Trial by Fire--by Linden Malki

One of the constant themes of the history of the God's people is that God kept calling people to himself, and offering them a spiritually healthy society--on His terms. After all, who knows what is good for man better than His creator? He also created us with an amazing amount of freedom, including the freedom to ignore him. However, this freedom comes at a price; there is a cost to doing it our way. We see the societies that made gods in their own image, and often in the images of their worst selves, paying the consequences.
The people who became the Kingdom of Judah were chosen to be the example and witness to the plan of God for humanity.  Sometimes they did it right; more often they didn't. Many times they did not recognize their responsibility to be the demonstration.  There were many people called to explain this to their fellow Jews, but one of the unusual things about the book of Daniel is that most of what we might call preaching is his response to messages given by God to the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar. He and his friends--as well as the other Jews who had been brought to Babylon--were called to live in a pagan society and witness to what they knew God required of them.  Their experience was an example of how God uses difficult things to accomplish His will. One of the results of the Babylonian captivity was that the Jewish scholars, under pressure of the pagan surroundings, made a successful effort to collect, edit and teach the writings and teachings that went back to the beginning of their history with God.

One of the most troublesome part of the experiences the Jews had had with pagans they were in contact with over their entire history was the idols that were made and worshiped. One of the things about these idols was that they were made to gratify the wants of their makers--which meant that they often encouraged the selfish and most degraded parts of the human personalities. Nebuchadnezzar had seen Daniel's God in action, but he still felt he needed to keep up the worship of his old gods.  This led to the incident of Daniel's three friends refusing to bow down to the golden idol that had been made at the king's orders, and , their being thrown into a furnace (this was in a city built of fired bricks) and being visibly protected by a "son of God".  Even this didn't prevent Nebuchadnezzar from continuing to talk of himself as the creator of his Kingdom, and once again being punished by God.  Recognizing the power of the one true God is essential, but it doesn't work to have any other authority in your life above the sovereignty of God. 
We are created to recognize our own true position as His creation and under His rule. It's not that bad things don't happen, but we are taken care of--if we let Him.