Angels Are for Real by Judith MacNutt

Author:Judith MacNutt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: REL012040, REL012000
Publisher: Baker Publishing Group

Angels at a Baby’s Birth

Many angels were present for the birth of my sister’s baby. They seemed so happy and delighted. When her doctor came in the next day, I could see that he had an angel about three-quarters his size who followed him around everywhere.

—Anonymous

Recorded throughout Scripture are stories of angelic interventions in the lives of ordinary people. One of my favorite Bible stories as a child was about King Nebuchadnezzar and the three young Jewish subjects whom he commanded to be thrown into a fiery furnace. I still remember the song we sang in Sunday school about these faithful servants of God who refused to worship the idol the king had erected in place of God.

The place was Babylon, and King Nebuchadnezzar was attempting to unify religious worship. He created a golden idol and commanded his people to fall down and worship it or be thrown into a blazing furnace. The king flew into a rage when he was told that Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego refused. These three replied,

If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.

Daniel 3:17–18

Furious, the king ordered strong soldiers to bind the young men and throw them into the blazing fire. The fire shooting out of the furnace was so hot that the king’s soldiers who threw them in were instantly killed. Gazing into the furnace, the king said, “Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods” (verse 25).

The one the king saw who looked like a “son of the gods” was probably a radiant angel sent to protect God’s children in the midst of the flames. This mighty angel in the furnace had the appearance of a god or someone “otherworldly.” Guardian angels intervene in our daily struggles to shield us from danger and to accompany us through life’s difficulties. When Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego emerged from the furnace, those around them “saw that the fire had not harmed their bodies, nor was a hair of their heads singed; their robes were not scorched, and there was no smell of fire on them” (verse 27). Only the ropes that bound them were burned.

God still sets captives free today. Have you ever felt bound and trapped? Forced into a situation that you did not choose? Innocent, but found guilty? Condemned without a trial? Imagine how these three young men felt. Read their response again when the king made his threats. Paraphrased, it reads, “God will save us from you, but even if He does not, we will not betray Him.” Forced into this situation, they trusted God to save them or be with them in the fire. They had simple faith in the One they had come to trust.

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