G'day and welcome to Stories of a Faithful God for Kids.

Dave here.

Can I tell you something pretty cool?

One of my sons is a lifeguard.

He hangs around at the pool waiting to save

people's lives if they get in trouble.

And you know what?

He has saved people's lives.

If he hadn't been there, they would have drowned and then there'd be nothing he could

do to save them.

There are lots of people who like to think that they're pretty strong and powerful, but

even then there's heaps of things they just can't do.

Sometimes people say that about our God, that he's not very strong or not very good.

He can't help his people or save his people.

Sometimes they even laugh at him and laugh at us for trusting him.

We've been looking at the Book of Daniel.

The things in Daniel happened in a huge kingdom with a really powerful king, King

Nebuchadnezzar.

He thought no one was more powerful than him.

He was about to learn a very big lesson.

Get ready for our next episode of stories of a Faithful God for Kids.

At the end of our last episode, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon was really happy.

He was happy because God had revealed what his dream meant.

He was so happy that he gave Daniel, who God used to tell him the dream, a very important

job.

He also gave Daniel's three friends, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, very important jobs.

The dream had shown him a statue made of a few different things, including a gold head.

Nebuchadnezzar was that gold head.

He was one of the kingdoms shown in the dream,

but he was only one of the kingdoms.

And eventually all those kingdoms would be

destroyed.

In their place, God would make a new kingdom that would last forever.

Nebuchadnezzar doesn't really want to think about that.

What he wants to think about is how great he is.

He wants everyone else to think about how great he is.

And so he comes up with a plan.

He makes a huge statue.

It's as tall as a nine storey building.

It's made of gold, not just a golden head like in Nebuchadnezzar's dream.

It's all gold.

As if he's saying no other kingdom matters,

only I matter.

The king invites all the important leaders in his kingdom.

Verse 2 says he invites the governors, assistant governors, captains of the soldiers,

people who advised the king, keepers of the treasury, judges, rulers, and all other

officers in his kingdom.

He wanted these men to come to the special service for the statue he'd set up.

These are important people.

They're from all the areas of the Babylonian

empire, all the kingdoms and countries and peoples and languages that Babylon has

swallowed up.

And even though they're important, the king wants them to know who the most important is.

Who's the one who's really in charge?

Who must they all listen to?

So they all come, they all gather together, and they stand in front of the statue that the

king set up.

Then we're told this in verse four.

Then the man who made announcements for the king spoke in a loud voice.

He said, peoples, nations and men of every language.

This is what you are commanded to do.

You will hear the sound of the horns, flutes, lyres, zithers, harps, pipes, and all the

other musical instruments.

When this happens, you must bow down and

worship the gold statue.

This is the one that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up.

Everyone must bow down and worship this gold statue.

Anyone who doesn't will be quickly thrown into a blazing furnace.

Thrown into a blazing furnace.

A super duper, mega hot fire for not

worshipping a statue.

For most of the people there, they won't mind.

They're used to worshipping statues as though

the statues are gods.

But if you know the one true God, you must never, ever treat a statue like it's God.

That's horrible.

A statue can't speak, it can't make anything

it can't save.

A statue never makes God look great.

It makes God look weak and useless.

So God said, never worship statues.

But Nebuchadnezzar says, if you don't worship this statue, you'll be thrown into a blazing

furnace.

Well, people from every language group are there.

And the music starts.

The horns, flutes, lyres, zithers, pipes, and

all the other musical instruments.

And all these people bow down in front of the

statue that King Nebuchadnezzar set up all, actually, not quite all people.

Some Babylonians run up to the king.

They're acting very shocked, although secretly

they're quite excited.

They say to the king in verse nine, our king,

live forever.

Our king, you gave a command.

You said that everyone would hear the horns, lyres, zithers, harps, pipes, and all the

other musical instruments.

Then they would have to bow down and worship

the gold statue.

Anyone who wouldn't do this was to be thrown

into a blazing furnace.

Our king, there are some men of Judah who did not pay attention to your order.

You made them important officers in the area of Babylon.

Their names are Shadrach.

Meshach and Abednego, they do not serve your

gods, and they do not worship the gold statue you have set up?

Nebuchadnezzar is so angry.

He's not really angry about the statue.

He's angry that these men won't obey him.

After all, he thinks he's the greatest king in the world.

How dare people not obey him.

That's what the Babylonians are trying to get him angry about.

It's why they tell him that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego don't serve your God's king.

They don't worship the statue you set up.

And so he summons Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

He says to them in verse 14, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, is it true that you do

not serve my gods? And is it true that you do not worship the

gold statue I have set up?

Now you will hear the sound of the horns, flutes, lyres, zithers, harps, pipes, and all

the other musical instruments.

And you must be ready to bow down and worship

the statue I made.

That will be good.

But if you do not worship it, you will be

thrown quickly into the blazing furnace.

And here's the most important bit.

Here's where you find out just how powerful

King Nebuchadnezzar thinks he is.

He says to them, then no God will be able to save you from my power.

Wow.

The king thinks he's so powerful.

There isn't any God the Jews could possibly

worship who can save them from his power.

He's just too strong.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego disagree.

You see, they worship the God who saved his people from Egypt.

They worship the God who sent fire on Mount Carmel.

They worship the God who powerfully made the world.

So they say to the king in verse 16, Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend

ourselves to you.

You can throw us into the blazing furnace.

The God we serve is able to save us from the furnace and your power.

If he does this, it is good.

But even if God does not save us, we want you,

O king, to know this.

We will not serve your gods.

We will not worship the gold statue you have set up.

Notice that they don't just assume that God will save them.

He hasn't promised to.

Sometimes we say, of course God will do

something for me.

But if he hasn't promised to do it, we mustn't do that.

We can't tell God what he should and shouldn't do.

But What Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego do know is that God can save them.

They know that they should only worship the one true God and not some silly statue.

And so, even though they obey the king on lots of other things, they refuse to obey him.

In this, King Nebuchadnezzar is furious.

He's super mad.

How dare these men disobey him.

He's so mad, he commands his people to heat up the furnace seven times hotter than ever.

Then he commands some of the strongest soldiers in his army to tie up Shadrach,

Meshach and Abednego and throw them into the blazing furnace.

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego are still wearing all their clothes, their robes,

trousers, turbans and other clothes as they're tied up by these super strong soldiers and

dragged to the edge of the furnace.

The king had ordered the furnace to be so hot, and his command had been so urgent that it

sounds like the servants have just thrown in everything they possibly can to make it as hot

as possible.

The flames are flying everywhere, so much so that they catch the super strong soldiers who

are dragging Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to the fire.

And the soldiers are killed.

And Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, tied up as tightly as these soldiers have been able to

pull, the knots, fall into the blazing furnace.

King Nebuchadnezzar is watching all this and suddenly he jumps to his feet.

He almost can't believe his eyes.

He says to the men around him, didn't we tie

up only three men? Didn't we throw them into the fire?

That's a bit of an embarrassing question.

Like, has the king really forgotten how many

people they threw in? And so they're like, umm, yes, Lord, we did

only throw in three men.

Then we discover why the king's so confused.

As he looks into the blazing furnace, he sees

something remarkable.

In verse 25, he says, Look, I see four men.

They are walking around in the fire.

They're not tied up and they are not burned.

The fourth man looks like a son of the gods.

This is astounding.

How can they possibly be happily walking around in the fire?

The fire that's so hot it killed the soldiers who came near the edge of it.

And who's the fourth person walking around with them?

The one who looks like a son of the gods for the king.

Something finally clicks.

He realises the answer to the question he'd

asked before.

He'd asked, which God can save you from my

power?

And the Answers come back pretty clearly.

The Most High God who Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego serve the faithful God who they

trusted, even if it meant being thrown into a blazing furnace.

The king goes to the edge of the furnace and shouts in verse 26, Shadrach, Meshach and

Abednego come out.

Servants of the Most High God, come here.

So Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego miraculously come out of the fire.

Everyone crowds around them to see this amazing thing.

Verse 27 says, when they came out, the princes, assistant governors, governors and

royal advisors crowded around them.

They saw that the fire had not harmed their

bodies.

Their hair was not burned, their robes were not burned, and they didn't even smell like

smoke.

Before this, the king had been super angry that Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego had

refused to obey him.

Now he realises that they were right.

They were right to obey their God instead of

him, because there's no other God who can do what their God can do.

And so, remarkably, he starts praising their God.

He says in verse 28, Praise the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.

Their God has sent his angel and saved his servants from the fire.

These three men trusted their God.

They refused to obey my command and they were

willing to die rather than serve or worship any God other than their own.

And then he makes a law that no one can speak badly about their God.

He says.

So I now make this.

The people of any nation or language must not say anything against the God of Shadrach,

Meshach and Abednego.

Anyone who does will be torn apart and his house will be turned into a pile of stones no

other God can save like this.

Notice that the king isn't thinking about himself anymore.

He's not telling everyone how powerful he is.

He's talking about God's mighty power.

God's amazing power to save.

There's no one else like him.

Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego had known that God can save like this.

They didn't know if he would.

They didn't know if they'd live or die, but

they knew that he could.

We know even more.

We know that God will save his people even if we die.

Just think about Jesus.

He absolutely trusted that God would save him.

Not before death, but after it.

In fact, he told his disciples that they were

going to Jerusalem, that he'd be arrested, he'd be killed, and after that he'd be raised

to life.

And that's exactly what happened.

Jesus was right to trust his faithful Father in heaven.

We can know.

No matter what people say to us, no matter

what people do to us, no matter how badly they treat us, Jesus will save us.

Even when we die, Jesus will raise us to life.

There's no other God who can save like him back in Babylon.

Nebuchadnezzar sounds like he's learned his lesson.

He sounds like he finally understands how great and important God is.

Unfortunately, he still doesn't get it.

God's going to teach him, though.

But that's a story for next time.

Hey, I want to do a big shout out to Tabitha and Toby and Kelly and Dave.

G'day guys.

They've been listening to the show over

breakfast time.

Great idea.

Tabitha says, thanks so much for this podcast.

It's real fun to listen to.

Toby says thanks for the dramatic music in the

podcast and guys, you're very welcome.

I want to have fun learning about God and I

really like dramatic music, so I'm glad some other people do as well.

You may have noticed that I've recently changed the music at the start.

Just for fun and a bit of variety.

Why not tell me what you think?

Do you like it?

Do you prefer the old music? Would you prefer something different?

Just click the contact link in the show notes to send me a message.

Or even on Spotify you can leave a comment there.

Something Tabitha and Toby and Kelly and Dave have just done is they've signed up for their

free trial of the club.

They can see all the kids video episodes,

including the last one where I had to put a cream pie in my face.

I asked people to vote on what they wanted to see and that's what they voted for.

But we also learn great things about living for Jesus.

In the last episode, we learned about how being a follower of Jesus is a team sport.

So why don't you join them in the club? Click the link in the show notes.

Do the free trial, parents.

There's stuff there for you too.

Everyone keep trusting Jesus.

Bye for now.