Summer season is winding down, which means it’s time to start sitting down and focusing on writing more. And as has been the case with the last several pieces I’ve written, a scripture we looked at in church inspired today’s writing.
“Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego replied to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to give you an answer concerning this matter. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire; and He will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But even if He does not, let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.”” - Daniel 3:16-18
This is one of my favorite lines of scripture, because it both speaks to the faith of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego and also to their commitment to truth and what is right. They are not willing to just go along to get along. They stand up for their faith and for God, and they stand up against a ruler who they know is wrong. And they know that they will be saved, and so they stand (both literally and figuratively). They also have the dedication to their faith that even if God chooses not to save them, they will still take that stand. It’s easy to take a stand when you have nothing to lose, when nothing is being sacrificed. Much less so when literally everything, your entire life, may be on the line. They had the faith that even if they were not delivered from death, they would still stand by their God, knowing that He is the one true God and the only one worthy of their worship.
There are dozens of examples throughout the New Testament of instruction for us to stand firm in our faith and to honor God and what is right. And the early Christians were forced to decide to either hold that faith and risk their very lives, or conform to what was being demanded of them and betray God. Many made the same choice as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego and accepted that even if they were not to be delivered from their persecutors, they would not worship false Gods. They would not deny the one true God.
Since the creation of the Roman Catholic church and Christianity taking a prominent role in society, we have been relatively free from persecution. As far as modern Christianity is concerned, as long as you’ve managed to avoid spending excessive amounts of time in the Middle East or China you’ve probably never had your life threatened over your beliefs. And while we have all probably seen some stories of Christians being put in jail for protesting or gathering here and there across some parts of the US and Canada, in the west you are pretty well free to do whatever you want without the threat of real harm outside of some minor inconvenience. But if the world is truly moving in the direction many believe that it is, and if faith in God is going to become less and less of a cultural norm; if publicly professing your faith is going to be deemed hate speech and land you in some sort of social prison if not a literal one, then we need to start deciding where we’re going to make our stand.
And that means the real question is, do you have the fortitude of faith to say “my God is able to deliver me” and mean it? Will you have the courage to say “even if He does not deliver me, I will still be faithful to Him” and accept your fate? We are constantly being pulled in hundreds if not thousands of directions, being asked to respond to varying “gods” of this generation. We can only serve the one true God when the time comes. Are you ready to make your stand?