...if ye worship not, ye shall be cast the same hour into the midst of a burning fiery furnace; and who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands?
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we are not careful to answer thee in this matter.
If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thine hand, O king.
But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up.
This became one of my (many) favorite scripture stories several years ago when I heard Brother Simmons speak about it. His talk is reproduced here. Always before hearing him speak about these verses, when I thought of this story it was about how these three men were miraculously saved from death. But Brother Simmons points out that their faith was not conditioned up on their being delivered from death; he points out how the real lesson in the story comes in the words but if not. It's something that I have often remembered since then.
2 comments:
"But if not" - now that is some faith. We just heard this story last week on my kids favorite radio show - Adventures in Odyssey.
Shari is so right. We should just have faith in all circumstances and trust the path that He leads us to.
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