Pathway of peace - Fiery furnace

THE FIERY FURNACE  - Seven times hotter - end time significance.

Daniel 3:23 And these three men, ShadrachMeshach, and Abed-Nego, fell down bound into the midst of the burning fiery furnace. Then King Nebuchadnezzar was astonished; and he rose in haste and spoke, saying to his counselors, “Did we not cast three men bound into the midst of the fire?” They answered and said to the king, “ True, O king.”  Look!” he answered, “ I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire; and they are not hurt, and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God”… and they saw these men on whose bodies the fire had no power; the hair of their head was not singed nor were their garments affected, and the smell of fire was not on them.

Nebuchadnezzar spoke, saying, “ Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed- Nego, who sent His Angel and delivered His servants who trusted in Him, and they have frustrated the king's word, and yielded their bodies, that they should not serve nor worship any god except their own God! Therefore I make a decree that any people, nation, or language which speaks anything amiss against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed- Nego shall be cut in pieces, and their houses shall be made an ash heap; because there is no other God who can deliver like this.

1Peter 4:12 Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you; but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ's sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy.

REDEMPTIVE POWER

God was obviously not punishing Jesus by setting forth suffering for him and he is not punishing us in allowing us to suffer. There is something he wants to do and to say to us and through us that only seems to be able to be said through our accepting suffering as a way of releasing the redemptive power of God in our midst. The point of suffering is to trust God and therefore grow in the kind of explosive faith that rescues ourselves first, and then others, into resurrection life.

We become part of the turning of peoples’ hearts and minds from darkness to light, from pain to healing, despair to hope, unbelief to faith.

We share the suffering of Christ by sharing the disposition of acceptance without resistance or complaint.

The devil does not want us to trust in God and be released into explosive redemptive faith. He wants us to resist fiery trials and to complain and blame something or someone, even him.

2Corinthians 4:11 For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus ’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So then death is working in us, but life in you

He shares our suffering by comforting us with his presence and commanding his peace upon us, as well as manifesting the glory of his redemptive power through us.