Standing Out...

Tonight in Deeper (our Student Ministry's Sunday Night Bible Study..) we were talking about Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. Yes, those people you've heard about since you were two...They went into a furnace and came out alive. Blah blah blah... It was in the Veggie Tales movie with the chocolate bunnies! It is actually more than that.

If you read Daniel 3, you will see the whole story.
Daniel was away, but his friends Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were in Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar built a huge idol that everyone is Babylon was to bow down and worship. These 4 men decided that they were not going to defile God by doing this. They could have just bowed down to the ground like everyone else, and worshipped their God silently...but nope, they were the ONLY ONES in Babylon that stood up while they were commanded to worship this idol.

Nebuchadnezzar called them and basically gave them another chance. Their response is amazing. They basically said, We don't need another chance. You can try to kill us if you want to, but we have our God whether we are dead or alive, and we are going to worship Him.

Nebuchadnezzar got upset and ordered that they be thrown into a fiery furnace...that's not all..it was 7 times HOTTER than it normally was. The children's story doesn't mention that the soldiers that escorted them into the furnace died because of how hot it was. So, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego fell into the furnace. Nebuchadnezzar is watching all of this and is like "Wait...weren't there...three...men?" The officials assure him there were three. They all looked, and there were 4 men (The three original, and an angel protecting them) standing, unharmed, in the middle of the furnace. They walked out, and Nebucadnezzar was so impressed that he said that anyone that tried to blasphemy these men's God would be killed.

WOW. That is faith. This is an extreme case, but if just a few of us stood up for what we believed in...look at what could happen!