Thier story starts when the people of Judah are defeated by Babylon. These three, along with many others considered to be "worth training" by the Babylon government were taken to Babylon to be educated and made into men that would strengthen the Babylonian empire by their service to the king. Soon, they earn high ranks among the king's officials.
The King's Idea
Then the king gets a great idea: if he gets all of his officials to get together and worship the same god, that would really improve the unity of the empire, and improve the loyalty of his officials to him. So the king erects a ninety foot tall statue made of gold, and commands that everyone come stand in front of it, and when the band starts playing everyone has to bow to the statue. Anyone who doesn't get's thrown into a furnace.
It's impressive the way the king sets this up. He puts this statue out on a plain so that as tall as it is, you could see it from miles off, and he also puts together a huge band (Daniel 3:5) of all the most popular instruments, so everyone will know just how big of an affair this is. This king knows how people are so strongly affected by music and by impressive size.
Refusing to Bow
Next, the king strikes up the music. Imagine hundreds of government officials all standing out on a plain, bowing to an idol as music plays. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abegnego were in that crowd, and as hundreds of the people they work with everyday and the people they answer to or give orders to all bow down around them, they don't bow. It doesn't take long to find three guys standing in a crowd that is bent over, so these three are taken to the king, and the proposal that the kings gives them is something we would do well to pay attention to.
In Daniel 3:13-15, the king gives them a second chance, and if they will bow to the statue the king made this time when the music plays, the king will forgive them, but if they refuse, the king will throw them into the furnace. He finishes by asking them, "who is the god who will deliver you out of my hands?"
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego respond to this by telling the king that the God can deliver them from the furnace, and will deliver them from the king’s hand. (Daniel 3:17) They add that no matter what God does, they will not compromise their service to God by bowing when the king commands.
A Son of the Gods
For their refusal, the three men are thrown into fire, but as the king watches, he stands up in surprise and turns to his counselors, and asks them, “Did we not cast three men bound into the fire?” “True, O king,” they tell him. He replies, “But I see four men unbound, walking in the midst of the fire, and they are not hurt; and the appearance of the fourth is like a son of the gods.”
The king orders them to be brought back out, and everyone sees that the fire didn’t even affect them enough to make them smell like fire. When he sees this, the king praises the God that delivered Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and decrees that nobody is allowed to ever speak against Him.
A Challenge We Face
The challenge that the king gives to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego is one that is put each of us as well. The king tells these three that if they don’t bow when they’re told, he will throw them into the fire. In the same way, Satan creates a fire and threatens to throw us in it. He delights in finding what we are afraid of, and then telling us that the only way to avoid it is to bow when he tells us. If you’re afraid of loneliness, he tells you that you must make compromises in obeying God or else people won’t like you and you’ll be alone. If you’re afraid of failure, he tells you that you must make compromises in obeying God or else you’ll fail at the things important to you. Whatever it is, he will threaten you that the only way to avoid that fire is to obey him instead of God. Often, he will take you out to that open field with so many other people, showing you how everyone else is bowing on his command, and thus avoiding the fire. When he does this, he challenges us, “who is the God that can deliver you from my hand?”
In Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego’s answer to this challenge, we can learn how to answer as well. They respond that God is able to deliver them from the fire, and definitely will deliver from them from the hand of the king. What’s the difference between the fire and the hand of the king? These men knew that even if they burned up in the fire, the king would still have no power to control them, and that their lives would be in God’s hands if they died. So, whether the fire burned them or not, they would be delivered from the king. This story is not meant to tell us that we’ll never have pain if we obey God, but that He will always deliver us. So, we can answer the king of this world that even if we are subjected to whatever he is threatening us with, and even if it tears our life apart, the devil has no power to control a servant of God, and we will be delivered from his hand.
Fireproof
The method of that deliverance is of even more importance. In John 5:38, Jesus gives the Pharisees the key to interpreting the Old Testament, saying that the Scriptures “bear witness about me.” When the king looks into the fire and sees a fourth figure, he says it looks like a son of the gods. Later, he calls it an angel (messenger) of God. There is a lot of debate about what this figure was, an angel or a pre-incarnate Jesus. I personally think it was really the Christ, but either way, when the king says it had the appearance of a son of the Gods, one of the main purposes of this story becomes clear to us: in order to walk through fire and not be burned—to be fireproof—we must walk through it with one who has the power to keep us from being burned. That figure is meant to point us to our need to walk through the fire with the Son of God, and thus this bit of Scripture bears witness to our need for Christ. The purpose of this story is to show the reader the challenge that we are faced with and the possibility of overcoming it, and to force us to ask ourselves, “How can I know that when I walk through the fire, I’ll be walking with someone who can make me fireproof?”
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...only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.
Ephesians 4:29