p. 167 | Choosing the Furnace

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 9, 1871

Choosing the Furnace.

THE three companions of Daniel in captivity, have rendered the world signal service in the example set by them at a critical period in their lives. It was an easy thing to fall down and worship the huge image set up by Nebuchadnezzar in the plain of Dura. To obey the king's command, and to find personal safety by doing it, were not matters of small moment. It might seem proper on the whole to follow the obsequious multitude in the homage they were ready to pay at the appointed signal. By their momentary compliance with a royal decree, however absurd, they would avoid attracting special attention to themselves, and would not incense an arbitrary monarch, whom it might be fatal to disobey.

The penalty of not obeying was the burning fiery furnace. To be thrown into the midst of this, or to bow down before the golden image, was the alternative presented. The decision of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego was quickly made. They feared the true God, and could, under no circumstances, worship a false one. Conscience kept them steady and unfaltering in the line of duty. Nor could the dread of sharpest suffering and a frightful death swerve them a hair's breadth from the strictest fealty to God.

The lesson is a profitable one to review from time to time, that its real significance may be seen and its force felt. The principle contained in it is a vital one, true and fresh now as it ever was, and adapted to this age as it has been to every other. The apostle Peter expressed it in that weightiest of brief utterances, “We ought to obey God rather than man.” In the spirit of this he stood ready to do and suffer all things, undeterred in the rigid performance of his duty, by any dangers that might threaten, or any personal suffering that he might encounter. Paul's whole Christian career is a still more marked example of conscientious fidelity to this principle. And when, as the closing period of his work drew nigh, he grandly exclaims, “I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith,” the words were the honest utterance of a man who had endured for years without flinching or complaining all forms of hardship and suffering, that resulted from uncompromising obedience to the Lord's commands.

This steadfastness in duty at all times, and at all hazards is a demand which the church and the church's Head make upon every Christian. “If ye love me,” the Master pleads, “keep my commandments.” Strict obedience, therefore, in all things is the test of love.

The world, however, is seductive. Its amusements and pleasures are full of fascination, especially to the young Christian who has only for a short time girded on the warrior's armor. Gay and irreligious companions, sometimes kinfolks, nearest and dearest, indulge without restraint in pleasures which the Christian's vows, and allegiance to the Master, render forbidden pleasures. The influence of example on the part of persons so nearly related, aided, it may be, by personal solicitation, is strong. It is hard to resist the urgency of friendship to visit say, for example's sake, the theatre. It may look unkind to refuse. It may lead to unpleasant dissensions, to frown upon what others take delight in and pronounce harmless. It may occasion even family jars, making the person refusing, the mark for keen personal reflections if not ridicule, and so rendering the young disciple's social surroundings uncomfortable, not to say painful.

To prevent all this it is only necessary to comply with a world's fashion, to stifle the voice of conscience, to bow down with the rest and worship an earth-built image, to do in short what is felt to be a wrong and an offense to Christ, by one on whom consecration vows are resting. So the young man, who has given himself to Christ, coming to the city from the country, finds enticements to stray from the path of duty lying in wait for him on every hand. The billiard saloon and drinking saloon—rarely found far apart indeed—the card table, the theatre, the house of her whose gates lead down to death—these and others assail the young man's constancy. Peace of mind and safety to the soul lie only in “resisting unto blood, striving against sin.” To yield in a single point is often the surrender of all. Discomfort and suffering in various ways, may be, and probably will be, the fruit of such uncompromising resistance. But the “peace of mind that passeth all understanding” will be sure to reward through Christ's favor, the endurance of him who stands “steadfast and unmovable” in spite of all insidious solicitations to do wrong.

And so, whatever form or degree of suffering or affliction may result from undeviating adherence to the right way as Christ has pointed it out, this precious reward will not be long wanting, and this reward vastly overbalances all sacrifices made to secure it. Christ's favor given to those who are faithful unto death in all things, to duty, and to him, is the soul's sunlight. Sufferings vanish in the luster of it. The soul has, in the consciousness of duty faithfully done, a present joy which is the foretaste and harbinger of the fuller joy to come. And the steadfast Christian shares the apostle's experience as set forth in these noble words of rapture, “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” —Interior.