Encore Post: Ancient peoples looked upon their leaders as lesser gods, worthy of worship. They built statues to honor themselves and required all people to worship them. This practice continued even in Roman times to the pagan Caesars. It was seen as a patriotic act, similar to saying the pledge of allegiance and saluting the flag. From time to time, kings would enforce public worship of their statues or the statues of their gods to test the loyalty of their subjects.
For Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, loyalty to God was more important than life itself. They trusted that God could deliver them and placed full trust in Him. Yet they were prepared for God to take them to His side instead. God sent his Son as the Angel of the Lord to protect His servants in the fire. The writer to the Hebrews included these men in the great chapter on faith. (Hebrews 11:32-34) Christian martyrs throughout the centuries looked up to these men for inspiration when called to choose between God and country.
Faith is trusting God to keep his promises. It holds on to the fact that God kept the most important of his promises to his people in the Old Testament. In the person of the Son of God, THE Angel of the Lord, he became a man in the womb of the Virgin Mary, lived a perfect life for us, suffered and died at the hands of a pagan government, rose again from the grave and ascended to heaven. Because he has done these things, we are certain that he will keep the rest of his promises — to bring us to be with him forever when we die and raise us from the grave at the last day. It is that faith that sustained Shadrach, Meshach, Abednego, their friend Daniel, all the martyrs for the faith who obeyed God rather than man. With them numbered may we be, here and in eternity.
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