The fourth man in the fire !(dan.3:25)

“Look! he answered, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire and they are not hurt, and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.” (Dan.3:25).

King Nebuchadnezzar, being the heathen he was, in the similitude of all inhuman kings of his days, was also at the forefront of fomenting trouble with the True God. He practically used his power, and influence to bring the palaver to the doorstep of God’s representatives, in Babylon. The trio of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego as well, maintained their stance, as of before. Not even the excessively heated royal fire was enough to frighten them to succumb and submit to the royal threat, “but if you do not worship, you shall be cast immediately into the the midst of a burning fiery furnace.” (Dan.3:15). The three young men carried so much trust and confidence in our True God that they refused to budge at the threat of fire. They did not mince word in their affirmation to the face of the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter…our God whom serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king.” (Dan.3:17).

Nebuchadnezzar’s reaction

To say king Nebuchadnezzar was angry is to say the least. The scriptures capture his response better, “then Nebuchadnezzar was full of fury, and the expression on his face changed toward Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego.” (Dan.3:19). His action and reaction were nothing short of a king, fighting for a lifeless and inanimate national god! A god that has nothing tangible to offer him. A god that he literally carried, removed and controlled. A god whose existence and preservation were at the mercy of the king and his nation. What an irony of a man who fashioned a god by his human intellect and still rated the such as better and more divine than himself, an inanimate object he worshipped and enforced on the sensibility and consciousness of the nation of Babylon. Oh, Babylon, a place where anything goes. A god that adds no value to the spiritual atmosphere of the nation. Nebuchadnezzar was fighting a lost battle against the God the made him. To him, gaining victory in this scenario was to heat the furnace seven times more than it was usually heated. While the king was agitated all through this tensed atmosphere, the irony of the situation was that the young men of God, on trial, so to say, were cool, calm, and collected. A similar scenario replayed in the New Testament at the trial of Jesus Christ, where the supposedly accused (Jesus Christ) was unperturbed , while the chief witness or cross-examiner, Pilate, in all his royalty, agitatedly unconsciously took the position of the accused, because there was an ‘invisible’ fire burning within him, “are You the king of the Jews?”…”do you not hear how many things they testify against You?” But He answered him not one word…” (Mt.27:16).

THE URGENCY OF THE DEATH BY ROYAL INFERNO

The king could not wait for the recalcitrant and stubborn God boys to die in seconds right after being thrown into the fire. Hence, he made the command urgent, with the furnace exceedingly hot such that the flame of the inferno killed the men who threw God’s boys into the fire. That must be the highest level of inferno ever seen in Babylon. The mystery of the survival of the young men placed the king on the pedestal of impromptu dialogue with his counselors, “did we not cast three men bound into the midst of the fire?” The affirmative response he got put him on another level of exclamation, “Look!” he answered, “I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire; and they are not hurt, and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God.” (Dan.3:25). When a government fights God and His people, the government uses the people of the nation to achieve her inglorious ambition. In essence, king Nebuchadnezzar cashed in on the ignorance of his citizenry to persecute the true religion. In addition, whenever there’s an attack or an affliction, the assailant(s), Nebuchadnezzar in this case, are always the first responders because they cannot wait to see the result of their atrocities. And in this particular context, as common, the attack was a colossal loss and failure.

THE SON OF GOD

King Nebuchadnezzar had his eyes opened to reality that there was a strong being in the fire with the trio. The strong being he described as having the form of the Son of God, was all that changed the game