“Nebuchadnezzar answered and said, “Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent his angel and delivered his servants, who trusted in Him and set aside the king’s command and yielded up their bodies rather than serve and worship any god except their own God. Therefore, I make a decree. Any people, nation, or language that speaks anything against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego shall be torn limb from limb, and their houses laid in ruins for there is no other God who is able to rescue in this way.”
– Daniel 3:28–29
Oh, I love these two verses. I hope you know the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. If you don’t, read Daniel 3. Maybe you’ve read it today. But this story of these three Hebrew boys who trust in God and when the king says, “Everybody’s supposed to bow down to me,” they say, “No way, we only bow down to the Lord our God.”
We have brothers and sisters throughout the world who risk their lives to worship Christ. Let’s remember them in prayer, and may we live wherever we are to make the good news of Christ known.
Daniel 3:28–29 Shows That We can Trust God
And the king says, “I’m gonna throw you in a furnace.” And they say, “We trust God. He’ll either deliver us or if we die we’ll still be glad that we trusted God.” They lay down their lives in trust of God and the worship of God.
And so they’re thrown into a furnace, and they come out on the other side without a drop of sweat on their brow, and Nebuchadnezzar, the king declares, he makes a declaration in praise to God, and this is a pagan king making a declaration in praise to the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and saying, “If anybody speaks against this God I’ll tear them from limb to limb because there is no other God who is able to rescue His people like this.” I just read this story, and I think, “This is the story, in a sense, of all of our salvation.”
God saves us. God rescues us from the fire. Literally, from eternal fire, God saves us. Just think about that for a second in your own life. I think about that in my life. God has saved me, you, through what Jesus did on the cross for us. God has saved us from eternal fire. Why? Why? It’s what we see all over scripture. We saw it in Ezekiel 36 just a couple of days ago, “So that the nations, so that a pagan king in a pagan nation might see the glory of God, might give glory to God, might proclaim his glory among any people, nation or language.” This is what we live for. We live to serve and worship God alone so that others will worship God alone.
Daniel 3:28–29 is an Encouragement to Pray for the Persecuted
Oh God, we pray that you would use our lives like this. I think about persecuted brothers and sisters right now who are trusting you and worshiping you at the risk of their lives like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. God, we pray that you would help them, uphold them, help them to stand firm. Help them to trust in you, to serve you, not to step down from the worship of you, not to shrink back in the face of threats. Please help them and please use them we pray. Please use them to cause their persecutors to come to know that you are the one true God.
Use them for the spread of your grace and your glory where they live, we pray. And then for those of us who are not being persecuted in that way right now, for those of us who are not facing potential death because we’re a follower of you, God, help us. Help us to serve and worship you alone. Help us to throw aside all other gods to worship you alone, and to live to see others worshiping you, to live to see the nations worshiping you God.
Let’s Pray…
We pray for the Jogi people in Bangladesh Hindu traditions. We pray, God, please, please show your glory among the Jogi. Cause Jogi men and women, leaders, different parts of the Jogi people group. God, there are not any known Christians there now. Raise up Christians, raise up leaders who will say, “Blessed be the name of the Lord God. He alone is able to save.” We pray for this through our lives. God, we pray that today you might lead somebody in our workplace, in our family, in our home, or our neighborhood to say, “I know there is only one God, and He is able to save.” Please bring people to know your grace and your glory today through our lives through our serving you and worshiping you today. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
