HeartFelt Kids Bible

King Nebuchadnezzar had an enormous statue made, covered all over in gold, and set it up on the plain where everyone could see it shining for miles. Then he sent out a message to every important person in the kingdom. Come to the unveiling. And he had something particular in mind for when they got there.

Here is the rule, said the herald. When you hear the horns and the harps and the pipes, every one of you must kneel down and worship the golden statue. Then the music started up, and right across that huge plain, thousands and thousands of people went down on their knees like a field of wheat in the wind.

Everybody except three. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego stayed exactly where they were, standing straight up in the middle of a plain full of kneeling people. You could not miss them. They were not making a fuss and they were not shouting. They simply did not kneel, and the whole plain could see it.

Somebody ran and told the king, and he was furious. He gave them one more chance. Kneel when the music plays, he said, or you go straight into the blazing furnace, and what god could rescue you from that? And they said, our God can rescue us. But even if he does not, we still will not bow down.

So they were taken to the furnace, and the door was shut, and the king turned away. Then he looked again, and he could not believe what he was seeing. The three of them were walking about in there, quite calmly, completely unharmed. Not burned. Not frightened. Just walking.

And there was somebody else in there with them. I put three men in, said the king, and I can see four, and the fourth one looks like a son of the gods. He called them out and they walked into the daylight, and not a hair of their heads was singed and their clothes did not even smell of smoke. God had not kept them out of the fire. He had gone into it with them.