Reader! pray observe what is here said. Nebuchadnezzar is astonished, and so are his courtiers. But is this all? Yes! for had there been more than astonishment and any grace wrought in the heart, the accusers of these holy men would have been punished; the King himself would have confessed his guilt, and the Lord God of his faithful servants been acknowledged and adored. And, Reader! is it not so now in what is going on through life? Do the most awful judgments, visitations, deliverances, blessings, or chastisements, produce a change in the minds of men by their operations! Ah! no. If the unhappy apostate spirits now in hell were unchained and freed, devils they would still remain. Nothing but the arm of sovereign grace can subdue the stubborn heart of sinners, whether men or devils. Oh! that this was but thoroughly considered, that so the glory of Jehovah might be known and confessed in the Church of God, that his arm alone bringeth salvation. Reader! do you know this most certain truth of God? Are you a living testimony of his grace, in being the happy object on which that grace hath been shown? Ephesians 2:1.
Daniel 3:26-30
26 Then Nebuchadnezzar came near to the mouthj of the burning fiery furnace, and spake, and said, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, ye servants of the most high God, come forth, and come hither. Then Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, came forth of the midst of the fire.
27 And the princes, governors, and captains, and the king's counsellors, being gathered together, saw these men, upon whose bodies the fire had no power, nor was an hair of their head singed, neither were their coats changed, nor the smell of fire had passed on them.
28 Then Nebuchadnezzar spake, and said, Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who hath sent his angel, and delivered his servants that trusted in him, and have changed the king's word, and yielded their bodies, that they might not serve nor worship any god, except their own God.
29 Therefore I makek a decree, That every people, nation, and language, which speak any thing amiss against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, shall be cut in pieces, and their houses shall be made a dunghill: because there is no other God that can deliver after this sort.
30 Then the king promotedl Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, in the province of Babylon.