The Fire Has No Power - Part 3

And whoever does not fall down and worship shall that very hour be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace. Therefore, when all the peoples heard the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, dulcimer or bagpipe, and every kind of music, all the peoples, nations, and languages fell down and worshiped the golden image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up. (Dan 3:6-7)

Therefore at that time certain men of Chaldean descent came near and brought [malicious] accusations against the Jews. They said to King Nebuchadnezzar, O king, live forever! You, O king, have made a decree that every man who hears the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, dulcimer or bagpipe, and every kind of music shall fall down and worship the golden image, And that whoever does not fall down and worship shall be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace.   (Dan 3:8-11)

Can you imagine?  You are commanded to attend a ceremony... one that you do not agree with.  Your freedom to choose is stripped from you.  Once at the ceremony, you are told you will participate or die.  What do you do?  

Most of us live in countries with the freedom to choose what we believe.  We are free to be followers of Christ, Christians.  With that choice, how many times have we chosen to follow the crowd rather than what we believe.  Why?

The answer is within this experiment by "Primetime"  

     We gathered a group of people together for a test of "visual perception." The actual test was simple -- to mentally rotate some 3-D shapes and compare them to see whether they were the same or different.
      First, the volunteers wrote down their answers to 10 questions privately. But then they had to give the next series of answers out loud for everyone to hear.
     But this test came with a twist. One of the participants, Jocelyn, was in on the experiment, with the answers in her hand. Everyone else had been told to follow her lead, except for one participant, Tony. He's the only person in the room not in the know. He was being set up to see whether he would follow the pack.
     When the group gave the right answer, Tony agreed. And when everyone gave the wrong answer -- Tony still agreed.
     Unwittingly, Tony had demonstrated Berns' point precisely. The group's influence on Tony profoundly altered the results: He went from 90 percent on his written test to 10 percent when he heard the others' answers.
     "You know, five people are seeing it and I'm not. … I just went along with the answers," Tony said.
     Tony wasn't alone. "Primetime" put seven other unsuspecting test subjects on the hot seat. Barbara, for example, got 70 percent on the written test, but her score fell to 30 percent when she listened to others' answers.
     "I think I tend to do that, doubt myself when everyone else has their own opinion," Barbara said.
     David and Graham, unlike the others, gave the right answers, even when the group didn't.
     "I wanted to go with what I felt was the correct answer, and trust myself, and that's what I did," Graham said.  

You can read more about the experiment at  http://abcnews.go.com/Primetime/Health/story?id=1495038 .

We tend to follow the crowd, often out of concern of what the people around us think.  In the bible verses above, the three Jews did not follow the crowd.  They were firm in their beliefs and trusted God and their decision to follow Him. 

To make the choices that choose life rather than death (spiritually speaking - Deut. 30:19)  we must KNOW what we are putting our trust in...

"And you will know the Truth, and the Truth will set you free".   Jn 8:32

If you were called to a challenge of your Christianity, would you be able to walk out of the fire?  

Do you know your God well enough to know to stand and trust Him?