THE REVELATION OF DANIEL

The Revelation of Daniel Chapter 3

PASSING THROUGH THE FIERY FURNACE

In this powerful lesson, Mike talks about how Shadrach, Mishach, and Abednego (Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah) reused to bow down to Nebuchadnezzar’s Golden Image, even unto the threat of death in a fiery furnace. These 3 men who passed through the fires without even smelling like smoke are an example for us today. Mike talks about how they are a type for the sanctified believer who is to be set apart and willing to die rather than to bow down to any modern golden image or world system. God calls His people to come out of the modern-day Babylonian world system.

His set-apart believers do not love the world and its pleasures. God is a consuming fire. We pass through our own fiery furnaces daily. And if we are like the 3 Hebrew men, the bindings that bind us to the world will be burnt up in these fires of testing and we will come out unharmed and untouched. Those Christians who are justified but who daily choose the love of the world over serving God and dying to self will have to go through the purging fires of the Tribulation period. The objective of God for the sleepy Christian during the Tribulation is to awaken them from their slumber and purify and refine them from what bound them to the earth. Many of these will willingly choose God and be martyred and will gain the reward of inheritance into the Kingdom to rule and reign with Christ for a thousand years.[Revelation 20:4-6 And I saw thrones, and they sat on them, and judgment was committed to them. Then I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their witness to Jesus and for the word of God, who had not worshiped the beast or his image, and had not received his mark on their foreheads or on their hands. And they lived and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.]

Mike admonishes us to willingly and by faith stay awake and remove the chains that bind us to the world now rather than having to be purged later in the Tribulation. The First-fruits Rapture is the reward for those who overcome their flesh now. Revelation 3:10 says, “Because you have kept My command to persevere, I also will keep you from the hour of trial which shall come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth.” See also Luke 21:36 which says, “Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.” Mike talks about how the believer is to go past justification which is based on the merit of Christ and to die to himself daily which is walking in sanctification.

The rewards are not just in the millennial kingdom, but beyond. The justified have eternal life while the sanctified will have eternal Glory. We can’t fathom the things that God has in store for those who love him. Those who love Him are willing to live and die for him. [Matthew 16:25 For whoever might desire to save his life will lose it; but whoever might lose his life on account of Me will find it.] [Romans 8:28 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.]