Real Faith

If our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire and out of your hand, O king, let him deliver us. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods and we will not worship the golden statue that you have set up. Daniel 3:17-18James Schaap, in his book “Intermission,” outlines two ways that we can read this famous story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. He says that the first way is: There stand three men, shoulders back, heads up in front of a crowd, smiling and laughing, full of confidence that nothing will harm them. They know God will save them. The men who throw them into the furnace are burned like paper because the fire is so intensely hot, but the three men stand there, untouched by the flames, their robes hanging gently at their sides.If we read the experience of the three Hebrew boys this way, we are aligned to a materialistic kind of faith, a success and riches kind of Christianity. Many preachers articulate this sort of faith, a gospel of wealth and happiness! “Believe in Jesus and you will be prosperous and nothing bad will ever come your way.” David Wilkinson, in his book, “The Prayer of Jabez”, says that he wants to teach people how to pray a daring prayer that God always answers. He posits that when we pray this prayer the result is prosperity, miracles, and financial blessings. I believe that this kind of faith is meaningless. When bad things happen, as they surely will, we either have to conclude we don’t have this faith, or that this faith is not worth having. We do well to remind ourselves that as long as we live in a sin-filled and imperfect world bad things will happen to us.Schaap says that the second way to read this story is: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are confident, but they are confident of something more important than being saved from the fire: they are confident of eternal salvation. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego know that their God is more than able to save them from the blazing furnace if He wants to, but they don’t know if God will save them. They knew that a walk into the kingdom’s hottest furnace was not just another stroll through the park. They did not know what God would do. They had a real kind of faith; the one that doesn’t pretend to know all of God’s ways, a faith that doesn’t pretend that nothing bad ever happens to God’s children. They did not doubt God’s ability, but neither did they presume to know God’s will.Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego don’t know God’s plans, but they remain completely faithful to God. They tell Nebuchadnezzar that even if God does not save them, they will not serve his gods nor worship the golden statue that he had set up. Daniel’s three friends knew God and had a living relationship with Him. Thus, they dared to stand up for Yahweh even when every other knee and head bows down. As we face the bad that God permits in our lives, as we face hardships and trials, we are being challenged to have the kind of faith that Daniel’s three friends had. The faith that continues to do right even if it costs us our lives. We can hear the words of Job echoing: Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him (13:15).Jermaine Gibson