The Fiery Wrath of God

                                 Daniel 3:1-37 (KJB).

The Devil influenced king Nebuchadnezzer of Babylon, who was king of much of the world at that time, to set up an idol of gold, which represented the Devil's kingdom of greed and power, and Nebuchadnezzer would cause all people to worship it at the sound of a certain kind of music. The Devil knew that Nebuchadnezzer ruled over a lot of God's people, and he knew that many of God's faithful people would refuse to worship this golden idol. The Devil also knew that God had a fiery wrath that He used to destroy evil. The Devil tries to copy a lot of what God does but for evil purposes. Therefore, the Devil had king Nebuchadnezzer create a fiery furnace into which he would cast any person who refused to worship this golden idol. The Devil sought to so terrorize God's people that they would give up their faith in God all over the world, and that would cause the Devil to become the sole master of the whole world. In other words, the Devil sought to use his own fiery furnace to completely defeat God and take complete control of God's earth.

Nebuchadnezzer had gathered a huge multitude of people to worship this golden image. The Devil knew that the news of this huge assembly would spread to the whole world, and the fiery furnace would terrorize everyone to worship this golden idol. The Devil also had certain men in this crowd who would search out the Jews who would refuse to worship this idol. These men found three Jews, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego, who refused to worship this golden idol. Nebuchadnezzer threatened to cast them into the fiery furnace if they refused. The most horrible death imaginable is to be burned alive. These three Jews demonstrated incredible faith and courage when they told Nebuchadnezzer that God was able to deliver them from this fiery furnace and even if He did not, they would not worship his idol. Daniel 3:16-18 (KJB). Nebuchadnezzer ordered that this furnace be heated seven times hotter. He must have used some kind of oil to do that. It was so hot that it killed the men who cast these three Jews into it.

This fiery furnace must have been a place below ground because the king and his people could look down into it. The king declared that he saw four men walking in the fire with no hurt and that the fourth man was like the Son of God. The Holy Spirit deliberately inspired the king to say that in that exact way because that fourth man had to be Jesus in angelic form. Daniel 3:24-25 (KJB). These faithful Jews emerged from that fire without their hair being singed or even the smell of smoke on their clothes. Even king Nebuchadnezzer became converted to faith in God because of this miracle. Daniel 3:27-30 (KJB).

God proved that the Devil can never use any ersatz copy of any of God's creations to defeat God. The Devil cannot create anything. The Devil can only misuse God's creative ideas to invent destructive systems. When God uses His fiery wrath to destroy evil, that happens to be a creative system because that protects all creative systems. The Devil can even misuse the idea and emotion of love to hide a person's true motive which is just lust.

God used this story of this miracle to prove that He will always defeat the false systems of the Devil with His message that His Son has power over all of the evils of the Devil, and that that message can convert even the worst humans to faith in God. God also proved that He will always have faithful people who will never give in to the terror of the Devil.

In the end of the world, Christ will appear to all of His living humans that He created and loves who are confined to the three regions of death, including the Devil's burning Hell, and He will cause them all to repent and return to faith in Him as the Lamb of God their Savior so that He can forever save their living souls from eternal death with recreated bodies to live forever on His new earth, and He will cast their separated, dead and evil natures into His fiery wrath against evil which is the lake of fire. Hebrews 12:29; Revelation 5:11-14; II Peter 3:9-13; Revelation 20:5; Revelation 20:11-15; Revelation 21:1-5; Revelation 22:11-12; John 11:25-26; John 5:28-29 (KJB).