Before The Furnace

 16 Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. 17 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. 18 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.” Daniel 3:16-18......"The two clauses in real faith are, "God is able" and, "but even if He does not." Mark Buchanan

More and more I've come to believe in the truth of what Buchanan says. I don't think we've truly entered into the place of real, overcoming faith until we have yielded to the two clauses he lists. We must be a people who believe that our God is able to do anything and everything. The word "impossible" only has meaning to us. It has none to Him. We need to have a steadfast belief in the infinite power of our Almighty God. This is the "easy" part of the two clauses. It's the second clause that we struggle to yield to. The fact that though He is able, He doesn't. To lay hold of that second clause requires a level of surrender too few of us want to come to. It's a level where many of us stumble. Some never recover.

Someone said that we tend to believe God will act in a certain way because it's the way we would act. We think God will see everything as we do, and will behave in all situations just as we would. We have trouble understanding that He behaves in ways that are a result of His seeing and understanding our situations far further and more deeply than we ever will. We can't see the depths of His purposes, and we're most often ruled by the depth of our immediate need over and against His overall purposes in the midst of that need. The reality is, He may not respond as we wish, no matter how desperate our situation is. To accept this, and still trust in Him will require the deepest level of surrender and trust on our part. This is where our stumbling comes, because there will be times, when the good God we have believed in, will not appear to be so good. When that happens, and it will, will we still believe, and will we still trust?

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego were faced with such a situation. Commanded to worship Nebuchadnezzar's golden idol, they refused, and the cost would be their lives. In the face of the furnace of death, they proclaimed their trust in their God. They believed that He would save them, but they surrendered to the second part of the clause; they would trust in their God even if He didn't. For the true disciple of Christ, this is a place we will come to. If you consider yourself such a disciple, what will be your response when you do?

The decision has to be made "before the furnace." That is, before we come to the door of the furnace and it's killing flames, have we already chosen to trust, believe, and obey, regardless of how He responds to our need in that place? If we have not, we will surely waver, stumble, and very possibly, fall. The furnace of fire awaits every true disciple of Christ. He will lead you into it, and He promises to be with you there. Is that promise enough.....at the door of the furnace?

Furnace times are upon the people of God. This has been so for His people in most of the world. It is now becoming so for His people in the west. Before we come to the door of the furnace, will we have decided that we will trust, believe, even if He doesn't spare us the flames? Or will we waver, shrink back, and avoid the flames? It will all depend on the decision we make before the furnace.

Blessings,

Pastor O