
The king watched all this and was looking into the furnace. However, he didn’t see Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego get all crispy like he expected. Instead he saw four people walking around in there, looking just as happy as you can imagine.
Here’s the part I don’t believe: Nebuchadnezzar was astonished to see the Hebrews walking around in the furnace unharmed with what looked like an angel of God. He walked over to the furnace to talk to them, AND SOMEHOW WAS NOT INJURED BY THE HEAT THAT KILLED HIS BEST AND BRAVEST SOLDIERS. Yeah right! In any case, Nebuchadnezzar said to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, “Ye servants of the most high God, come forth and come hither.”
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego left the fire and Neduchanezzar made a royal decree right then and there. He commanded that from that time forth anyone who ever said anything bad about Jehovah would be cut into tiny pieces and their house would be demolished. Then the King promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego to even higher ranking positions in the province of Babylon.
Moral: Jehovah used to help his believers. Either He no longer feels like helping people, or nobody actually believes in Him anymore.
Ref: Daniel 3
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