Lesson 16: Explanations

We have read the events from the life of King Nebuchadnezzar in the last several lessons. Daniel’s three friends were saved from the fiery furnace – not because they deserved to be, but as a picture of God’s ability to save us even though we go through events or dangers that seem impossible to survive. These men did not cry out to God asking Him why He allowed such things to be, wondering if they had done something wrong, or seeking legal help to protect them. They simply said they knew they were disobeying the king’s command and he could do to them as he chose because they would never, for any reason at all, give up their faith in God.

Why is this story in the Bible? It could well be an encouragement to the people of Israel in the last days when the leader of the whole world seeks to destroy them, and they have no protection from his anger. They can only truth in God. Just as the furnace was made 7 times hotter than before, the people of Israel who trust in God will be preserved through 7 years of the worst persecution any people-group in all of earth’s history will have ever endured. Jesus will also walk with them through that furnace of hatred.

It is also an encouragement to us today as we face hard times or even death. Death holds no fear for those who understand God’s promises, to those who are eagerly waiting for Him to bring us to Him home. The only concern we might have is for those we love who will be left if we die – and concern for them is why we spend every possible moment with those we love to make certain they also believe in Jesus and have accepted Him as their Savior. Even though Daniel was not present at this event, he knew his friends believed and followed God.


Nebuchadnezzar’s second dream, also interpreted by only Daniel, became the judgement of God against this king. The fact that these words are written by King Nebuchadnezzar himself, telling what happened to him, shows us that he saw God’s hand in his punishment and restoration. He gives us his own testimony of how, after he had endured God’s judgment as the dream had prophesied, he turned to God in faith.

Prophetically, there is a close relationship between Daniel 3 and Revelation 13. Where Daniel 3 is the beginning of the Times of the Gentiles (we will understand this term better in a later lesson), Revelation is the end of this Time. The fiery furnace is a type or picture of the Seven-Year-Tribulation. Nebuchadnezzar’s 7 years of madness are also a picture of the Seven-Year-Tribulation. Just as Nebuchadnezzar’s dream-statue was political Babylon which he replaced with the religious statue, so the world’s political governments will be replaced with “religious” Babylon in the last days.

*Of these three stories you have read in the past few days, which touches your life the most? Why?