That fiery furnace in Daniel 3. The height of the neo-Babylonian Empire and three Hebrews in exile were being punished for refusing to bow to a statue of the King of kings, Nebuchadnezzar. Wow, did he the king get a fright. It wasn't the three men who were thrown into a fiery furnace who suffered but the guards who threw them in who died. Reminds me of sanctions. The three men were in that furnace. In ancient Hebrew lore, probably true. (Jasher and Midrash) Abraham their patriarch ancestor had been treated the same way by the first old Babylon emperor Nimrod and survived. This was a thing. God protecting in fire was a thing for which God was known. God Himself revealed His imperviousness to fire when He spoke to Moses from a burning bush because the presence of God kept the bush from being consumed by the fire, so it seemed. How this should encourage us too. Fear of God is key to survival in the direst situation. The three men in Babylon feared God more they feared the Emperor King and more than they feared fire and death. They would rather, they explained to the king, have suffered death than sin against their God and they knew God could save them but did not know that He WOULD save them, yet they would not sin against Him by bowing to a statue of the king. In this case God did save them. An angel from God, some say the spirit of Jesus Son of God before Jesus became flesh, whatever it was, God provided it, and it surrounded them with protection against such raging fire that the fire had killed the men who threw them in there. The angel of God, the LORD, surrounded these men who feared their God, and Nebuchadnezzar wrote a decree about it found there in Daniel 3, that said no other god had ever saved like this God who saved those who feared and worshipped this God. This angel sent by God had even been seen by the king there amidst the men in that furnace, and by guards guarding it. We today can have that same angel surrounding us if we fear this true God, this One True God. The Holy Spirit sent in Jesus Christ's name by this One True God the Father who sent Jesus tells us this. The Psalm says it clearly too: The angel of the LORD surrounds those who fear Him.
