Finding Deliverance Even In A Fiery Furnace

I have found myself for the first time in the middle of undeniable, evident and certain spiritual warfare. Throughout my life in church I have heard many sermons about spiritual warfare but never really understood this biblical truth for myself. As I have looked at the challenges to my marriage, to my ministry work and the inner-temptations to pursue and indulge certain sins I struggle with, I began to pray for an end to what I felt to be the central issues and asked God for His deliverance to manifest itself in my life. However after a brief reflection on the following verses, I have come to the conclusion that deliverance from spiritual warfare is a lesson in trusting God do the possible, because nothing is impossible to God:

Daniel 3:24-28 (NIV)

“24 Then King Nebuchadnezzar leaped to his feet in amazement and asked his advisers, “Weren’t there three men that we tied up and threw into the fire?”

They replied, “Certainly, Your Majesty.”

25 He said, “Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods.”

26 Nebuchadnezzar then approached the opening of the blazing furnace and shouted, “Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, servants of the Most High God, come out! Come here!”

So Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego came out of the fire, 27 and the satraps, prefects, governors and royal advisers crowded around them. They saw that the fire had not harmed their bodies, nor was a hair of their heads singed; their robes were not scorched, and there was no smell of fire on them.

28 Then Nebuchadnezzar said, “Praise be to the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who has sent his angel and rescued his servants! They trusted in him and defied the king’s command and were willing to give up their lives rather than serve or worship any god except their own God.”

What drew me to this set of scripture as I began to reflect on how to pray and cope during spiritual warfare were the characteristics of King Nebuchadnezzar's attack:

1. Nebuchadnezzar tried to corrupt the faith and relationship The Hebrew Boys had with God.
   1. The faith of a Christian is what makes them a target for spiritual warfare. Satan and The World seek to break our faith and communion with God. The faith of The Hebrew Boys is what I and other Christians must look to as an example of how to conduct ourselves in the face of each trial, each set-back and each obstacle that occurs during the battle.
      
      
2. The “easy way out” presented itself to Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the form of the sin of idol worship.
   1. The temptation that presented itself to The Hebrew Boys was that they could have “solved” their own problem by bowing down to the golden idol. However while The Hebrew Boys would have “saved their lives” for the moment, they would have lost an important battle of faith in their personal spiritual war.
   2. Another key point I take away from this story is that when praying for deliverance, we like to frame how our deliverance should look. I would have prayed that God keep me out the fire when in fact...my deliverance would have been found in it!

In conclusion there are many things I have been praying for God to do such as restore my marriage and heal my grandmother who suffered a stroke. However while these solutions would end the spiritual warfare I have been enduring on the terms that I want them to end, I find courage in knowing that things may look dark, gloomy and even fiery but deliverance can always be found in trusting God. Faith requires that we trust God to the point where it seems as if all has failed and God is nowhere to be found. However I see from the story of The Hebrew Boys that the deliverance we seek during our trials and tribulations often lie inside the very fiery furnace we are trying to avoid. Praise be to God for being our deliverer!