The Fiery Furnace:

After completing this lesson, the children will learn that God gives them the courage and encouragement they need to remain obedient to him, even during tough times, worldly pressures, and persecution.
AS KIDS ARRIVE ( 10 minutes )
Fire Escape (Maze) Handout below
OPENING PRAYER AND PRAISES - Worship ( 5-10 minutes )
MEMORY WORK ( 10 minutes )
"Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go." Joshua 1:9 NIV
Write the memory verse on the board and have the kids say it a few times. Then erase one of the words, such as "discouraged" and have them say it again. Then erase another word, then another, each time having the kids say the verse correctly from memory. Continue until all the words are erased.
SCRIPTURE READING AND DISCUSSION ( 15 minutes )
Introduction:
Now that Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were acting as administrators over the province of Babylon, you would think their troubles would be over. Well think again. What happened next was totally unexpected. King Nebuchadnezzar decided to make an image of gold. A huge golden statue, nearly nine stories tall. When it was finished, all of the court officials were invited to the dedication ceremony. During the ceremony, a special announcement was made to all the people. Everyone must fall down and worship the statue whenever they heard certain music playing, or else be killed. But Shadrach, Meshach and Adednego belonged to God. Would they worship this golden image to stay alive, or remain faithful to God even if it meant death? Let's find out what happened.
Daniel 3:10-20
Have the children follow along in their Bible as you read this passage. Except each time you come to the names of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, have the kids say these names with you out loud. (As information, each name is said 12 times in this short passage.)
Discussion Questions:
1. When were the people supposed to worship the golden image? (Whenever they heard the music played)
2. What would happen to someone who was caught not worshiping the image? (Killed in a furnace)
3. Why did Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego have the courage to refuse to bow down to the statue?
(They had faith that God could save them.)
4. What did Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego do in verse 28 that impressed the king so much?
(They trusted in God and were willing to give up their lives rather than serve or worship any other god.)
5. Who did the king praise after the three came out completely unharmed? (God)
6. How can we find the courage we need to remain faithful to God during times of trouble, pressure or persecution?
CLASS EXERCISES (20 minutes)
The Fiery Furnace (Skit) See Below
ALTERNATE CLASS EXERCISE (15 minutes)
Being Close to God (Activity) See Below
If using this activity, explain to the kids that the closer our relationship is to God, the more courage we will have to do what is right when faced with difficult situations.
APPLICATION ( 2 minutes)
Give each child a sheet a paper and a pencil, and ask them to write down at least three situations they could find themselves in where it would take courage to stay obedient to God. Some examples may be: when other kids are poking fun at me for being a Christian, or when someone says that evolution is the truth. If time permits, have the children share one of their situations and ask how they would react. What can we do as Christians to build up courage to stay obedient to God during these times?
Last week we discovered that a reputation is built by doing something over and over. To have a reputation for being courageous and obedient during times of difficulty and worldly pressure, we must seek God's help over and over through prayer and reading God's Word. Hopefully we will never be faced with a life or death situation like that of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. However, during our life we will find ourselves in many situations that if we give in to the pressure or turn our back on doing what it right, it could be very damaging to us or others. It takes courage to tell others what the Bible says, what the truth is, and how Jesus is the Lord. But we can do it because God will always be there to help.
NEXT WEEK
Come back next week to see how some fingers frightened a ruthless king.
CLOSING PRAYER ( 2 minutes)
TAKE HOME PAGE
Give one copy to each child at the end of the class to take home. See Below
FIRE ESCAPE
Help Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego find their way to safety.
Daniel 3:12-30
The Fiery Furnace
by Craig
A lesson in standing for God no matter what.
Materials:
5 Chairs (4 chairs together for quests
and 1 apart for the host)
Duration:
Approximately 15 minutes / / Topics:
Obedience, Stand Firm,
Reputation
Target Age:
Grades 2 3 4 5 6
Click here for Skit only
Skit for six persons:
Announcer, Talk show Host, King, Shadrach, Meshach and Abendnego. Rest of class acts as the audience
/
Announcer / Good Evening ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to our show. Tonight our quests will be: Our king! Nebuchadnezzar, and three of his royal subjects, the amazing, death defying Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. And now, let’s hear it for our host, David Numberman!
Audience / "Cheers and Whistles"
(Host comes in and sits in host's chair)
Host / Hey, hey, how is everyone tonight? We have a great show for you, perhaps one of our best. So let’s get started. Everyone give a hand for our king, Nebuchadnezzar!
Audience / “Cheers and whistles"
(King enters and sits on one of the chairs)
Host / Welcome O king. Thank you for joining us tonight.
King / My pleasure, what a miraculous story. That fire was…
Host / Hold on O king, we’ll get to the story soon, but first let’s welcome our other guests. Everyone, please give a hand for Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego!
Audience / “Cheers and whistles”
(Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego enter and sit on the other chairs)
Host / Great! Let’s see now, we have one, two, three, and four. Wonderful, all four guests are here. So my first question goes to our king. How did this whole amazing event get started?
King / It started about three weeks ago. I built a large image of gold. It was about 90 feet high, and about 9 feet wide...
Host / Hold on king. You said 90 feet tall? Wow, that’s tall! Oh, sorry, go on.
King / Well, as I said, I built an image of gold. Then I made it a law that whenever the people heard the sound of horns, flutes and harps together, they must bow down and worship the image, or else be thrown into the fiery furnace.
Host / Shadrach, what happened next?”
Shadrach / Well, sure enough, we heard the sound of the horns, flutes and harps, but my friends and I refused to bow down to the image.”
Audience / “Boos, awes and shameful noises”
King / I know! I know! That’s why I had the furnace heated up seven times hotter!
Host / Seven times hotter! You said seven? Wow, if it were that hot, you couldn’t even open the furnace door without being burnt to a crisp!
Meshach / Very true. In fact, the servants who threw us into the furnace were burnt up and died
Host / Get out of town! So what happened to the three of you?
Abendego / First we were bound up, and then thrown into the fire. But even though the fire was so hot, we knew our God would be with us.
King / Then I saw an amazing thing. Instead of three people in the fire, I saw four.
Host / Four! You said Four? How could that be when only three men were thrown into the fire?
Shadrach / We were not alone. As Abendego said, we knew our God would truly be with us because of our obedience.
Host / What do you mean because of your obedience?
Shadrach / Only God is worthy of our praise and worship. It would be wrong to worship anyone or anything else. It was important for us to obey God in this matter, and worship Him only, even though we all could have died.
Host / But you didn’t die did you?
Meshach / Well no! Else how could we be here now?
Audience / "ha ha ha and Laughter"
Meshach / The next thing we heard was the king calling: ‘Shadrach, Meshach and Abendego, servants of the most high God, come out and come here. So we did.
Abendego / Not a hair on our heads were singed. We didn’t even smell like smoke after we came out.
Audience / “Wows and awes”
King / It was truly amazing. So I made a new law that anyone who speaks against the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abendego would be killed, because there is no other God who can save people like that.”
Host / Well, we are out of time for tonight. I truly want to thank our guests for this amazing story. So remember the number 1. It is an important number because as we found out tonight, there is only one true God, and we must worship only Him. Goodnight!
Announcer / And that concludes our show tonight. Be sure to join us again tomorrow for the David Numberman Show!
Audience / “Cheers and whistles”
Being Close to God
by Mike
Children will toss popcorn from different distances to see that the closer
they are to God, the stronger their relationship can be with Him.
Materials:
Popcorn
Duration:
Approximately 8 minutes / / Topics:
Contentment, Joy,
Knowing God, Relationships, Walking with God
Target Age:
Grades 2 3 4 5
Preparation:
None
What you will do during class:
First, divide the children equally and have them stand in two lines, facing each other, about 10 feet apart. Each child will need to be facing another child. The children will be tossing a piece of popcorn back and forth to the person across from them. If you have an odd number of children, the extra child can count the number of successful catches.
Give all the children in the first row, called row "A", a piece of popcorn, and tell them that on your signal, they will toss the piece of popcorn 10 feet across to the person directly facing them in row "B". Instruct the older children to use only one hand to toss or catch the popcorn. Tell the kids that the popcorn in this activity represents our relationship with God. Give the signal and have the children toss the popcorn. Many of the tosses will fall short since the children are so far apart. Record the number of successful throws on a chalkboard or whiteboard.
Make sure each child in row "B" has a piece of popcorn. Each child in row “B” will take one-step towards row "A". Then on your signal, have the children toss the popcorn again. Once again, record the number of successful throws on a chalkboard or whiteboard. Do this several more times, each time taking one-step closer until the two rows are together. Once together, the children can simply drop the popcorn into the hands of the other child, resulting in no misses.
Explain that our relationship with God is similar to what we just did. The further away from each other, the harder it was to catch the popcorn. Likewise, the further we are from God, the harder it is to have a relationship with God. On the other hand, the closer we are to God, the easier it will be to have a strong relationship with Him. How do we get close to God? We can get closer to God by reading the Bible, praying, and fasting.
/ What we learned:
Children learned that God gives us the courage and encouragement we need to remain obedient to him, even during tough times, worldly pressures, and persecution.
/ Memory Verse:
"Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go." Joshua 1:9 NIV
Memorize this verse with your child.
/ Suggested Parent/Child Activity:
Hold a family gathering and discuss in depth what your family values are based on. Set a strong foundation, a reason for what you belive, so that your children's faith will stand firm during turbulent times.
/ Daily Prayer:
Father God, give us wisdom to know what is right and courage to reject that which is corrupt. May we hide your word in our heart, so that we may not sin against you. May we be like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and do the right thing no matter the danger. Amen