Daniel 6
Let’s give our attention to God’s
word, Daniel chapter six, beginning at verse one. It pleased Darius
to set over the kingdom 120 satraps to be throughout the whole kingdom.
And over them three presidents of whom Daniel was one, to whom
these satraps should give account so that the king might suffer
no loss. So that the king might suffer
no loss. I read that a second time, didn’t
I? I had to get my eyes checked here. Then this Daniel became
distinguished above all the other presidents and satraps because
an excellent spirit was in him and the king planned to set him
over the whole kingdom. Then the presidents and the satraps
sought to find a ground for complaint against Daniel with regard to
the kingdom, but they could find no ground for complaint or any
fault because he was faithful and no error or fault was found
in him. Then these men said, we shall
not find any ground for complaint against this Daniel unless we
find it in connection with the law of his God. And these presidents
and satraps came by agreement to the king and said to him,
O king Darius, live forever. All the presidents of the kingdom,
the prefects and the satraps, the counselors and the governors
are agreed that the king should establish an ordinance and enforce
an injunction that whoever makes petition to any God or man for
30 days, except to you, O king, shall be cast into the den of
lions. Now, O King, establish the injunction
and sign the document so that it cannot be changed according
to the law of the Medes and the Persians, which cannot be revoked. Therefore, King Darius signed
the document and injunction. 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 gave thanks before his God
as he had done previously. Then these men came by agreement.
They found Daniel making petition and plea before his God. Then
they came near and said before the king concerning the injunction,
O king, did you not sign an injunction that anyone who makes petition
to any God or man within 30 days except to you, O king, shall
be cast into the den of lions? The king answered and said, the
thing stands fast according to the law of the Medes and Persians,
which cannot be revoked. Then they answered and said before
the king, Daniel, who is one of the exiles from Judah, pays
no attention to you, O king, or the injunction you have signed,
but makes his petition three times a day. Then the king, when
he heard these words, was much distressed, and he set his mind
to deliver Daniel, and he labored till the sun went down to rescue
him. And these men came by agreement
to the king and said to the king, no, O king, that it is a law
of the Medes and the Persians that no injunction or ordinance
that the king establishes can be changed. Then the king commanded
and Daniel was brought and cast into the den of lions. The king
declared to Daniel, may your God whom you serve continually
deliver you. And a stone was brought and laid
at the mouth of the den. And the king sealed it with his
own signet and with the signet of the Lord’s that nothing might
be changed concerning Daniel. Then the king went to his palace
and he spent the night fasting. No diversions were brought to
him and sleep fled from him. Then at break of day, the king
arose and went in haste to the den of lions. And as he came
near to the den where Daniel was, he cried out in a tone of
anguish, The king declared to Daniel, O Daniel, servant of
the living God, has your God whom you serve continually been
able to deliver you from the lions? Then Daniel said to the
king, O live forever. My God sent his angel and he
shut the lion’s mouths and they have not harmed me because I
was found blameless before him. And also before you, O king,
I have done no harm. And the king was exceedingly
glad and commanded that Daniel be taken up out of the den. So
Daniel was taken up out of the den and no kind of harm was found
on him because he had trusted in his God. the king commanded. And those men who had maliciously
accused Daniel, they were brought and they were cast into the den
of lions, they, their children, and their wives. And before they
reached the bottom of the den, the lions overpowered them and
broke all their bones in pieces. Then King Darius wrote to all
the peoples, nations, and languages that dwell in all the earth,
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. For he is the living God enduring
forever. His kingdom shall have no end. It shall never be destroyed and
his dominion shall be to the end. He delivers and he rescues. He works signs and wonders in
heaven and on earth. And he who has saved Daniel from
the power of the lions. So this Daniel prospered during
the reign of Darius and the reign of Cyrus the Persian. Well, Darius the Mede is our
third king in our study of Daniel. Remember, there was Nebuchadnezzar,
there was Belshazzar last week, and now there is Darius the Mede,
and there will be Cyrus afterwards. So Daniel serves. But Darius the Mede is the new
ruler of all these lands. And to borrow phrase current
to us, he’s gonna drain the swamp. He’s gonna cut the government
fat. His kingdom is from Africa to India. It’s a vast kingdom,
the kingdom of the Medes and the Persians. He is going to
appoint 120 satraps. That’s 120 regions. We have 50
states. This is over twice the size or
number of our states and certainly way more land. But over these
120 state traps, you’ll have three presidents, Daniel to be
the chief of them. Everyone reports to Daniel. Now, this is where the plot thickens.
What happens when someone rises up in government service? That
means others didn’t rise up. And what does that always mean?
Jealousy. Now, Daniel, by God’s providence,
is a distinguished young fellow. Remember in chapter one and chapter
two, he was excellent in spirit. God was with him and in everything
he did, he prospered 10 times better. He was better than all
the other enchanters, all the other governors. He had an excellent
spirit. And so in God’s providence, he
was elevated. to be the top of the Medes and
the Persians, the whole kingdom, we are told, will be his. And so you can imagine the rage. But think Joseph in Egypt. God
has providentially placed people in the history of his people
to look out for his children. So there’s Joseph in Egypt. There’s
Esther in her wonderful story. And we could give other examples,
but the forces of evil, they are beside themselves. Now in
our studies in Luke’s gospel on Sunday mornings in recent
weeks, we saw Jesus as he made his way through to Jerusalem
to suffer and die. He was hated by the Pharisees,
the scribes, the teachers of the law. He was hated by all
the Jewish officials. They were jealous. They hated
him. He was going to ruin their little racket they had. there
at the temple and got the same thing here the forces of evil
are beside themselves and they want to take out God’s man as
quickly as possible and so Daniel’s fellow presidents and satraps
begin to look for a foothold and did you catch the They’re
looking for something Daniel is going to do against the kingdom.
Maybe he’s going to siphon off a little government contract
for himself. He’s going to get a little kickback
from the pharmaceutical companies. Maybe he’s going to issue some
government contracts to his buddies. You know, they took him out for
a hunting trip or something like that. Well, they won’t get a
foothold. There will not be a complaint
against Daniel in any matter regarding the kingdom. And so
what do they know? We’re gonna have to put a stop
to Daniel’s success. There is none found like Daniel. And they’re gonna have to find
a tricky way to get to him, to get a hold of him. Now we know
the rest of the story, because we’ve read the footnote in, what
is it, verse 28. This Daniel prospered during
the reign of Darius. So we know the rest of the story,
right? And during the reign of Cyrus the Persian. So we know
he’s not gonna get eaten by the lion’s den. But you know the
point of the story is not whether or not the lions eat Daniel.
The point is whether or not Satan devours Daniel and ruins his
character and tempts him to fall into their trap and to compromise. And so the forces of evil are
against Daniel, God’s man. Well, these enemies do a little
opposition research. That’s what politicians do when
they want to get some dirt on somebody. They want a little
dirt on them and they use it against them. Or maybe another
way to look at it is you apply for a job, you give them your
references, they call all your references. But if they’re a
smart employer, they’ll look at layer two and layer three
of your history, and they will go beyond the names you have
given them. And their hope is that you will
be above reproach, as the scripture says. There will be no foothold
for evil against you. And so they know Daniel is a
servant of the Most High God. He is faithful to the law of
God. He prays, he prays towards Jerusalem. He prays three times
daily and they won’t find a speck. are a hint of immorality or wrong
in Daniel related to the kingdom of the Medes and the Persians.
It will have to be, they say, connected to the law of his God.
So their solution, two tricks. Trick number one, let’s trick
Nebuchadnezzar, or Cyrus, pardon me, into signing a law. It’ll
be the law of the Medes and Persians. It’ll be an injunction. It’ll
be an ordinance. It’ll be airtight. All agree,
O king, do this. And he does it. That’s the first
trick. The second trick is on Daniel.
Daniel, you can’t pray to your God for 30 days. The only mediator between any
God. And his subject is through Cyrus
the Mede, Cyrus the Persian. And so they know deep down because
they’ve watched this Daniel, this exile, that he prays three
times a day. He prays towards Jerusalem. It
was a commandment for the Israelites. When you go into exile, God told
Solomon, you should pray towards Jerusalem that perhaps God might
forgive Israel of their sins and that a remnant might return
and come back to the land of promise. So three times daily
towards Jerusalem, Daniel prays. And if you want a glimpse, a
little sneak peek of what Daniel’s prayer might be like, you can
look at chapter nine. Daniel prays a wonderful prayer of corporate
confession, for the sins of Israel and that God might return them
to Babylon. And so Daniel on his knees three
times daily. Maybe they observed this for
the 30 days trial. Who knows how long it was? But
he prayed. He gave thanks to God. He offered
his pleas to God. He fasted. He wore sackcloth.
He confessed. He seeks the mercy of God as
an unrighteous man, deserving no good from God, but expecting
his kindness. And so Daniel, when the paper
is signed, he’s a man of prayer. Are they watching? It’s a good
time for us to ask this question. Who are we when no one is looking? I think who we are when no one
is looking can be very different from who we are when everyone
is looking. And I think the danger in this
story is to say in our prayers, oh Lord, make me look faithful to other
people. Make my prayers the right words.
Make my tie just straight on Sunday morning. Make me just
look good. Because what happens when we
pray, Lord, whatever comes my way, I want to be faithful to
the end. But we know that’s trouble. We
know that’s hardship. And so deep down, we don’t pray
that prayer. We pray, Lord, just make me sugar-coated, you know,
airbrush me, make me look nice in front of other people. Don’t
let me lose esteem in others. But who Who knows us? It’s God. He knows the heart.
He knows the inside and the out. And so this is a good time as
we watch Daniel to think about who we are when no one is looking,
but also who we are when everyone is looking. Very often we live
two different lives and there are two different people. The
one people do see and the one people don’t see. Well, the enemies
of Daniel, They’ve won. The swamp is safe. Corruption
will prevail. Waste. Fancy steak dinners on
the river Euphrates. They’ll be the fair for a few
more years at least. They tattletale. They go to Cyrus. The exile. Catch that derogatory
term. The exile. He’s seeking a different
God. He’s not praying to you. And
remember, Osiris, the rule, the edict. It’s a good thing to think of
here. When we strive to be a faithful
Christian, when we strive to do well at work and please our
boss, when we strive to raise children who obey, When we strive
to keep the Sabbath, when we strive to live a godly life,
keep our yard going and the daisies watered, that kind of thing,
just simple, basic living, what does the world respond with?
They respond with hatred. When you get the promotion, when
you have that baby, when you succeed, fill in the blank the
world will hate you if you strive to be a Christian and God blesses
you. And sometimes there’s no mix
between the world and the church. Many of you can say that you’ve
been in the church and been hated just as if you were in the world.
This world is full of schemers and conspirators. And if you
seek to be a blessing, if God is using you, you’re a light,
you succeed and you’re above reproach, people will speak evil
of you. And the lesson here is, well,
this is the second time in Daniel. Remember, there’s chapter three.
Don’t fail to bow to that 90-foot statue or else what? The fiery
furnace. And was God able to deliver Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abednego? Absolutely. And so they succeeded.
They followed God. And now here’s another test.
It’s sometime later, it’s under a different ruler, under a different
regime, maybe the stakes are even higher. But we ought to
remember, if we strive to be a faithful Christian, the world
will hate you and despise you and scheme and conspire against
you and will seek to destroy you and speak evil of you. But
we gotta carry on. We have to carry on. It’s easier
said than done, but here’s the real question. What else would
God want you to do? Would He want you to be a compromiser?
Would He want you to fail to serve Him? You know, these types
of scenarios don’t come our way. No one has ever said to you,
do this religious thing or else it’s the lion’s den. We’ve never
faced that. But as we spoke of this morning
in our Sunday school class, why is culture where it is today
and why is it in such a rapid decline? Well, there’s lots of
reasons. There’s lots of political reasons.
There’s lots of ideological reasons, lots of sinful reasons, worldly
reasons. But two of the reasons that are at least our fault is
the disintegration of the church and the disintegration of the
home. And so all it takes is, well, one soccer match won’t
kill us. We’ll miss this Sunday. And then
it becomes the next, and it becomes the next, and you wake up and
18 years of your life have been spent at the soccer field on
the weekend, or the baseball field, or you name it, whatever
it is we want for our children to get ahead, we spend our weekends
worshiping those idols instead of the God who made us. And we
find ourselves in trouble. But God calls Daniel, he calls
us to carry on. Well, Darius is stuck. Darius has signed the edict.
He has written the injunction. He is stuck. He’s a man of his
word. He’s the leader of the free world
at that particular time. He must do what he said he would
do. And so if you look at verse 16,
the king commanded, Daniel was brought and he was cast into
the den of lions and the king declared to Daniel, may your
God whom you serve continually May He deliver you. So a stone
was placed over the den. The seal was put on it. The second
seal was put on it. It was a long night for Darius notice
I didn’t put in the Bulletin the sermon title is not Daniel
in the lion’s den. We don’t know what Daniel did
in the lion’s den We don’t know what TV he watched what food
he ate how cushy the bed was We don’t know anything about
the sheets were they Egyptian? Cotton we don’t know anything We can only speculate but guess
what we do know We know about Darius in his bedchambers And
we know that he fasted We know that he had no diversions, and
we know that sleep eluded him. Could you imagine his number
one man in the lion’s den? Not only what that meant for
Daniel’s body. Sure, Darius or Cyrus thought
of that. Sure, he loved Daniel. Daniel
was probably a loyal man to him, and in a kingdom that big, find
one to two loyal men doesn’t happen. But what was Darius bigger
issue? How am I going to replace this
guy? This is an honest man doing an
honest job in a dishonest world. And it, it grieved him. And so
we know about Darius in his bed chambers more than we do about
Daniel in the lion’s den. Now you can imagine, Darius situation,
a lot like Abraham. Remember, Abraham was approached
by God. Abraham, I want you to sacrifice your son, your only
son, Isaac, the one whom you love, not Ishmael, not the servant
kid, but the child of promise. I want you to get up and I want
you to three days journey to Moriah and on that mountain that
I show you, you’re to build an altar and you’re to lay your
son on that altar and you are to sacrifice him, kill him. as
an act of worship for me. We’re told in the book of Genesis
that Abraham arose early the next morning. He saddled his
donkey and he gathered the wood. He gathered his servants and
they made that journey to Mount Moriah. And the book of Hebrews
tells us that Abraham was willing to do what God commanded because
he knew that he could bring his son back from the dead. And we know the rest of that
story. We know how it was a dark and hard journey for Abraham.
of what it must have been for Darius that night in his bed
chamber. Well, brothers and sisters, we’re
going to face hard times. Never a lion’s den, never a fiery
furnace, I don’t think for us. There are brothers and sisters
around the world who do face tyranny. There are brothers and
sisters in human history that have faced the lions and the
sword and the flame. But we will face trouble and
hardship. We will struggle with sin. And one thing is for sure,
we need to have our minds settled about what is true and about
what God is. That he is the living God, as
Cyrus will proclaim. He is the living God who delivers
and rescues. And so as the dilemma is before
you, do I walk in faith and in truth, or do I fudge a little? Do I compromise? which will it
be? That’s the struggle here. And
don’t you think Daniel had a little inner turmoil, but his mind was
settled about what was true. His God was the living God who
delivers and rescues. Well, the next morning, Darius,
or Cyrus, He runs to the den and he sure orders the seal to
be broken, the stone to be removed, and what does he do? Does he
walk with his head down and say, all is lost, Daniel’s dead, for
sure, he’s eaten. He goes with confidence. Old
Daniel, a little anguish in his voice, and Daniel is there, he’s
alive, and he gives the report. He gives the report. Daniel says,
an angel of the Lord shut the lion’s mouth. That’s all we know
about his night in the lion’s den. God sent an angel and the
angel did the Lord’s bidding. And so God intervenes. But notice
those who conspired maliciously, they and their families thrown
into the lion’s den. They don’t even get to drop in
the hole before their bones are broken. What does Cyrus do? He makes a proclamation. This
is the living God. And this goes across, talk about
getting the gospel across the world in various ways and means.
The gospel went across the world from the pen of Cyrus, the Mede
and the Persian and said, this is the living God. Him only shall
you worship. Daniel is promoted. and he lives
on to serve after Darius. He serves Cyrus as well. I think I’m getting my kings
mixed up, but you get the picture. It is Darius, not Cyrus. I’ve
said it backwards the whole time, but that’s okay. You listen to
what I mean and not what I say, right? Think about our faith in God
for a moment. Are we feeding it? And are we nurturing it? Daniel prayed three times a day.
We’re lucky to get one quiet time in. How many did he have?
Three. Listened to a man last week talk
about his walk with the Lord over 73 years, raised in a Christian
home, raised with Christian surroundings, went to church twice on Sunday,
on Wednesday evenings as well. learned his catechism, sang hymns,
and read his Bible through in a year, year by year. And he
said, that’s the secret to my success. That’s it. Church, private
devotions, walked with the Lord. And don’t you think that served
Daniel very well? He was able to say, before God
righteous, but before you, O King, your kingdom has not suffered. God is with us. He will be with
us. So can we compromise? Is following God optional? Do
we get along to go along and not have anyone speak ill of
us? Remember, the issue was not whether Daniel would be eaten
by the lions or not. The issue was whether he would
pray to God instead of to the king. Let’s go to our God in
prayer. Lord, we remember this story
with great fondness. We’ve known it from our childhood,
and we’ve always thought it to be a neat story, how you deliver
and rescue, and that you do. But our biggest concern tonight
is that we be found faithful. And so give us the diligence
to be people of your word, to trust in your promises, and when
confronted with the option of sin and the glories of this world
or to be counted unworthy and hated, but to be raised up later. Or let us choose the latter,
for that is the way of Christ and the way of our Christian
living. And we pray that you bless us
with confidence and faith to think and live this way. In Jesus’
name we pray. Amen.