Daniel III
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.” (Daniel 3:16-18 ESV)
Faith
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego seem like fools. King Nebuchadnezzar and his advisors were arrogant and wrong, powerful and wrong, sneaky and wrong, bureaucratic and wrong, and wrong and wrong.
And common sense, human logic, political expediency, and self-protection all would suggest that the three well-fed young men should just pretend to deny God. They should just utter words of false-worship that they did not mean. They should just bow their heads with their fingers crossed.
But they believed God’s power, love, protection, promises, and presence. And they did not bow. And they did not obey the king. And they were cast into a hot furnace.
And they lived.
Faith, and the One believed in, triumphed.
Faith, and the One believed in, always does.