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Apr 04, 2023 06:00am

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego: 3 Men Who Feared God

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(The following is a family devotional guide with suggested questions and scriptures.)

Talk Time

What is peer pressure like for your age? How do you cope with it?

Have you ever had to make a hard decision? Tell me about it.

1 Samuel 16:7 says, “God does not see the same way people see. People look at the outside of a person. But the Lord looks at the heart.” What does God see in your heart?

Bible Connection

When God sees each one of us, He doesn’t see us by our physical characteristics, He sees our hearts. He is looking for hearts that want to please Him. Hearts that love Him. Hearts that want to do right. Hearts that fear Him. Though there were many people who had these hearts in the Bible, there were a few Jewish boys living in a foreign country whose hearts were put to the ultimate test on their loyalty and love to God. You might recognize their names: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

These three men, in serving of the king, faced a hard situation when the king made a new rule: worship a 90 foot statue of him or be thrown into a fiery furnace. Because these men loved and feared God, they knew they couldn’t worship an idol. They knew it was against God’s commandments. And their reply shocked everyone: “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, our kind, to know this: We will not serve your gods. We will not worship the gold statue you have set up.”

These men and their fear of God outweighed their fear of the king. The king grew so angry, he had them bound and thrown into the fiery furnace…and that is when God showed up! The king looked into the furnace and saw four men, not three, walking around. On top of this, they weren’t bound as they were before! He called for them to come out of the furnace. Not only were they not harmed, they didn’t even smell like smoke! He was astonished and ordered a new rule: everyone in the kingdom must never speak against their God, Yahweh, or great harm would come to them.

These men’s fear of God not only saved their lives, but it also served as a testimony to a pagan country. Everyone around heard about the miracle of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego’s God!

Faith Connection

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego had a heart that loved God – that’s for sure. But, they had a heart that feared God so much, they were willing to say this phrase: even if.

Even if God didn’t save them from the fire, they still wouldn’t bow down to that idol. Even if it meant a painful death, they weren’t doing it. Even if, they were the only ones, they still wouldn’t give into peer pressure.

“Even if” is a big statement, friends. Would you be able to take a stand on your faith even if you were the only one? Even if it was hard? Even if it hurt?

These three Jewish boys show us loving God is one thing but fearing God is another – it’s living life with an ‘even if‘ kind of heart.

Read more about the fear of God:

Read about Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego’s food request that also demonstrated their fear of God in Daniel 1.
Read the whole story on Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in Daniel 3.
Read about Daniel’s fear of God in Daniel 6.