When the music sounded the entire population fell on their faces. The idol, that was constructed, stood ninety feet tall and nine feet wide. From anywhere in the plain of Dura the monstrous gold statue commanded your attention. It shone like the sun in all of its glory. There was nothing like it on the face of the earth to date.
King Nebuchadnezzar had not only commanded that this idol be constructed but compelled the entire kingdom to fall down and worship it. It was massive in size, immense and daunting to anyone within a hundred miles of the kingdom of Babylon. He constructed it to memorialize his kingdom, his majesty and his prowess.
Daniel and three of his friends had been captured and taken to Babylon to become part of this pagan kingdom. The Babylonian empire was the first world empire that had at its head a king with absolute power. Anyone who rebelled against the king’s edict to worship the golden image was to be thrown into a fiery furnace.
As the music played everyone began to gather around in a massive sea of people. All at once a human wave appeared as every man, woman and child fell down to worship the image. Daniel was not there with his three Hebrew friends Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah; possibly away on official business.
Some of the guards, who made sure that everyone complied with the king’s edict, looked out upon an expansive ocean of people lying prostrate on the ground. As the men surveyed the landscape their eyes stopped when they noticed three men standing to the front left of the statue.
Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah refused to worship the king’s image and were arrested and brought before the king. When given another chance to fall down at the feet of the idol, they refuse to compromise, remaining faithful to the God of Heaven.
“O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If that is the case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king. But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up.”
As the guards bind Daniel’s three friend’s hands and feet, a huge kiln is heated up to a temperature beyond what it was designed to operate at. In fact, the kiln was so hot that even the guards perished as they threw Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah into the interior of fiery furnace.
After a few moments the king peered in through the fueling door to witness the demise of the three Jews. As the king glanced he was amazed to see all three men walking unbound in the midst of the fire. To his amazement he notices that instead of three men there are now four and the fourth one looks like a son of God!
We were never meant to walk alone through a world that is filled with fiery trials. While God never promised to spare us from the fire, He is always present with us as we walk through it. It is speculated, by many theologians, that the fourth man in the fire was none other than the pre-incarnate Christ or Messiah.
What is even more miraculous is that the God of Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah saved them completely, so that there was not even the slightest evidence that they had ever been in danger. Their fetters were removed, the smell of smoke had not touched them and not one hair on their bodies was singe.
The picture here is of our salvation which is so complete, so perfect that nothing of our sinful-lost condition remains. The analogy is multi-layered and dispensational as we are allowed to see God perform this incredible miracle. The miracle of salvation that God would send His own Son into the fire for us providing a way of escape from the sting of death is profound.
While the miracle, the act of salvation is through God alone the three Hebrew men had faith in God and did not compromise when command too. They stuck to their belief in the One, True and Living God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
We also see in this picture an outline of the end times as the last three and a half years of the seventieth week of Daniel takes place. The golden statue represents the abomination that makes desolate or the anti-christ. Daniel, not present in this trial, depicts the church which will be removed before God’s wrath is unleashed. The three Hebrew men represent the remnant that will be preserved through it surviving the Great Tribulation
