I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Daniel 3-4.

    I have always loved the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. It seems like every time I read it I notice something that I never noticed before. One of the things I first noticed two or three years ago was that while the trio had faith that God could and would rescue them, they would still not have worshiped Nebuchadnezzar’s gods even if they knew He would not do so. The thing I noticed today was how quick everyone else was to go along with Nebuchadnezzar’s command to worship his statue. The trio were not observed and arrested by people designated by the government to enforce the law. They were observed and reported for not taking part in the public worship by people whose jobs had nothing to do with enforcing this law. AS far as we can tell, Nebuchadnezzar never actually delegated the task of enforcing his edict to anyone. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego got into trouble because they did not go along with the crowd. They stood up for what they believed in, in the face of condemnation from everyone around them. How many of the others in the crowd were only going along because they were afraid that the crowd would turn on them if they did not?

    The part of this passage about Nebuchadnezzar’s dream brings up a problem which many successful and powerful men face. We see signs of this problem in the first part. The problem which came upon Nebuchadnezzar, which had been foretold to him in his dream, was a result of his hubris, his great pride. We see signs of that great pride in the story of the fiery furnace. Nebuchadnezzar came to believe that there was no power higher than himself. That belief was why he put up a statue of himself and demanded that everyone bow down and worship it. And everyone went along with it, except our three Hebrew heroes. Despite being caught up short and forced to acknowledge a power greater than himself the first time he put himself in the position of God, Nebuchadnezzar soon was right back there. His hubris, his belief that there was no power greater than himself and that he was solely responsible for his great success brought Nebuchadnezzar low. It was only when he acknowledged that there was a power higher than himself that he was restored to sanity.