Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Well, welcome to Living Hope Church. We're glad that you've chosen to join us this morning. We're going to jump into Daniel today and we've been going through a series, three week series, just a short series in Daniel, looking at some chapters there. Faithful Living in a Foreign land is what it's called. And next week we'll start the Christmas theme somehow that's already going to be here, which is amazing. Some of you already have your trees up already and have been listening to Christmas music. It's not even Thanksgiving yet. Live in the moment.
[00:00:32] We're going to start with chapter six today, looking at the last of the stories that we'll look at in this series. And hopefully you've been able to either join us in the past or you can go back and listen to those. But in this series we're looking at what it looks like to practically live as God's people, as faithful followers of Jesus in a land that is not our own, that being the world that we are living in right now, and what it looks like to walk alongside God's principles, God's policies, and be obedient to those in this world. In the top of your bulletin, if you look inside there, you'll see all sorts of announcements. On the back side of it is the outline that we'll walk through today. And it says this kind of at the top. I just wrote this and imagine if there was a law against praying to God for 30 days and the punishment for you breaking that law was death. Would you still pray?
[00:01:27] Or would you just say, let's wait for 30 days and then I'll pray a lot. I'll make up for lost time maybe after that 30 days. Well, we see here this character, you probably know this story. It's one that has been told for many, many years, obviously, and also through children's church kind of stuff and throughout church life. This story is one of the most popular even outside of church. This story is well known.
[00:01:53] The Book of the Quarter. If you open your bulletin at the top on the right there is the Book of the Quarter for where we are now. It's called when faith is forbidden. 40 days on the Front Lines with Persecuted Christians. And if you haven't yet picked this up and start reading it, I'd encourage you to do so. The stories are of people who live in countries where following Jesus is outlawed. And in these stories it's talking through the author, journeys with us, with the reader and walks us through different people who've been persecuted and gone through hard stuff because of what they've believed in. And I think it really connects well with this series in Daniel. So let's pray and then we'll get into God's word.
[00:02:35] Lord Jesus, we are your people and you are worthy of our praise as we just sung moments ago.
[00:02:44] Yes, you are worthy because of what you did on the cross for us. You're also worthy because you are God. You are the only God. And though kingdoms may come in this world and there are people and powers and empires that exist, you endure forever and your kingdom is over all. You have power over what happens in the details, the smallest details of this world and the most grand perspectives in the world that we live in. And so as we come before you this morning, as we open your word, I pray that you would help us to submit our hearts and our minds to you, that we would listen to what you want to say to us. The things that I say would be from you, and it would be led by your spirit, in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:03:33] Well, chapter six, like I said, is where we're going to start. A little bit of background. If you weren't with us before, and you could just, if you have your Bibles, you should have your Bibles or a screen or something, you could look back and see at the beginning of this book, kind of the journey that we've gone through. The beginning of the book is chapter one. And at the beginning here, if you look in your Bibles there, chapter one talks about Nebuchadnezzar from Babylon going to and taking from Jerusalem people into captivity. And then we see that in chapters one and chapter three, we talked through those things. And we come to at the end of chapter four. Let me look here in my Bible here as well. At the end of chapter four, we had Nebuchadnezzar and we walked through last time. The whole story of the fiery furnace in Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and them walking through that and coming out on the other side. And then we come to the end of chapter four, and this is the end of the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar in the end of his reign. We saw at the beginning he thought he was all that. And at the end, look what he says in verse 37. He says, this is the king speaking after he's gone through great humiliation and really seeing the power of God. This is what he says. This is so, so important. Now, I Nebuchadnezzar praise and extol. He doesn't say himself. He says and honor the king of for all his works are right and his ways are just. And those who walk in pride, he is able to humble. That is a great way to end your life. To know I have tried a lot of things. Solomon said a similar thing. Recognizing I have tried a lot of things. I have seen what great power and great wealth can do to somebody. And now I recognize it is God who is above all. Now right after that, Belshazzar, which is a similar name actually to Daniel's given name in Babylon, becomes king. We can read that in chapter five. And what has happened is Belshazzar has a reign of about 20 years or so and then brings us to about 539bc that is before Christ. And so it's 20 years of Belshazzar being king. And so that's kind of where chapter five actually picks up, is about 20 years into his kingdom. And we see the writing on the wall. You might know that story. And then after that, the writing on the wall is about the end of his reign. And that writing on the wall says that he's going to be conquered, Babylon's going to be conquered. So if you look now, we're going to pick up in chapter six, which is the very early reign of the king. His name's Darius or Cyrus.
[00:06:12] The early reign there of this king. We're going to hear about this king, the accusers, Daniel and God. So in your outline, you could just write this in. We'll walk through this whole story together. We'll just read through it and learn from what God has to say to us and what Daniel and the various characters in this passage have to teach us. So you could write in Daniel what was entitled this, as you can see there what it looks like to face lions and to be faithful in the midst of that. So on your outline, you could write this in Blame Daniel was blameless by the law of the land. We see this particularly in verses one through five. So just read on with me. It's on the screen as well. And I'll just kind of comment as we go through this together. All right. It pleased. What was the king's name? Darius. Darius pleased Darius. That name actually given, as I mentioned just a moment ago, probably given actually to multiple kings. And it actually means Lord. So this guy's probably name especially what history tells us his name is Cyrus. But we see Darius as a title or an honored title.
[00:07:18] It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom 120 satraps. And that is governors, maybe in your Bible might say, or in the Persian kingdom to be throughout the whole kingdom, verse 2. And over them, three high officials or overseers of whom Daniel was one, to whom the satraps would give an account so that the king might not suffer loss. Then this Daniel that we're talking about became distinguished above all the other high officials and satraps because an excellent spirit was with him, and the king planned to set him over the whole kingdom. So, in other words, what we see here is like, Daniel, he's doing really well. He has an excellent spirit, and almost like this vice king, if you will. Like, we have a vice president, a vice king, second in command because of his wisdom, his experience, his sense of history, good leadership, good reputation, good attitude. And then you imagine how others felt about this. So here we are. New king steps in. He's like, all right, I'm from a different kingdom. I'm going to reorganize the kingdom. And we're going to have 120 satraps kind of governing various provinces in this massive kingdom. And over these 120, there'll be three main officials that oversee those 100, and Daniel being one of them. And then the king. Somehow word got out that the king was going to take from these three high officials, of whom Daniel was one, say, actually, Daniel's going to be over these others because he's so good at his job. Good at his job, you know, do you know anyone good at their job? You want to. They often get promoted. Daniel is about. They're thinking about promoting Daniel, verse 4. Then the.
[00:08:58] Not all. It's important to note high officials and satraps sought to find grounds for complaint against Daniel with regard to the kingdom.
[00:09:07] Why would they want to find complaint against Daniel?
[00:09:12] Remember, he's a foreigner, and he's about to be basically second in command over the largest, most powerful nation in the land. They are probably feeling very jealous. How many of you have felt jealous before?
[00:09:25] Very jealous. And so we see here the power of their jealousy here through this story. So the satraps, they try to find a way to have grounds for complaint against Daniel with regard to the kingdom.
[00:09:37] But they could find, and I love this, no ground for complaint or any fault. Wow. Because he was faithful and no error or fault was found in him. Then these men said, let's scheme, figure out a way to get this guy gone. Then they said, we shall not find any ground for complaint against Daniel unless we find it in connection with the law of his God, unless we make that a law that contradicts something that he is already doing. Now, let's just look at Daniel's character.
[00:10:10] It's important that we see here that jealousy is the thing that stirs this up. And it's so strong that they're going to look for a way. They don't just want him to be demoted. They're looking. We're gonna see here to have him killed. We don't want to have the possibility of Daniel to be brought back into a position of authority. Now, based on the timeline, it's also. We often have this image maybe of Daniel being this young guy or still this young guy. Daniel's probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 80 years old. He's not a young guy anymore. He has been around for quite some time and has had a lot of.
[00:10:44] A lot of experience in this. In this kingdom. So we see here this man of God.
[00:10:51] People are hating him because of this. People are hating him because of his desire to honor God. These other rulers wanted him God, but gone. But they could not find a way to impeach him. We have experience with that recently, right? People trying to get other people impeached. That's what's going on here. We're trying to find grounds to impeach him, but they couldn't find anything. Imagine if somebody looked at your life, they dug into every little detail of your life. Would they be able to find something grounds against you?
[00:11:22] Hmm?
[00:11:24] You're like, I don't know. Don't ask.
[00:11:28] That's what happened here. They're looking for any way. They're doing a deep dive into his public life and his personal life, saying, can we find anything to get this guy out of this position of authority?
[00:11:41] What would happen if that was true of our life? If people looked deeply at our life, would they say, wow, they are a servant of God, and there's nothing we're going to be able to find against them because they are such committed followers of God. One of the things that people. Because we do get watched by lots of people, people will learn about God through you before they pick up a Bible, they'll watch us.
[00:12:05] For many people, you and I are the only Bible that they will ever read. And I say Bible loosely. That is to understand the character of God. And so for these men, they are looking, how can we tear Daniel down? But as they look at him, they say, he's just committed to Jesus, committed to God. He's committed to obedience. So we see here this point, he was blameless according to the law of the land. So how can we find a way to make a law against His God. We go on to point two. You could write this in Daniel was also not only blameless, but he was also faithful, particularly in prayer. Look at verse six and read with me.
[00:12:44] Then these high officials and satraps, that is, some of them who were scheming to get rid of Daniel, came by agreement or with a plot, with a plan to the king and said to him, o King Darius, they said in all sorts of sweet tones in their voice, live forever. What's a great way to approach the king? Verse 7. All. By the way, that's a lie. It was not all. All the high officials. Daniel's one of the high officials, isn't he? All of the high officials agree on this. Did Daniel agree on it? No. He wasn't even there in this. In this interaction. All the high officials of the kingdom, the prefects and the satraps, the counselors and the governors, agree that the king should establish an ordinance and enforce an injunction that whoever makes a petition to any God or man for 30 days, except who you, king, shall be not demoted, not kicked out of the kingdom, not get a slap on the wrist, shall be cast into a den of lions.
[00:13:41] Now, O king, establish the injunction and sign the document so that it cannot be changed according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be revoked. Therefore, the king bit hook, line and sinker. This line that they just threw out. Now, I want to pause here just for a minute, because what they did is they appealed to his ego. And also, before we go on to the following verses and with how Daniel replied, what's happening here is this. There is something called the divine rights of kings. And this was practiced in Egypt, and particularly like with Pharaoh and with Rome. And what that was is that when there was an emperor in this timeframe and a little later on after this, here in Persia, what they believed was, is because God, whatever God there was, God established this person as king, they thus now have almost equal rights with God. Thus they should be able to be worshiped as deity. Okay, so pharaohs, we saw that they like to take on this level of deity. The emperors in Rome, they did the same thing. You should worship us instead of worshiping a separate God. In the kingdom of Medo, Persia, the kingdom that Darius ruled over, he said, you can all do what you want, worship whoever you want. Just be peaceful people. That's initially what they said. And then these plotting leaders said, we want to make sure that Daniel's gone. So for 30 days. Why they picked 30 days? Because they knew probably that Daniel would pray within 30 days. They knew he was a man of prayer. They said, let's make this injunction. And the king said, well, if all of my advisors are for it, that sounds like a great idea. I mean, I'm for it. That sounds great. Wouldn't that sound great? Everyone has to name you, has to call you out by name. If ever they were to pray or to seek from whatever God they worship, first they have to go through you or through your name, if you will. Now, also, what happened in this empire was unlike the Babylonians, where there was a complete monarchy, the king was whatever he said went, the Medo, Persians. What they did is they had something called a constitutional law that they needed to follow. And so what was there was the king then, if he wrote something down in law, according to their law of the land, was he had to follow it even as the king, he couldn't break his own law. It was kind of like a checks and balance system. Similar kind of what we have going on today, where the president doesn't just say, I can do this, and I can do this, and I can do this. And there's no. There's no checks and balances there. So for him, they say, write this into law. And if you do based on the law of the land, you can't even break it. That's how severe. That's how strong this agreement is. And so did the king say yes? Did he sign it? Jump right in, let's do this. Daniel knew about this. Verse 10 goes on. When Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he went to his house where he had windows in his upper chamber open towards Jerusalem. He got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and give thanks before God as he had done previously, which again, they would have been watching and looking. What is Daniel doing? How can we bring a charge against him? They would have said, he goes every day, three times a day, and prays. Not even in a private, secret place. It's public for us to be able to see. He had done this previously. See, then these men came by agreement because they saw what Daniel had done and found Daniel making petition and plea before his God. They came. They then go to the king, came and drew near before the king concerning this injunction, O king, notice it's a question, by the way. Do you see that? Did you not sign an injunction? You're gonna put this back on him, that anyone who makes a petition to any God, except you, will be cast into the den of lions. And the king's like, yes, I remember that it wasn't that long ago I signed it. And then they throw something out. They're like, well, Daniel.
[00:17:35] And he probably face palms going, oh, my word.
[00:17:40] I know that Daniel worships God.
[00:17:43] He knew that they worked very closely together. And it seems that just overlooked that reality or believed what the others had said, that Daniel was in agreement with this as well. So we look at this and we say, how do we know that they hated Daniel so much? Because they were willing to go and check in on his home and make sure that they were. He was not still honoring God. They believed that since Daniel prayed so much, it must be a requirement of his religion. And so they said, we'll make a law against that. But here's the thing. Was it a requirement of his religion that he pray three times a day? Why did he do that? Why did Daniel pray so often? Maybe even more so than some of us do. Not even just, I'm gonna pray as I walk down the road. But he got on his knees how many times a day?
[00:18:32] Three times a day. They must think, man, this is commitment. Maybe it's required. But why did he do that?
[00:18:39] Maybe you asked yourself that question. Why would he pray that frequently? I think in some ways, firstly, it shows humility, because a praying person is a humble person. We're praying and seeking direction from God. You're saying, God, I need your help. There's a level of humility there. But also he has a massive kingdom that he's trying to like, trying to lead. He knows he needs God's help, even though he has all sorts of wisdom given to him by God and all sorts of history, and he knows all the people. He knows, I need God's help. So how do you know if a man or a woman is humble before God? They're praying frequently.
[00:19:17] Daniel did not do more praying after this decree. Did you notice that? And he didn't do any less praying after this decree. He didn't let the policies and the positions of the land change his habits in his prayer life. Five quick things about Daniel's prayer. Daniel prayed in his upper room. So it was private on some level, but people would look in because he opened the windows. He did what was right even when no one was watching. Maybe jot that down somewhere. And Proverbs particularly speaks about how a wise person does the right thing even when no one else is looking on. Secondly, Daniel prayed on his knees, just like Stephen did, Peter did, Paul did, Jesus did. And it's not that you always have to pray like this, but personally and Maybe you found this as well. When you're on your knees praying, doesn't it seem a little different? There's a level of intentionality that happens when you get on your knees and you realize, I'm going to put aside all the other distractions in the world right now and I'm going to focus here.
[00:20:18] He prayed three times a day. One pastor said this. I love this. He said, if a little prayer is good, more prayer is better.
[00:20:28] And even with how busy he was, he regularly found time for this notice. He also didn't go before God and say, God, change the law, change the law, hide myself from everybody else. He prayed and he thanked God. Daniel's prayer life was also habitual, not circumstantial. We often have a tendency to pray a lot more when life gets hard, don't we? Man, this is really, really rough. I'm going to pray, I'm going to pray, I'm going to pray, I'm going to pray. But life's going well. It's like, cool. This is great. I must be in God's good graces, and I don't really need to do much about that. But here we see he regularly did this and offered thanks before God. He was faithful in his prayer. I want to ask, maybe some of you can think about this and you don't have to raise your hands, but I would like to let me offer a challenge to you today, and I will join in with this if you choose to do this with me, but I will do this regardless.
[00:21:20] Three times a day starting today.
[00:21:25] Let's pray on your knees three times a day. Let's do it for a week between now and next Saturday. That will be a week or so through the rest of this month. If you are interested and would do that with me, send me an email or a text and say, hey, I want to do this. I'm thinking maybe we could just start something. Just say, hey, when we're praying. We could just say, hey, I'm praying. I'm praying right now. And maybe see how God changes your prayer life, how God changes your heart or your mind when you physically stop the busyness of the world and get on your knees. It doesn't have to be for 20 minutes and all that, whatever it is, a moment on your knees. The intentionality of coming before God and laying before him, what's on your heart and your mind. So I'll do that three times a day for the rest of the month. And if you'd like to do that with me, I would be encouraged to hear from you there. Let's jump into point three. No. Daniel was also known as a faithful servant of God.
[00:22:23] When the king heard these words, he was what? Overjoyed?
[00:22:29] Much distressed, as some of your versions actually might say. He was much distressed with himself or sore displeased with himself. He realizes he's been tricked, and so he sets his mind to deliver Daniel. And he labored till the sun went down. These men came by agreement to the king and said, oh, king, O king, know that the law of the Medes and Persians. In the law of the Medes and Persians, there is no. That, no injunction or ordinance that the king established can be changed, even though you want to change it. And even though you're the king, you don't even have the authority to change what has been done here. And the king realizes that in this culture, one of the things that was in place was if there was a law put in place and somebody broke it, the law was that the punishment had to be carried out by the end of the day. So what the king does is he finds out, shoot, Daniel has done something that's broken the law. And then he works, he probably finds all of his counselors, all of reads through the laws, reads through the details, read through the fine print. Is there a way that I can release Daniel?
[00:23:34] Did he find a way?
[00:23:36] So he's true to his word, and you have to give that to the king, don't you? He did what he said he was going to do. He didn't break the law here, his own law, that is. Then the king commanded, he's loyal to his word.
[00:23:50] And Daniel was brought and what cast into the den of lions.
[00:23:57] And the king probably thinking, this is it. I mean, I was tricked, but there's no way that I can get out of it. But he declares, and this is the point, to the point that we're making here. The king declared to Daniel, may your God. He's not even. He's not saying my God. He's not saying the God of the universe, but may your God whom you serve. Keyword there. What is it? Continually Daniel has worked alongside the king over and over. And he was known as a servant of the. The God of heaven. May he deliver you. This is the cry of the King, verse 17. And a stone was brought and laid on the mouth of the den, and the king sealed it with his own signet and those.
[00:24:36] And with the signet of his Lord, that nothing might be changed concerning Daniel. Then the king went to his palace and spent the Night fasting with no diversions, and no diversions were brought to him, and sleep fled from him. He didn't sleep like a. Okay, I was about to say he didn't sleep like a baby, but in my experience, and maybe your experience, babies don't sleep perfectly soundly through the night. So maybe he did sleep like, he didn't even sleep like a baby. He just didn't sleep.
[00:25:01] Daniel served regularly with him. He was distraught. Have you ever been distraught before?
[00:25:09] He wasn't eating. He wasn't looking for distractions. He was distraught that someone that he cared about, that he probably loved, that he valued, was thrown to his death, and there's nothing that he could have done about it. Now, did Daniel disobey? Did he do. I should say, did he do the wrong thing by praying? Was that wrong?
[00:25:29] According to the law of the land, was it wrong?
[00:25:32] Yes. According to the law of God, was it wrong? So here we see Daniel as a great example of someone who says, I'm going to follow the king of Heaven before I follow the king of the land.
[00:25:43] I know when I need to say, all right, whatever the policies of the land may be, that is second to the policies and the principles of heaven. And so I'm willing to disobey the policies of the land, disobey the laws of the land, so that I can honor the king of my true home. What does it look like to live faithful in a foreign land? It's to say this I care more about, and I'm gonna follow firstly the home that I'm from than the land that I am currently living in. And Daniel did that. Not only did he do that, but he was known. The king knew why he did that because he knew that Daniel first honored God.
[00:26:24] We see in verse 16 that the king declares recognition of the power of Daniel's God. I love that he had this kind of relationship with the king, don't you? It's like a strong believer today, being the chief of staff to the president in America. It's like, you know, that the king, he's not the president, maybe is not a Christian, let's say, but the chief of staff who's regularly in all of those meetings and having all of those conversations is someone who is saying, here's what would be honoring to God. Here's what would be honoring to God. And you have that kind of relationship going on. And I have to ask myself this question, maybe you do as well. Are you known as a continual follower or servant of God? When people see you, do they say, Oh, I know that that person. Well, maybe they are a nice person. Do they say, oh, okay, I know that they're conservative, so there's that. I know that they're pro life. I know that they're have a moral compass. I know that they're a person of prayer. But are we known not just as those things perhaps, but first and foremost as they are a servant of God.
[00:27:27] Whatever God has laid out for them, when they talk about what they're doing or not doing, it's because they seem to go back to the word and say, well, I just need to do this. That's my calling. That's what I'm supposed to do. And so when they see us, they don't see us necessarily as a stickler in one way or the other, but rather someone who keeps coming back and says, I just need to stay humble before my King. That's it. I'm not going to be rude to you about it. We don't see Daniel putting up signs everywhere and saying, like, turn against the king and starting riots and stuff with all his Jewish friends in the kingdom. We don't see him doing that at all. We see him simply saying, I'm going to obey God and whatever consequences come, they are going to come.
[00:28:07] I ask myself this question, maybe you could write this down somewhere. What would it look like?
[00:28:12] What would it look like in your life personally for your friends to know you as a faithful servant of God? What would need to change? Particularly maybe think about your own life, if I did this differently, maybe pray about this. If I did this differently, God, what do you want me to do differently? So that people, when they see me, when we interact, they see me as a faithful servant of God, maybe what do I need to start doing? Or what do I need to stop doing? So that that's demonstrated, we go on with the story.
[00:28:41] So he's thrown in. This is now not the end of the story. We see point four. He is saved. I'm going to give away what happens next. He's saved because of his faithfulness. In verses 19 through 24, look in your Bibles with me. Then at the break of day, that is like the sun's coming up. The king didn't sleep that night anyway. The king rose and he went slowly.
[00:29:05] He meandered over to the den of lions. He went with great haste. He went with haste to the lions and he came near to the den where Daniel was and he cried out in a tone of anguish. Again, this tells us of the relationship that the two of them had one of the things I love about Daniel and this whole story and actually the whole book of Daniel is it shows us that followers of God, followers of Jesus, for us today, being involved in politics can be a really good thing.
[00:29:32] Daniel was regularly involved in the political system of his day. He didn't say, well, because I'm a follower of God, I just need to stay away from all of that. There was lots of things that happened in the Medo Persian empire that was not godly. And yet we have somebody like Daniel and his three friends who say, I'm going to serve alongside a kingdom that actually doesn't completely follow God and I'm going to insert whatever godly principles, godly values, godly morality into an ungodly kingdom. I love that about Daniel. He doesn't shy away from that and say, I'm just going to stay in my corner over here because I can. We have this close relationship here. Oh, Daniel, servant of the living God. Has your God whom you continually serve continually been able to deliver you from the lions? Is God able to deliver him from the lions?
[00:30:24] Most definitely.
[00:30:26] Then Daniel said to the king, O King, live forever.
[00:30:31] My God sent his angel and shut the mouths of lion. Shut the lions mouths. And they have not harmed me. Why? Because I was found blameless before him. That is, I was not due the punishment of death before God and also before you. I have done no harm. I have not done something to you, king, to displace your authority. Yes, I disobeyed the law that was written, but I did not dishonor you and thus I have not been harmed. One of the things that was believed in that day, some commentators say, is that this den of lions was also used as later on, like they would roll dice to see if somebody was right or wrong or what was, if someone was telling the truth or not. One of the beliefs of the day was that if you are guilty and you're thrown into the den of lions, then they will kill you. But if you're not, somehow your God will save you if you're not guilty. So it was almost like a test. All right, let's throw him in. And then by Daniel coming out on the other side, it proved to everybody else whether they believed in the superstition or not. It showed everybody else his God deemed, who's powerful enough to shut the mouths of lions, deemed him not guilty. This was powerful in a nation of polytheists all over the place. They have done me no harm, he says. Then the king was exceedingly glad and commanded that of course, he would be exceedingly glad, right?
[00:31:50] Daniel comes out of this pit, taken out of the den, and no kind of harm was found on him. Remember Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego? When they were brought out of the fire, there was no smell of smoke on them because they had trusted God. God had intervened in here because he had trusted or had been faithful or believed God. It doesn't say if it was actually an angel that Daniel saw that came in and was like, you know, shut the. That'd be interesting, wouldn't it? Like actually grab the lion's mouth and shut. Nope, you can't do anything. There was a level of power that God demonstrated, as he has over all creation, to say, no, you're not going to hurt my servant. Now, there's a very important lesson that we have to get here. When we read stories like this, it's easy for us to draw theological principles from this that are not true. For example, if we do the right thing, God will save us from all suffering and death.
[00:32:47] Or the inverse. If we are suffering, there is death and it's because. Or there is death, it's because we did something wrong. We can read the story like Daniel and say, well, he was faithful, so God saved him. Thus, if God doesn't save someone, it means they must not be faithful. There's a clear connection that we can easily make whether we say it out loud or we just believe it internally. Well, Daniel was faithful to God and so God saved him. But I'm not being saved, so maybe I just haven't been faithful. That's dangerous, friends. And it's simply not true. Because countless people, millions of people who have trusted in Jesus, followed Jesus, have suffered and or been killed unjustly, and God did not save them.
[00:33:29] God, there are plenty of people have died from the mouths of lions, Christians, or been burned at the stake. Or you could read the list of Christians in church history particularly. And it doesn't mean that God was like, well, that's your punishment because you did something wrong.
[00:33:44] But in this story, we see that God intervenes because God chose to do so. But just because God did does not intervene. Sometimes in the midst of suffering, in the midst of pain, or even to the point of death, does not mean that God is not one. A faithful God, or that the person was doing something wrong. It was their punishment. And that's so important for us to understand here. Why did God save Daniel then? Because he was going to use this event as a powerful event. We'll see in point five as a powerful event to show his existence and his power in an incredibly influential kingdom. Now, we can't skip verse 24, one that doesn't bring us warm and fuzzies inside. One that is quite severe, actually. Now, the response of the king after this was this. And the king commanded and those men who had maliciously accused Daniel were brought and cast into the den of lions. Now, if it stopped there, we might think, ooh, that's harsh.
[00:34:44] But it goes on. It says they, their children and their wives, and they reach. And before they reach the bottom of the den, the lions overpowered them and broke all of their bones in pieces. That is harsh, isn't it?
[00:34:56] My word. There's some stories that we read, like kids classes, that were like, yay, Daniel and lions. I think we skip over this part.
[00:35:06] Understandably so. Understandably so. This is not a great conclusion to their effort to get rid of Daniel. For them, that is.
[00:35:15] Now, obviously, this is severe. And just because this happened and was written in God's word here does not mean that God sent a message to the king and said, and you should throw their children and their wives in there with them. That is not. That is not what we see here. This was a severe response of the king. One historian from this era wrote about the Persians, and he says this. The laws among them are formidable, which on account of the guilty of one, all the kindred may perish.
[00:35:45] This was not uncommon in the. In this empire, in the Medo Persian empire, if somebody does some atrocious crime that is worthy of death, even still, sometimes the families would get attached to whatever the punishment was in this kingdom. This also speaks against any skeptics who say, I don't really believe that God has power to do the supernatural. Because a skeptic would say, well. And skeptics, by the way, do say this. They look at this story and say, well, God actually didn't intervene. The lions just weren't hungry.
[00:36:16] Well, verse 24 speaks against that. Some also say, well, Daniel, maybe he hid in the lion's den, like he hid under some straw or he hid in a little corner or something, and the lions didn't find him. This is really. This is what skeptics say about this story.
[00:36:33] Again, verse 24 throws that out of the water altogether.
[00:36:40] He was saved because of his faithfulness. Not just his faithfulness, friends in the moment he gets thrown in, but because of his faithfulness. Before that, he was faithful. We saw regularly praying three times a day, continually. He was faithful servant of God over and over and over. And over again. He didn't get in the midst of, oh, I'm gonna be thrown into the lion's den. And then now I will obey God. Sometimes we have a tendency to do that in our culture. Oh, there's a problem. Let me run back to God. Daniel was already walking regularly with. And so when we speak about his faithfulness, that's what we're talking about here. And lastly, point five. Daniel was instrumental in God being glorified in the empire.
[00:37:22] Then King Darius, verse 25, wrote to all the peoples, the nations, the languages to dwell on the earth. The empire. His empire at this time is over 2 million square miles of land. So this is lots and lots of people. And here's what he says. Peace be multiplied to you. I make a decree that in all my royal dominion people are to tremble and fear before the God of Daniel. Why? For he is the living God. This is such again. Remember the end of Belshazzar of Nebuchadnezzar's life in verse 37 of chapter four that I read earlier. He says, I'm going to praise God because he's worthy of praise. He has power. Notice what Darius says here. This God we should fear and tremble before, for he is one, the living God. Two, he is enduring forever. His kingdom shall never be destroyed, and his dominion shall we shall not see an end. He, verse 27, he delivers and rescues. He works signs and wonders in heaven and on earth. He who has saved Daniel from the power of the lions. We see that he says, why should we tremble before God? He's the living God. He's the eternal God. He has an eternal kingdom. He's stronger than every other God out there. He's able to rescue his servants in miraculous.
[00:38:38] This is not like the God of any other Medo Persian person out there. This God is one not to be trifled with.
[00:38:46] You and I, lesson for us today as we close, you and I have no idea how God might use our small acts of faithfulness to impact the world around us. We sometimes think, I'm going to wait until I'm on a pedestal before I engage with the world, or until I show my faithfulness to God, or until I speak truth or speak the gospel. I'm going to wait until God puts me way up there and then people will see. But until then, I'm going to do my life my own way. We see from Daniel something very different.
[00:39:17] Our faithfulness may impact one person, maybe 10 people, maybe 100, 1,000 or 10,000. That's going to be up to God. But what we do know is this small acts of obedience bring about powerful results.
[00:39:30] Daniel shows us this over and over. Now there's a clear Christ connection in this. And just listen. And I was thinking through this. Just like Daniel was taken on charges by people who were jealous of him, so was Jesus. Just like Daniel was taken to his death, so was Jesus. Just like death did not claim Daniel, Death did not have his final word over Jesus. Even though a stone was rolled over both Daniel and Jesus, that stone was later removed and the righteous Daniel and the righteous Jesus came out on the other side. Just like the lions did not consume Daniel, death did not consume Jesus.
[00:40:07] For us, our obedience will lead to our life just like Daniel. Now that may not mean that God will protect us all the time from physical ailments or problems, but he will protect us spiritually.
[00:40:20] Even if we are killed, we may know that our souls are secure in Him. God is a God of grace, of mercy who wants to save. But in order for us to do that, we must first obediently trust him. And the first step of obedience is what?
[00:40:37] Submitting to him as your Lord and Savior. Amen. That's the first step. If you try to do all the other things without that, you're going to fail and fail and fail and fail. Because you won't have the Holy Spirit giving you the power to do those other things. So if that's not you, if you've yet. I've yet to actually take that step. I'm trying to do the other things God wants me to do, but I've yet to actually trust in him. Start that today. Maybe you have never been baptized. You can do that publicly, showing just to even your church family. I have trusted in Jesus. Maybe you need to obey him by getting in community with God's people. Maybe you need to obey him by opening his word regularly, just like Daniel prayed regularly. Maybe it looks like I'm going to get on my knees three times a day and try that out and see what God does in my heart.
[00:41:26] Maybe it's obeying him by just listening and not talking. When you get into a time of prayer and saying, God, what do you want from me? I'm not just gonna come before you and talk and talk and talk, but I'm gonna listen to you. Some things for you to think about, to ponder in that and maybe just to write down. God, ask the question for you and God. God, what are some things that I'm not being faithful to you in that you want me to be faithful to you in and see what he says. Just listen and see what he says. Let's pray.
[00:41:57] Dear Jesus, we come before you as a God who is faithful to us, faithful to save us in the needs that we have, faithful to meet us where we are. As we look at the life of Daniel, showing his faithfulness in a land that was not his own, he showed us what boldness and courage looks like in the midst of opposition. Help us to be courageous, to be bold in the world that we live in where there is opposition to us, that we would not shy away from doing what is right, that we would be faithful in the small things, that we would stand together as your people, trusting that whatever the outcome is, we will be faithful to you in our homes, our families, with our friends at work. That you give us wisdom to practice faithfulness to you regularly in our time of prayer with you this week, Lord, that we would listen to you, that we would trust in you as we recognize this world that we live in is not ours. And we need help as we walk through it as foreigners so that we can be faithful ambassadors of you in Jesus name. Amen.
[00:43:08] We're going to close with a song. If you'd like to pray with Pastor Les or myself, I'd be happy to do that. There's a couple people that will be at the back as well, and they would love to do that. If you've never trusted in Jesus again, today is that day. There's other things that you're struggling with that you feel I just don't know how to handle the opposition. You'd like prayer and support for that? We would love to do that as well. Let's pray.
[00:43:31] God and Father, who sees us, who loves us?
[00:43:36] Lord, you are deserving of our praise.
[00:43:39] And so as we step into this week, we want to honor you and we want to praise you in our words and our actions. We want to serve you well. We want to listen to what you have to say. Lord, thank you for the mercy and grace that you have shown us each and every day, and you continue to show us as we run back to you that we can approach you with confidence. We know that as we step even into this week of thanksgiving and praise to you, Lord, that our hearts and our minds would be reminded over and over again of your faithfulness to us. In Jesus name, Amen.
