What a wonderful faith it is that through the ages has allowed the dear saints, such as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, to confidently rely upon the Lord in their most trying hours with the full assurance that He not only is able to deliver them but that in some way He will deliver them! Whether or not they are delivered from present perils or even death at the hands of their persecutors, they will yet be delivered, for either way, whether they are in the body or out of the body, they are still totally in the hands of the Lord and ultimate victory is theirs. If God be for them who can be against them? No power on earth can touch their never-dying souls, and therefore, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. For them to depart this life, whether by natural death or at the hands of others, is for them to be with the Lord in a far better place.

It appears from Dan. 3:18 that the three Hebrew children were not certain that the Lord would deliver them from the fiery furnace, but they seemed perfectly assured that in one way or another they would be delivered out of the hand of the king. I believe that from their viewpoint God would either deliver them from death by a miracle, or else He would deliver them from the king by taking them home to glory. Either way, they were assured of a glorious deliverance, and were thus given courage to defy Nebuchadnezzar's evil decree that they worship his golden image. Even death was preferable to their worshipping an idol.

There are still men and women today, and I hope I am among them, who have the same confidence in the Lord as Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and who would refuse to bow their knee to the image of Baal even in the face of possible death. Oh! what a comfort is such a faith as we face the trials and difficulties of life. How blest are we if we have that threefold assurance of God's deliverance that the apostle Paul had: "Who delivered us from so great a death, and doth deliver: in whom we trust that He will yet deliver" (II Cor. 1:10)!    —Elder Ralph Harris