The Fiery Furnace

“Who IS that God who shall deliver you out of my hands?” Dan. iii. 15.

/^ NE of the mysteries of life is the suffering of the good. Why should the best of God’s servants have affliction upon affliction? It was the problem of Job. The troubled patriarch found it insoluble down to the very last chapter. It is true that it seemed no problem at all to Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite. Ah, they knew! The very affliction of afflictions, is that the petty good alanil 0titt interpretations; ways know. It is our peril that we shall in very perplexity and brokenness of heart accept their small theories.

The story of the three Hebrews may help us against that hour when in our sorrow and pain we shall believe Bildad and the others, and add to our sufferings that of a painful search for sins. For Bildad and his sort always believe that we, whose tears are falling, are hypocrites. Poor Job knew himself to be no hypocrite, and yet he could find no better explanation of his misery than that God was angry with him.

It is the tragedy of suffering that stricken saints torment themselves with the notion that God is angry with them. But Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were the best men, save Daniel, whom God had on earth. It was the path of obedience, not of disobedience, which led

Job xvi. X X,

God is not
angry.

Dan. iii.
1-30.

i Room in tfje 3nn

Heb. xii.
5-12.

them to the door of the furnace. The Son of God Himself trod that pathway. Doubtless there are chastisements for the wilfully disobedient child. Such cases present no mystery.

No, the Divine wrath does not explain the suffering of Christians. Take an illustration: A ton of pig iron is worth about $4.00, a ton of watch springs about $30,000, and a ton of Damascus blades about $100,000. And the springs and the blades were all pig iron once. But there is no rose-strewn pathway over which pig iron may saunter into springship and bladehood, nor may pig iron be smitten into perfection of edge and temper by one fierce touch of the furnace. Again and again it must be bathed in flame, and again and again beaten upon the anvil.

But the smith is not angry with the pig iron. His blows are not the blows of wrath, nor his thrustanb 0t)tt Snterpretationsfings into the furnace the tokens of judgment. A sinner becomes a saint by faith, but he does not become saintly in one day, nor by one testing.

Twenty years before, these men had stood with Daniel under test, to determine whether they would be loyal to God and conscience In small things. Now they are ready for a more fundamental and profound testing.

The issue now Is between the worship of gold and the worship of God. It Is the most practical, constant and universal of all tests. It Is a choice which every man in every age must make. In our day the matter Is usually thought to be one susceptible of compromise — God is to be worshipped on the first day of the week, and the image of gold on the other six. But for ever and ever Jesus Christ has stamped upon that compromise the word impos-Heb.

Heb.
5-10.

X. 10.

Dan.
6-is.

Dan.

I-I2.

Gold or
God?

y yom in t{ie 3nn

Matt. vi.
24.

Victory,

Dan. iii.
16.

sible, “Ye cannot serve God and mammon.”

Here are three men who are minded to make no such compromise. They elect to stand erect before the glittering image, and to bow to nothing less than God. So the furnace is heated for them. It will be heated for any man in any age who absolutely refuses to bow to any idol — financial, social, ecclesiastical, political.

Now note the compensations: First of all, God gifted these men with noble composure and courage. Their heads were unbowed by fear. ‘’ O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer thee in this matter.” I think that passage one of the finest things in the Bible. It Is God’s gift to the erect of soul. And this superb courage and poise is itself an exceedingly great reward, more worth than any gift purchasable with gold. It is alanb (Btfytt Snterpretationsf ways so. Let Moses elect affliction with the people of God rather than the riches in Egypt, and instantly it can be written of him, ‘* Not fearing the wrath of the king.” “Knowest thou not,” said Pilate, “that I have power to crucify thee?” Note the untroubled serenity of the answer: “Thou couldst have no power at all against me except It were given thee from above.”

And, most wonderful of all, the furnace proved to be the very audience chamber of the King of kings. “Lo,” said Nebuchadnezzar, “I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and the form of the fourth is like unto the Son of God.” Christ is never so near as when we suffer.

Heb. xi. 27.

John
10, I

XIX.

I.

Dan.
25.

Mo 3ioom m ttie 3nn

A great
scene.

I Sam. xvii.
40-50.