With all the resources of modern technology and everything else that's involved in discovering what has happened in a person's life over the past X number of years, how would they get you? If they wanted to write you up and smear your name, where would they look? Where would they dig? What hole would they find? In some of your lives, maybe they'd find something in the business area. Maybe they'd find that you've been cheating, cutting corners. Some of you in your home life, nobody knows what goes on behind the closed door except you and your family. Some of you in your personal relationships with others, the rotten, dirty, filthy things that may have gone on in your life. I don't know where they dig, but you know, if somebody wanted to dig and do you in, it could be done. They were after Daniel. There's a sixth chapter of Daniel. It's interesting where they have to dig. They try digging a hole over here and They don't strike oil. And they dig a hole somewhere else, and again they don't strike oil. And again and again and again, and finally they get together and they conclude, there's only one place we can get this man if we're going to get him. And that is in relationship to his God. Wouldn't you like that to be said of you? that they were digging into your past life. Well, that's the story we have before us tonight, the story of Daniel. The lion's den, as we're going through this book, how God worked through this man and in the life of this individual in such a way that even here at 80 years of age, as he was when this chapter opens, that's all they can get on Daniel. the only place they can touch and find something to use against him. Sixth chapter of Daniel. They please Darius to appoint a hundred and twenty satraps to rule throughout the kingdom. Little is known of Darius. He was a Persian Zoroastrian who believed in the kind of religion in which there was an equal ultimacy of good and of evil, symbolized by light and darkness. And the great symbol of Zoroastrianism was fire. That was the symbol of what was good. You have Haramazda. We have Mazda light bulbs, you know, because Mazda was the supposedly the god of light. Maybe you've noticed those bulbs from time to time. And this was the kind of background of religion that had developed there over the years. Nobody knows exactly how it began, but it was in full bloom at the time when Daniel was in the kingdom. Daniel, of course, had been going through a series of kingdoms as God preserved his life and put him in a high place early on as a young man. And now as he continues, it says, it pleased Darius to appoint 120 satraps. These satraps were sort of governors of provinces out there in all the kingdom, in all the empire, sub-rulers throughout the kingdom with three administrators over them, one of whom was Daniel. Here was Darius at the top, three men under him, one of whom was Daniel, and then these satraps without the kingdom, 120. And so Daniel probably had one-third at least of those satraps under him, a very responsible position to which this old man had come and was still finding himself in those years. was about 62 years old himself. And so we have a kingdom here in which Daniel, the 80-year-old ruler, and Darius, his king, are in relationship to one another and to God. The satraps were made accountable to them, that is to Daniel and the other two, so that the king might not suffer loss. Daniel is in a place of responsibility over money, over property, over goods. That's what the king was concerned about, getting three men who would see to it that his interests were cared for and looked after, and nobody down out there in the kingdom, which was widespread, got away with anything, but that the money came in and the property was preserved. And of course, when you've got 120 satraps out there, all of whom have some power on the local level, every one of them is interested in trying to get as much as he can get and to line his own pockets with various kinds of endeavors and the money from them. And you can understand how the king couldn't watch 120, so he got three of those who were most responsible to make sure that the 120 didn't do him in. Now, Daniel so distinguished himself among the administrators and the satraps by his exceptional qualities that the king planned to set him over the whole kingdom. That is, he was going to be number one next to him. Darius is getting old. He's 62 years old, and we need somebody to come in here and carry some of the load, do all the work for me, so I'll get an 80-year-old guy to do it. But he was trustworthy, and probably still is pretty spry for 80 years old. I tell you, I don't know what that would be like where I am right now. I can't imagine even taking the second position. in a kingdom like this, an empire spread all over the place, and being responsible for it, and being sharp enough to pick up everything that's going on. I can't imagine Daniel being that way, except that God had blessed this man in rich ways. And so he distinguished himself, and he had exceptional qualities. God must have been continuing to bless him, even as he did in the very early days of his life. And at this, when this was rumored around the kingdom, that Daniel's going to get that number one position at the right hand of the king himself. And people started buzzing about this all over the place. The administrators and the satraps tried to find grounds for charges against Daniel in his conduct of government affairs. There was envy, a great deal of envy. And you get into politics. One thing dominates it, it's power and authority and money, and what drives a lot of the actions that are seeking that power and authority and money is envy. And these men were envious of Daniel. Eighty-year-old fellow, they're envious of him. It's hard to believe. I mean, you might just think they'd sit around and wait a couple years until he died. They're going to get him if they can. And so they dig around. They start boring holes. And they're looking for grounds for charges. They look at his dealings with Satrap No. 1 and Satrap No. 8 and Satrap No. 19 and see if there's some kind of a body buried somewhere back there. They can't find anything. There's not even a whisper of anything wrong. They can't even find the faintest smell. of something that's wrong. And so they were unable to do so. They could find no corruption in him because he was trustworthy and neither corrupt nor negligent. Now, maybe they might not get you for being untrustworthy. Maybe they might not get you for being corrupt in your dealings or in your work or wherever it may be. But how many of you could be gotten for being negligent? They couldn't even get him there. I mean, you know, there's a lazy streak in every one of us. And if we can do it this way or that way, and this way means less work and less time and less energy, and nobody's going to complain right away, well, you know, why not, is the attitude of a lot of people. what got Daniel to this place where he was being considered for the number one position under the king himself. It wasn't negligence that was leading to that. It was a man who did everything he could as faithfully, as diligently, as carefully as he possibly could. He didn't let things slide. And so they couldn't even get him for negligence. Finally, these men said, we will never find any basis for charges against this man, Daniel, unless it has something to do with the law of his God. Aha! We've got the way to get him. Of course, that's how the government has always gotten Christians over the years in times of persecution, that's how people who have tried to get Christians in our country have done so in states and various places, and it could happen again. Where they can't get you some other way, they can get you with reference to your law that you believe in, the law of God. So, the administrators and satraps What is a group? It doesn't just say group in the original, it says a motley crew. I hear these guys, you know, kind of a whole bunch of them talking all at once and coming up here to the king as a kind of a ragtag bunch that have gotten together to do this job. It's a pretty crude expression. So the administration of Satrap went as a motley crew to the king and said, O King Darius, live forever. Of course, that's how you addressed the king in those days. Every one of them probably wished he would die. But that was the phrase you used when you went to visit a king. And the royal administrators, notice this is this Babylonian, or this Babylonian, now Persian way of doing things, listing everything under the sun. The administrators, prefects, satraps, advisors, and governors, they want you to know that everybody's on their side. have all agreed that the king should issue an edict and enforce the decree that anyone who prays to any god or man during the next 30 days except to you, O king, shall be thrown into the lion's den. Now, remember, we have a change of governments. It's no longer Meshach, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego being thrown into the fire. Well, we don't have people thrown into the fire in the Persian government. We throw them into the lion's den because fire is sacred. You're not going to mess up fire by throwing people into the fire like you would have in the Babylonian government that was succeeded by this one. Why do you think that this was the way they set it up? What are they doing here in setting this thing up? It's pretty sharp. Not bad. What are they doing here? Pretty good way of pulling off what they wanted. What are they doing? Pardon me? I can't see you. Yeah, there you are. OK, Ruth. What are they doing? Yeah, yeah, they're giving it to him. They're saying, now, you know, you're a great king and only worship you for 30 days. Oh, that's a pretty clever way of getting out of there. They're working on his pride, and they're going to get Daniel through the pride of the king. And the king thinks about that, and he says, yeah, it's pretty neat, pretty neat. Good idea, you know? Not thinking of all the consequences. And yet he was the very one who was the king where the laws of the Medes and the Persians, which are unchangeable, once issued, were given in order that people might not think in a casual way or pass laws because of some personal interest without thinking through all the implications first. If the laws of the Medes and the Persians cannot be changed, then they would stand and all the consequences would follow. And nobody could do anything about it. And so that decree that the laws of the Medes and the Persians would stand was there to keep irresponsible legislation from being passed. And yet this king, in spite of that warning, goes along because of his own, as you say, ego, whatever that is. Now, O King, issue the decree, they say. and put it in writing so that it cannot be altered." There was your laws of the Medes and the Persians. Once it was in writing, it was like chiseling it in stone. In accordance with the laws of the Medes and the Persians which cannot be annulled. So King Darius put the decree in writing. Now, when Daniel learned that the decree had been published, he went home to his upstairs where the windows opened toward Jerusalem. Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God just as he had done before. These men then went as a group and found Daniel praying and asking God for help. So they went to the king and spoke to him about his royal decree. Have you not published a decree that during the next 30 days anyone who prays to any God or man except to you, O King, will be thrown into a lion's den? Now, why did Daniel pray this way? Does prayer have to be done in that way? Do you have to have the doors and the windows and whatever it was, the latticework there, open toward Jerusalem and pray toward Jerusalem with open doors? Or could he have prayed with the doors closed and the windows closed? Sure he could have prayed with the windows closed. Why didn't he do so? Did he want to be caught? Was he trying to make a display of what he was doing? What's the scoop here, do you think? Pardon me? Yes, it says just as he had done before. This was the way he had been praying. Well, what about that? Wasn't going to give God the easy way out. What do you think of that statement? Do you want to elaborate on that? Give your husband the easy way out here. I think what you're saying is dead right. Can you distinguish between that and saying in your face by what you're doing as a Christian to a non-Christian? Is there a distinction between what you're saying and a Christian going out there and throwing his Christianity in somebody's face to provoke a problem? Right? He didn't do anything unusual. He didn't do anything different. He didn't do anything but what he had been doing. I think Jim's right on target. Don't you, Marianne? Yeah. Yeah, he's right on target. That's exactly the point. That Daniel is not going to stop doing what he was doing because what he thought he had been doing all these years was right and it was no longer. He wasn't going to change that just because of some pressure, or because of some temptation to do so, or because of the threat of the king's decree. Daniel was sharp enough to know what was going on, and he knew what they were going to do to him, and he also knew, I would assume, that if they didn't get him this way, they'd get him some other way. They were out to get him, so let's have this thing come to an issue, not by me provoking it. They have provoked it, and that's the difference. Christians who go out and provoke problems are one thing. But this was provoked not by Daniel, but by his very life and the things that he was doing properly, and not the things that he was doing to create problems or difficulties for himself or for others. And so here is Daniel praying as usual, and they say, aha! And there we've got, when is a group again? And it's, when is a mob again? A tumultuous assembly. is the word, as Culver, for example, in his book, translates it here, tumultuous group. They're so happy, they're so excited that they got Daniel at last, they can't, they stumble over themselves getting to the king. And they're all talking at once, and finally it all comes out. And so the king answers, the decree stands. He can't say anything else because the decree of the Medes and the Persians, and once made, a decree of the of the Persians did stand in accordance with the laws of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be unknown. Then they said to the king, Daniel, who is one of the exiles from Judah, pays no attention to you, O king, or to the decree you put in writing. He still prays three times a day." When the king heard this, he was greatly distressed. says in the original, there was a great fire in him. Down underneath, he felt all upset about this thing. And he was determined to rescue Daniel and made every effort until sundown to save him. He probably turned all of his sharpest lawyers loose on the laws to see if there was some kind of loophole, some way they could get around this thing. some way he could slide Daniel under the door, some way, somehow, someplace that he could find to get Daniel out of this terrible distress. But there was nothing. And the men press it. Then the men went as a group—there's your mob again—to the king and said to him, Remember, O king, that according to the laws of the Medes and No decree or edict that the king issues can be changed. They're rubbing it in. So the king gave the order, and they brought Daniel and threw him into the lion's den. And the king said to Daniel, May your God, whom you serve continually, rescue you. May your God, whom you serve continually, rescue you. How is it, do you think, that a pagan Zoroastrian who believes in the equal ultimacy of light and darkness, good and evil, who is one of these Persian types that is the ancestor of all the stuff we saw on television a while back when they were walking around beating their backs with chains, how is it that this change says a thing like that to Daniel? What do you think? What's happened here to this king? Daniel's had a powerful influence on this king. Obviously, his lifestyle was impressive where he wouldn't have been thinking of making him the first ruler under him in the kingdom, and already he had been impressive enough to be one of the top three under him. But now, what has happened to the king since he gave the decree, and now this upshot of his decree has come about? What do you think's happened to him now? Okay. He himself is helpless, right? And he wants to preserve Daniel. He wants to preserve this man. I mean, he's an invaluable man, 80 years old. He may not live much longer, but I need all the wisdom, all the help I can get from him. And I don't want to see this man destroyed. And he does everything he can, and he's helpless, as you said. And Daniel's influence with his God many ways over the years has brought him to the place where he is that we don't read about here, obviously, has had some impressions, made some impression on this king. And he knew that Daniel served God continually, even in the light of the decree. And so he says, may your God, whom you serve continually, rescue you. He's come down off of his high horse. He was the one who was going to receive worship. He was the one who was going to receive praise. He was the one who was going to receive and the glory from his people and from all the kingdom. And now he is down where he is having to ask Daniel to especially pray that his God will do something for him. He wasn't a God, and it was brought home to him pretty strongly that he was nothing more than a helpless man in this situation. And so, a stone was brought and placed over the mouth of the den. and the king sealed it or secured it with his own signet ring, and with the rings of his nobles, so that Daniel's situation might not be changed. Then they could say, of course, if the king sealed it with his own ring alone—look how careful he is here—they could say, if Daniel was loose the next day, O king, you just resealed it in the middle of the night. You rescued him somehow. But the king returned to his palace and spent the night without eating, without any entertainment being brought to him, and he could not sleep. You can imagine him tossing and turning and thinking about the consequences of his action, his foolhardiness, stupidity. Would God, this God of Daniel, have the power to do anything? Surely not. And what's going to happen when I lose Daniel. So at the first light of dawn, crack of dawn, the king got up and hurried to the lion's den. And when he came near the den, he called to Daniel in an anguished voice, Daniel, servant of a living God. Notice how he has to confess these things about God. Has your God whom you serve continually been able to rescue you from the lions? And Daniel answered, here he was in the den with these lions that hadn't been fed for days, just hungry for meat, and here was a good example of what they would like, a good sample of what they would like, rather. And so Daniel answered, O king, live forever. My God sent his angel, and he shut the mouths of the lions. When have you read about God's angel before in the book of Daniel? Yes, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace, and there's a fourth, like the Son of God, an angel. We read about that in 428. And they have not hurt me because I was found innocent in his sight, that is God's sight, nor have I ever done any wrong before you, O King. The king was overjoyed and gave orders to lift Daniel out of the den. And when Daniel was lifted from the den, no wound was found on him because he had trusted in his God. Does this mean that every time that you're going to be in a difficult situation and somebody's out to get you, or the lions, whatever they may shape or form they may take, not physical lions perhaps, but whatever it may be, that you're going to get rescued? Is that what it means? Is that the lesson of this passage? Well, what does it mean? Somebody's going like this back here on the back row, but what about it? Same faith Daniel had. I didn't mean to cut you off. I didn't mean to cut you off. Well, his point is good because Hebrews 11 talks about all those Old Testament saints who had faith, half of whom were rescued from the jaws of lions and so on. The other half of whom were killed for their faith. God makes no promises. And what was it? Do you remember what Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego said before they were thrown into the fire? You remember? Oh boy. Pardon me? Our God is able to deliver us, but... Right. If He doesn't decide to deliver us, they weren't able to predict whether God would decide to deliver them or not. God sometimes did, He sometimes didn't, but they had faith and they trusted God and they knew that whatever God did in those circumstances was dead right. Why does God deliver some and not others, do you think? Precisely, it depends upon the purpose he has in mind, and it's not fundamentally because of what the individual is like. Here Daniel, of course, says that he's delivered because he had trusted in God and that he had not done anything wrong and he was innocent in God's sight and so on in this matter. And so God does take that into consideration, but that's not the only matter that's brought into consideration. Sometimes things happen to people because God has his sovereign purposes that he's working out, And that is what is best in the long run. Remember in John 9, a man who was born blind from birth, and now he's a man? Why was he born blind from birth? Do you remember? Who's talking? Oh, okay. What'd you say? Right. Neither did this man sin, nor his parents, that he was born blind, says Jesus. but that the works of God might be made manifest in him." God wanted that man standing there blind at that point when Jesus Christ came along so that Christ could heal him and manifest the works of God. God has his sovereign purposes, exactly. That's exactly the point. Well, here God's sovereign purposes are being worked out also. That's the message we've seen in these six chapters so far. that God is calling the nations to acknowledge him as the true God, as the one who is sovereign and who is in control of all things, including their kingdoms. And so at the king's command, the men who had falsely accused Daniel, literally interesting word here in the original falsely accused is translation, but it literally says who ate up his pieces. up Daniel's pieces. They have pictures of them chewing into pieces. And the men who had landed on Daniel to chew into pieces were brought in and thrown into the lion's den along with their wives and children. It's a Persian custom, forbidden in the Mosaic law, by the way, to throw the wives and children in Deuteronomy 24, 16, 2 Kings 14, 6, if you're interested in looking those up. And before they reached the floor of the den, the lions overpowered them and crushed all their bones. The contrast is sharp. Daniel's there all night long and nothing happens, and they don't even hit the floor before the lions are tearing him to pieces. Then King Darius wrote to all the peoples, nations, and men of every language throughout the land. Of course, they had all kinds of that they had subdued that spoke different languages and who had different customs and so on. And here's the decree. Notice how God has kings go on record. Do you remember Nebuchadnezzar's decree that we looked at some time ago? A decree declaring who was the true God. And here again another ruler of the world in his day, Darius, the Medes and Persians. I decree that in every part of my kingdom people must fear and reverence this God of Daniel, for He is the living God and He endures forever. His kingdom will not be destroyed. His dominion will never end. He rescues and He saves. He performs signs and wonders in the heavens and on the earth. He has rescued Daniel. from the power, or literally from the paw, of the lions. So Daniel prospered during the reign of Darius and the reign of Cyrus the Persian. No separation of church and state here, as you can see in this decree. And of course, it wasn't something that was like the first decree of his, where nobody was to worship any god except the king himself. These people believed in many gods and were willing to add another one to the pantheon, so it was no big problem for most of those who were throughout his kingdom. But the thing that he has to do is to acknowledge the living God, the one that's not an idol, the one that truly lives, because he's the one who has demonstrated his power and his authority. We have seen all the way through this book up until this point, one dynamic, powerful message. And that message is, God, our God, your God, the one you worship tonight, is sovereign. And if something happens in this country, if the laws of our government turn against Christian schools, turn against something else that is very dear to our hearts, If we get into those kinds of tragic situations where Christians are up against it, don't ever lose hope. Don't ever lose hope. Your God is the living God, and He can make those who make such decrees and pass such laws, He can make them get down on their knees before Him. He can make them quail in His presence, and shake and shiver, and their knees knock together, and their teeth chatter. He's done it before, and He can do it again, if and when and how and where He determines to do so, because He is the living God, and His kingdom will not be destroyed. All the kingdoms of men come and go, and their laws come and go, and the And the Persians passed their laws, but their laws are not unchangeable or unshakable. All that's been shattered, and it's a bunch of stone and sand now. But this God is forever, and His dominion will never end, and He can rescue, and He can save. Just as He rescued Daniel, and He can rescue the people of God from difficult situations if and when and how He pleases to do so. Next week, we come to the last.