Indoctrination

Their names were Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, but Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, their pagan names, may sound more familiar; Daniel became Belteshazzar. These four princes of Judah were among the many from Judah captured and carried off to Babylon to learn the Chaldeans’ ways and language in preparation to serve King Nebuchadnezzar (Daniel 1:3, 4). The eunuch in charge of the young captives changed their names that honored Jehovah to those that honored their pagan gods. The intention was to dethrone God from their lives and reprogram their thinking.

The name change and training for the Israelites were all about brainwashing, forgetting their families, homeland, and identity as Jehovah’s children, and meld with their new country. But these four would not blend or compromise. They refused to stop praying to the One True Living God; they refused to bow before King Nebuchadnezzar and his pagan gods. And for that, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah were thrown into the fiery furnace but were unharmed because “someone who looked like the Son of God” walked amid the flames, protecting them (3:27). Daniel was thrown into the lions’ den but came out unscathed because God sent an angel who shut their mouths (6:22). In both instances, the king declared they escaped death because of faith in their God. Their names may have changed, but their identity as God’s obedient servants did not.

You may have walked through life’s fires, coming through feeling scorched, smelly, with ash clinging to your body. Adversaries may have thrown you into situations where you faced powerful, snarling enemies, and you bear the scars of those battles. The enemy of your soul wants you to lose sight of who you are in Christ. He wants to brainwash you into believing your name is Regret, Failure, Unwanted, but your Father calls you Forgiven, Redeemed, Child of the One True King. Like these remarkable young men, refuse to bend to the lies of this world. Once you surrender your life to God, your identity as His child is secure in Him: “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons [children] of God” (Romans 8:14).