SPEAKER_00: If you have a Bible with you, let me invite you to turn to Daniel chapter 6, and uh we are going to be finishing up what is really the narrative portion of the book of Daniel, of all things.
SPEAKER_00: So up until this point, we've been looking at uh, and today we'll look at uh a narrative of things that happened in his life, and then we will have uh Palm Sunday and we'll have Easter, and then we're gonna come back to the visions section.
SPEAKER_00: And won't that be fun?
SPEAKER_00: So I'm glad that hopefully you'll join us for that uh when we come back.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and so this is a again a long section of Daniel, and uh I'm going to ask you to remain seated since we've stood a lot already this morning, uh, but we still do love our Heavenly Father and honor him by giving him in his word our full attention.
SPEAKER_00: So let me ask you to give God's word your full attention.
SPEAKER_00: By the way, Daniel is probably around 80 years old.
SPEAKER_00: He's in his eighties at this point.
SPEAKER_00: There's been a big time jump.
SPEAKER_00: It pleased Darius to set over the kingdoms 120 satraps or governors to be throughout the whole kingdom, and over them three high officials, of whom Daniel was one, to whom these satraps should give account, so that the king might suffer no loss.
SPEAKER_00: Then this Daniel became distinguished above all the other high officials and satraps, because an excellent spirit was in him, and the king planned to set him over the whole kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: Then the high officials and the satraps sought to find the 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.
SPEAKER_00: Then these men said, they conspired, We shall not find any ground for complaint against this Daniel unless we find it in connection with the law of his God.
SPEAKER_00: Then these high officials and satraps came by agreement to the king and said to him, O King Darius, live forever.
SPEAKER_00: All the high officials 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 thirty days, except to you, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore King Darius signed the document and injunction.
SPEAKER_00: When Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he went to his house, where he had windows in his upper chamber open toward Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: He got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before God, before his God, as he had done previously.
SPEAKER_00: Then these men came by agreement and found Daniel making petition and plea before his God.
SPEAKER_00: 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 thirty days, except to you, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions?
SPEAKER_00: The king answered and said, The thing stands fast according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be revoked.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: Then the king, when he heard these words, was much distressed, and set his mind to deliver Daniel, and he labored till the sun went down to rescue him.
SPEAKER_00: Then these men came by agreement to the king and said to the king, Know, O king, that it is a law of the Medes and Persians that no injunction or ordinance of the king establishes can be changed.
SPEAKER_00: Then the king commanded, and Daniel was brought, and cast into the den of lions.
SPEAKER_00: The king declared to Daniel, May your God whom you serve continually deliver you.
SPEAKER_00: And a stone was brought and laid on the mouth of the den, and the king sealed it with his own signet, and with the signet of his lords, that nothing might be changed concerning Daniel.
SPEAKER_00: Then the king went to his palace and spent the night fasting.
SPEAKER_00: No diversions were brought to him, and sleep fled from him.
SPEAKER_00: Then at break of day the king arose and went in haste to the den of lions.
SPEAKER_00: As he came near to the den where Daniel was, he cried out in a tone of anguish.
SPEAKER_00: 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?
SPEAKER_00: Then Daniel said to the king, O king, live forever.
SPEAKER_00: My God sent his angel and 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.
SPEAKER_00: Then the king was exceedingly glad and commanded that Daniel be taken up out of the den.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: And the king commanded, and those men who had maliciously accused Daniel were brought and cast into the den of lions, they, their children, and their wives.
SPEAKER_00: And before they reached the bottom of the den the lions overpowered them and broke all their bones to pieces.
SPEAKER_00: Then King Darius wrote to all the peoples, nations, and languages that dwell in all the earth, peace be multiplied to you.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: His kingdom shall never be destroyed, and his dominion shall be to the end.
SPEAKER_00: He delivers and rescues.
SPEAKER_00: He works signs and wonders in heaven and on earth.
SPEAKER_00: He who has saved Daniel from the power of the lions.
SPEAKER_00: So this Daniel prospered during the reign of Darius and the reign of Cyrus the Persian.
SPEAKER_00: That is a beloved passage for people that have maybe grown up in the church, and maybe for some of you that is new.
SPEAKER_00: It is not a fable, it is not a myth, it is something that really happened.
SPEAKER_00: And the scripture says that God has given us everything in his word to teach us so that through the endurance and the encouragement of the scripture we might have hope.
SPEAKER_00: So let me pray and ask God to bless us as we open this up and look at it a little more fully.
SPEAKER_00: And uh every time I come back to the same things I've heard before and see new things.
SPEAKER_00: So I pray for those who are coming to this passage for the first time that they would see uh the wonderful truths that are contained therein.
SPEAKER_00: And I pray for those who are coming for the 50th time or the sixtieth time to hear this, that they would see something new about you and something new about themselves and the way that your grace is sufficient for us in every area of life.
SPEAKER_00: Would you bless us?
SPEAKER_00: Don't let our misconceptions get in our way, but we pray, Father, that you would direct and teach us by the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And we pray, Lord Jesus, that we would see you in this passage.
SPEAKER_00: Would you bless us and would you bless me?
SPEAKER_00: I pray, Father, that you would uh be pleased to use a weak vessel to carry beneficial truths.
SPEAKER_00: Bless us and be with us.
SPEAKER_00: We pray in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Uh we have a it's not it's not a nanny can, but it's something like it because my 99-year-old uh mother-in-law lives with us, and so sometimes rather than getting up in the middle of the night, we'll just check the monitor and see if she's okay.
SPEAKER_00: Don't you wish you had one of those in the lion's den with Daniel?
SPEAKER_00: Because we have so many questions, right?
SPEAKER_00: Well, okay, when he says that the angel of the Lord came in, what did he see?
SPEAKER_00: Did he see anything, or did all the lions just all of a sudden go still?
SPEAKER_00: Were they asleep the whole time?
SPEAKER_00: Did God tranquilize them, or did they come over and kind of nuzzle Daniel?
SPEAKER_00: You know, we have children's stories questions about the book of Daniel, and it doesn't really tell us.
SPEAKER_00: Our questions are not answered because the the account, if you've noticed this time reading through, the account isn't really from Daniel's perspective.
SPEAKER_00: Because Daniel probably would not refer to himself as having an excellent spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And there's some other things that show up as you're reading to the passage, like Daniel's not writing this about himself.
SPEAKER_00: This it this, like the chapter before, is coming from somebody else's perspective.
SPEAKER_00: So Nebuchadnezzar was the perspective from the chapter before, and this perspective from this chapter is really Darius.
SPEAKER_00: And so when he comes to the tomb, comes to the tomb, when he comes to foreshadowing, when we come, when he comes to Daniel in the lion's den, he doesn't tell us anything about what was going on in the den because he himself wasn't there.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, what he says is, I couldn't sleep.
SPEAKER_00: I couldn't sleep at all that night.
SPEAKER_00: I stayed up.
SPEAKER_00: So that's what we get is Darius's perspective on this.
SPEAKER_00: And so what we're getting is Darius is talking about the impact that Daniel, a man of faith, had on him.
SPEAKER_00: And that's some of your stories in here is you were deeply impacted by a person of faith.
SPEAKER_00: Uh several years ago, um, we had a friend in campus ministry named Peter, and Peter, not the apostle Peter, I'm not that old.
SPEAKER_00: But uh Peter was uh friends with one of our kids, his son was friends with one of our kids, and so we hung out, and I got to hear his testimony, this big thing they had on campus at Clemson, a couple of thousand students there, and he's Peter shared his testimony.
SPEAKER_00: Peter was uh, let's say, uh a uh a wild youth and did a lot of things that he shouldn't have done.
SPEAKER_00: And got to the point where with the substances and wild living and fast driving and all these things, his parents said, You're on your own, and he had to leave.
SPEAKER_00: He had they should they kick him out.
SPEAKER_00: And so eventually he ran out of funds and everything else and had to get a job, and he got a job at a warehouse.
SPEAKER_00: And at the warehouse, uh, he, you know, he was drawn to the shenanigans and things of some of the younger people that would cause trouble and get into mischief that were there.
SPEAKER_00: But he noticed this older black man who came in who worked at the warehouse as well.
SPEAKER_00: And he, this older man didn't neglect being around people.
SPEAKER_00: He just kind of didn't keep to himself, he just didn't engage in any of the shenanigans.
SPEAKER_00: And Peter noticed that this man during his lunchtime would go and read Christian books or read his Bible during the lunch hour.
SPEAKER_00: And so Peter was pretty intrigued by all of this, and he could see the difference in lifestyle with this man.
SPEAKER_00: And slowly, and I can't remember how the friendship began with the two of them, but Peter eventually was sitting down with him for lunch, and this older, wiser Christian brother shared his faith with Peter.
SPEAKER_00: And that's how Peter came to faith in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Was sitting in like the warehouse break room over a period of time studying the Bible and coming to believe in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: It was uh Peter's story was a story of faith that was shaped by the faith of another.
SPEAKER_00: And this is this is Darius's story, and this is some of your story in the midst of things.
SPEAKER_00: Daniel's faith deeply impacted Darius's faith.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I we're not entirely sure if Darius may have become, like Nebuchadnezzar, a believer, uh, because, you know, he he did say some wonderful things in the passage we're gonna get to, but he also threw all those people in the lion's den and had them killed.
SPEAKER_00: So we were not, maybe, we don't know.
SPEAKER_00: Um but one of the things we need to say is that we often paint Daniel as a hero story in the Bible, but that's not the story.
SPEAKER_00: Daniel and his companions didn't really attempt great things for God.
SPEAKER_00: He just, Daniel sought to be faithful in a very difficult circumstance.
SPEAKER_00: And again, we have to say something important that the book of Daniel is not primarily about Daniel, it's about the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: And Daniel is not the hero of that story.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you look at the story here, what heroic thing did Daniel do?
SPEAKER_00: There is no 80s montage of music where he's like, you know, putting a do-rag on and he's working out and he's training to go into battle.
SPEAKER_00: There is no conflict with the uh the enemy doesn't fight the villain.
SPEAKER_00: Daniel's not the plucky hero.
SPEAKER_00: He's the damsel in distress.
SPEAKER_00: And God is the one who rescues him.
SPEAKER_00: So the main idea of the book is the entrance of the kingdom of God into the broken things of our lives and his faithfulness to his people, no matter where we are, even in Babylon.
SPEAKER_00: So God moved Daniel and his companions.
SPEAKER_00: Part of what he's doing, he's not just protecting Daniel, but you would miss this if you didn't read some of the Old Testament prophecies and some of the historical narratives.
SPEAKER_00: God had promised to take care of all of the exiles when they went into Babylon.
SPEAKER_00: And part of the way he was doing that was doing some significant things in maneuvering Daniel and Hananiah, Azariah, and Mishael into prime positions, which is part of what's going on in this passage.
SPEAKER_00: Is Daniel is going to be in charge of the whole kingdom underneath Cyrus himself.
SPEAKER_00: So that being said, we can't help but look at the story of Daniel and wonder what we can learn about living by faith in the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: Faith in the kingdom of God as we live in the kingdoms of men.
SPEAKER_00: And so that's where we meet Daniel here, because his story is a story of faith.
SPEAKER_00: And the passage tells us that.
SPEAKER_00: Uh Daniel chapter 6, verse 23.
SPEAKER_00: Then the king was exceedingly glad and commanded that Daniel be taken up out of the den.
SPEAKER_00: 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.
SPEAKER_00: So Daniel and his companions weren't heroes.
SPEAKER_00: They trusted, they believed, and they drew close to God in prayer, they entrusted themselves to him, and they prioritized him above all things.
SPEAKER_00: So he was trying to be faithful to God as he experienced God's faithfulness to him.
SPEAKER_00: And Darius saw all of this.
SPEAKER_00: So everything we're talking about is talking about that faith in some aspect of who God is.
SPEAKER_00: And the first part of that is how God meets us in life and meets us in our faith.
SPEAKER_00: He meets us in power.
SPEAKER_00: This is, of all things, a miracle story.
SPEAKER_00: You picked up on that, hopefully.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says that miracles are direct acts of God in the material world that reveal and confirm God's person and purpose.
SPEAKER_00: So the lions didn't eat Daniel.
SPEAKER_00: That was a miracle of God's power.
SPEAKER_00: That's certainly how it's he wants us to understand it.
SPEAKER_00: Darius was sure that he had signed Daniel's death warrant.
SPEAKER_00: And the thing he doesn't do is he's leaving the lion's den that night is give him a whip and give him a chair to tame those lions.
SPEAKER_00: That didn't happen.
SPEAKER_00: The only thing he leaves Daniel with that night is a prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Because he knows Daniel is a goner.
SPEAKER_00: Now I know when we read about lions, you think Simba and you think Mufasa, and you start with the Lion King song in your head, which has been making the rounds in social media for different reasons.
SPEAKER_00: Lions, however, have historically killed numerous people.
SPEAKER_00: Any of you see the movie The Ghost in the Darkness?
SPEAKER_00: That was based on real events.
SPEAKER_00: I actually looked it up online.
SPEAKER_00: It's the Tsavo Mandeaters, 1898.
SPEAKER_00: Two male lions stopped construction of the Kenya-Uganda Railway with death estimates ranging from 28 to 100.
SPEAKER_00: That's a lot of people killed by two male lions.
SPEAKER_00: This is one that's really sad.
SPEAKER_00: This is today, like in our day and age.
SPEAKER_00: Lions kill an estimated 70 or more people annually in Tanzania.
SPEAKER_00: Reports indicate that lions killed over 563 Tanzanians between 1990 and 2005.
SPEAKER_00: So you've got to you're not going to do a song and dance number in the lion's den.
SPEAKER_00: It's not going to happen.
SPEAKER_00: And they all knew that.
SPEAKER_00: It was a death sentence for them.
SPEAKER_00: And we read this that it's a miracle in Daniel 6, 20 and following.
SPEAKER_00: As he came near to the den where Daniel was, Darius cried out in a tone of anguish.
SPEAKER_00: 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 lion?
SPEAKER_00: And Daniel says, Yes.
SPEAKER_00: He sent his angel, whatever that happens to me.
SPEAKER_00: And then in verse 27, this is again following up from Darius.
SPEAKER_00: God delivers and rescues.
SPEAKER_00: He works signs and wonders in heaven and on earth.
SPEAKER_00: He who has saved Daniel from the power of the lions.
SPEAKER_00: So the main idea of Daniel 6 is seen in 23.
SPEAKER_00: God saved Daniel and no harm was found in him because he had trusted in his God.
SPEAKER_00: We trust in our God because there we find power for things in a fallen, broken world that we don't find anywhere else.
SPEAKER_00: We find power for healing at times.
SPEAKER_00: We find power to deal with the guilt and the sin of our lives.
SPEAKER_00: We find power to deal with the brokenness that we're experiencing in the world.
SPEAKER_00: Faith is not simply believing that He exists.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible says that God exists and he is at work in the world with us.
SPEAKER_00: And that's where Darius goes in his understanding.
SPEAKER_00: For the first time, he seems to be realizing that the God of Daniel is the God who's at work in the world.
SPEAKER_00: So in chapter 6, verses 26 to 28, if you have your Bible, look at those.
SPEAKER_00: Darius makes one of the strongest confessions of the power of God and the presence of God anywhere in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: And this from a guy who was, you know, at the beginning of the chapter, as far as we know, a pagan.
SPEAKER_00: But this is what he says.
SPEAKER_00: God, the God of Daniel, the Lord, is a living God.
SPEAKER_00: He's not like idols of stone that men make in their imaginations.
SPEAKER_00: This is a God who has an independent living existence apart from us, and he's at work in the world.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord endures forever, and that is, he's the bedrock of reality.
SPEAKER_00: All else will pass away, but he will not pass away, and everything depends upon him.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord's kingdom, his influence and power cannot be changed, distorted, or ended.
SPEAKER_00: What he establishes will endure forever.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord acts in the real world to deliver and rescue.
SPEAKER_00: He acts on behalf of his people to do them good.
SPEAKER_00: He's not far off, he's not distance, and he is with us when we pray.
SPEAKER_00: He hears us.
SPEAKER_00: And then the Lord works in the physical world in supernatural ways that we recognize as signs and miracles, in ways no observer could deny, and in ways no other uh we could never achieve for ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: It had to be God bringing those things about.
SPEAKER_00: So this is Darius.
SPEAKER_00: He's encountered this, he's seen it firsthand.
SPEAKER_00: And some of you could give an account yourselves of having seen God work in amazing ways in your life.
SPEAKER_00: Now there's a there's a second aspect to it, not just believing he's he exists and he's powerful, but there's a there's another aspect, which is the Bible says that we believe he loves us.
SPEAKER_00: That he loves us.
SPEAKER_00: I believe he's for me.
SPEAKER_00: So in Hebrews 11, we read anyone who comes to the Lord must believe that he is, that he exists, that he's great, and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
SPEAKER_00: That is, he's for us, and my greatest benefit is placing him as the first, giving him first place in my life.
SPEAKER_00: So that's how God meets us with his power.
SPEAKER_00: And we see that in this passage, and this is part of what Darius is learning.
SPEAKER_00: But there's another thing that he's learning here is that is how we are to live in response to that.
SPEAKER_00: And we live with a deep sense and acknowledgement of God's continual presence with us.
SPEAKER_00: And we again we see that here in a strange way.
SPEAKER_00: Daniel chapter 6, verse 3.
SPEAKER_00: Then this Daniel, and there's another reminder that I don't refer to myself as this Stephen, right?
SPEAKER_00: So this is this is probably Cyrus writing.
SPEAKER_00: Then this Daniel became distinguished above all the other high officials and satraps because an excellent spirit was in him.
SPEAKER_00: Now, why would that be that an excellent spirit would be in him?
SPEAKER_00: When we first read it, I can remember reading this as a kid, I would think, well, he must have something like Samson, some sort of superpower, like super strength.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe like Solomon, he had super knowledge, he was super smart.
SPEAKER_00: And as you go through, maybe he's just super righteous or something.
SPEAKER_00: And and you don't really get that from the passage.
SPEAKER_00: No, that the difference with Daniel is more about the place God has in his life.
SPEAKER_00: He believes the Bible and he prays.
SPEAKER_00: And that seems so simple.
SPEAKER_00: But it's incredibly powerful as we see in this passage.
SPEAKER_00: The word.
SPEAKER_00: He believes the word.
SPEAKER_00: The satraps say this is the issue with Daniel.
SPEAKER_00: It's God's word in his life.
SPEAKER_00: That's our problem with Daniel.
SPEAKER_00: Daniel chapter 6, verse 5.
SPEAKER_00: We shall not find any ground for complaint against this Daniel unless we find it in connection with the law of his God.
SPEAKER_00: They were looking, because as several times it's said through here, he continually obeys the word.
SPEAKER_00: He serves his God.
SPEAKER_00: So Daniel was forced into the Babylonian Empire, and now the Persian Empire.
SPEAKER_00: And he's looking to God's fundamental truth to guide him, and that made him wiser than all of his peers.
SPEAKER_00: Beginning back in chapter 1, it says that he's a thousand, 10,000 times better than all the other people that are there.
SPEAKER_00: Why would that be?
SPEAKER_00: This is in Psalm 119, verses 98 to 100.
SPEAKER_00: Your commandment makes me wiser than my enemies, for it is ever with me.
SPEAKER_00: I have more understanding than all my teachers, for your testimonies are my meditation.
SPEAKER_00: I understand more than the aged, for I keep your precepts.
SPEAKER_00: So there's a qualitative difference for Daniel.
SPEAKER_00: And this is the key to Daniel's excellent spirit.
SPEAKER_00: It's not his aptitude, it's not his ability, his talents, but it is faith in God's word, which gave him the proper perspective on how to live in God's world.
SPEAKER_00: And we take that for granted in the United States.
SPEAKER_00: And part of the reason we can take it for granted is because we in the United States have been influenced by the West.
SPEAKER_00: We can say much of our European heritage.
SPEAKER_00: We've been influenced by the West.
SPEAKER_00: And the West has been influenced by, beginning with Constantine, Christian doctrine and Christian teaching and Christian morals.
SPEAKER_00: And so in our culture, people will say, oh, we just all know what's good and right and true because it's just innate in us.
SPEAKER_00: Clearly, it was not innate with the satraps in this particular passage.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't innate with them.
SPEAKER_00: In Persian culture, all of these satraps are seeking to work all of the angles for their benefits.
SPEAKER_00: To them, life is about power and acquisition and wealth.
SPEAKER_00: And you can see this quest for power in the way that they're trying to angle and manipulate their king in the midst of this.
SPEAKER_00: They twisted the truth, they lied, they maneuvered to get what they wanted.
SPEAKER_00: And you can understand why if Daniel is centered on the Word of God, he's not going to lie.
SPEAKER_00: He has principles he's not going to break.
SPEAKER_00: He's not vying for power of any sort.
SPEAKER_00: He's got everything he wants in the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: You can see why King Darius would look at Daniel and say, Yep, he's the guy.
SPEAKER_00: I can trust him.
SPEAKER_00: I can't trust these other guys, but I can trust and entrust my kingdom to him.
SPEAKER_00: You see, that's that's that's different.
SPEAKER_00: Daniel was bringing something different from God's word into a culture that was very, very different.
SPEAKER_00: But we don't feel it because people would say that we're post-Christian.
SPEAKER_00: Those values have affected us, but it's still valuable, it's still important today.
SPEAKER_00: This is what historian Tom Holland wrote.
SPEAKER_00: He does a podcast called The Rest is History, and he also wrote a book called Dominion, where he talks about this very issue that this quote is capturing.
SPEAKER_00: He said that, you know, we in our documents we say we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights.
SPEAKER_00: This is Tom Holland.
SPEAKER_00: That all men had been created equal and endowed with an inalien, dry mouth, an inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were not remotely self-evident truths.
SPEAKER_00: That most Americans believed they were, owed less to philosophy than to the Bible, to the assurance given equally to Christians and Jews, to Protestants and Catholics, to Calvinists and Quakers, that every human being was created in God's image.
SPEAKER_00: The truest and ultimate seed bed of the American Republic, no matter what some of those who had composed its founding documents might have cared to think, was the book of Genesis.
SPEAKER_00: The Word being powerful in us.
SPEAKER_00: And so what Daniel would say is be in the Word for decades.
SPEAKER_00: Eighty years, he's been clinging to this.
SPEAKER_00: And it shaped him and made him very different from the world around him.
SPEAKER_00: Prayer is the second.
SPEAKER_00: Daniel didn't make a show of his faith.
SPEAKER_00: He simply did what he always did by faith.
SPEAKER_00: He prayed.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, this is what he did.
SPEAKER_00: He did it three times a day.
SPEAKER_00: And it's part of his schedule.
SPEAKER_00: He would stop his world and go pray for a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: So when he when we read, a decree went out that I can't pray to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Daniel's mind, a decree went out that I can't pray to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: I need to pray about that.
SPEAKER_00: And so he goes right to the place of prayer.
SPEAKER_00: And this isn't defiance, it's dependence.
SPEAKER_00: And this isn't bravery or belligerence, it's belief.
SPEAKER_00: His soul at that moment demanded, I have to come into the presence of my God because that's the only place I can go to find relief from the fears that just jumped into my life, my heart.
SPEAKER_00: Have you ever been to that point where you can't carry and you just have to go to God in prayer?
SPEAKER_00: We had a rough uh year in a lot of ways last year.
SPEAKER_00: And I had prayed the same prayer over and over, probably a hundred, two hundred, three hundred times.
SPEAKER_00: And I've heard people say that that's not a mark of faith if you keep bringing it to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You just say it one time, you leave it before God, and then you walk away and trust Him to do it.
SPEAKER_00: And so I tried to do that, but it doesn't work.
SPEAKER_00: Um and so what I said to God was I'm coming to you knowing that you've heard me.
SPEAKER_00: But I'm coming to you knowing I don't have the ability to carry all of the emotions and the grief that I'm carrying right now.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm handing that to you.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna say the same thing.
SPEAKER_00: I trust you.
SPEAKER_00: I just can't carry this.
SPEAKER_00: Have you been there?
SPEAKER_00: Daniel prays.
SPEAKER_00: He's not trying to be controversial, he's not trying to be subversive.
SPEAKER_00: His soul demanded it.
SPEAKER_00: He needed peace, protection, and guidance.
SPEAKER_00: What do I do here?
SPEAKER_00: So he prayed.
SPEAKER_00: Who else is he going to pray to?
SPEAKER_00: Darius?
SPEAKER_00: Darius doesn't know that his underlings are subverting him and manipulating him.
SPEAKER_00: He has no clue.
SPEAKER_00: Why would you ask him for help?
SPEAKER_00: He's in his own stew right now.
SPEAKER_00: We need somebody who's not in this in the same way that we're in this.
SPEAKER_00: Darius didn't have all knowledge and all power and all help, but God does.
SPEAKER_00: So to whom do you pray?
SPEAKER_00: And why?
SPEAKER_00: And if you don't, why not?
SPEAKER_00: Because the Bible insists that God is listening to all those who come to Him in faith.
SPEAKER_00: I read a story this week about missionaries in Uganda.
SPEAKER_00: And their mission is kind of fourfold.
SPEAKER_00: They said they were they were trying to do four different things.
SPEAKER_00: Caring for orphans and vulnerable children.
SPEAKER_00: That's a lofty goal, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Two, planting churches, running Bible day schools, sending missionaries.
SPEAKER_00: That's fantastic.
SPEAKER_00: Three, health care for people in Uganda that can't get it otherwise.
SPEAKER_00: That's great.
SPEAKER_00: And number four, anti-trafficking and long-term survivor care.
SPEAKER_00: So with those goals, they moved to Uganda.
SPEAKER_00: And it was a very short time before they started receiving opposition from corrupt people who started to make charges against them.
SPEAKER_00: They said they're abusing the children, which they weren't.
SPEAKER_00: They said they're raising up these children to be a rebel force to take over the government.
SPEAKER_00: They weren't.
SPEAKER_00: Rumors spread, people tried to throw acid on them.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody snuck into their compound and poured poison into their water tower.
SPEAKER_00: Somebody at one point, one group of people, tried to take their daughter from there, from them, making accusations and things, I think, to try to say they're probably abusing her too.
SPEAKER_00: We need to take away their daughter.
SPEAKER_00: She's unsafe.
SPEAKER_00: None of it was true.
SPEAKER_00: They said they were arrested multiple occasions and for eight months.
SPEAKER_00: It was really hard.
SPEAKER_00: Really hard.
SPEAKER_00: And they said during that time, they remember having a conversation and praying together at the police station about how this was a fight that they could not win.
SPEAKER_00: We can't win this.
SPEAKER_00: So what are we going to do?
SPEAKER_00: They were thinking about just throwing in the towel.
SPEAKER_00: But they said they made a decision in that moment to say, and this is their prayer, Lord, we believe.
SPEAKER_00: We trust you that you called us here and that somehow this is part of your purpose, even though we don't understand it and it really sucks right now.
SPEAKER_00: But we're just going to let you fight for us and defend us.
SPEAKER_00: So over 10 months, they were arrested multiple times.
SPEAKER_00: And what they saw was in that 10-month period, every time they'd get arrested, they would go to the next highest official.
SPEAKER_00: And every time they would get to the next highest official, they would share their faith with the person and explain what they were doing and why they were doing it.
SPEAKER_00: And as they did this, they began to share the gospel with many of the city administrators who began to have a turn towards them and began to promote what they were doing.
SPEAKER_00: And some of them became Christians and joined in their mission that they were doing.
SPEAKER_00: And they said, we could never have done that in 10 or 20 years if we had not gone through the very, very difficult thing.
SPEAKER_00: And God met us and he answered our prayers in the midst of all of this.
SPEAKER_00: A very short time we got our foot established.
SPEAKER_00: This is Charles Spurgeon.
SPEAKER_00: He said, The prayers of puny but believing men have power to move the almighty arm of God.
SPEAKER_00: Charles Spurgeon, he's right.
SPEAKER_00: Daniel would not tell us dare to be a Daniel.
SPEAKER_00: Daniel would tell us God is always faithful.
SPEAKER_00: Be faithful to him for a lifetime.
SPEAKER_00: Be prayerful for decades.
SPEAKER_00: Be in the God's Word every day.
SPEAKER_00: Let it shape you for decades.
SPEAKER_00: And just be faithful there because God's going to use you.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to shape you and make you what He needs to be, He wants for you to be.
SPEAKER_00: So the last one.
SPEAKER_00: A prototype.
SPEAKER_00: Prototype.
SPEAKER_00: I know that doesn't make sense at first.
SPEAKER_00: There's a I listen to sermons when I'm preparing, and I've heard sermons in my past where people might say, uh, what's your lion's den?
SPEAKER_00: What is your lion's den?
SPEAKER_00: God will rescue you from your lion's den.
SPEAKER_00: And we know that's not the moral of the story because sometimes it doesn't feel like God rescued us from whatever we were in, whatever lion's den.
SPEAKER_00: If you have enough faith, like Daniel, God will rescue you from your lion's den.
SPEAKER_00: Now, as we look at this, I don't think that's what he's getting pushing us to.
SPEAKER_00: What he's actually pushing us to is to something a little bit different.
SPEAKER_00: He's pushing us to the reality that God can perform miracles.
SPEAKER_00: And God can rescue from death.
SPEAKER_00: But he's not saying God is going to perform for you a miracle, and he doesn't say that God is going to rescue you from the jaws of the lion.
SPEAKER_00: That's this is not a promise, it's an account.
SPEAKER_00: But Daniel knew something as he entered into this.
SPEAKER_00: In a few chapters, we're going to read in uh Daniel chapter 12.
SPEAKER_00: And what happens is Daniel 7 through 12 are all visions of, for them, the future.
SPEAKER_00: For us, some of it's still future, some of it's past already.
SPEAKER_00: But in Daniel chapter 12, Daniel gives one of the clearest expressions of resurrection in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: So if you want to show people the resurrection in the Old Testament, go to Daniel 12, and this is what we read.
SPEAKER_00: Verses 2 and 3.
SPEAKER_00: Many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt.
SPEAKER_00: And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above, and those who turn many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever.
SPEAKER_00: So there are a couple of things that are going on here with this being a miracle of God preserving Daniel from the lion's den.
SPEAKER_00: One is it is showing us what God has in store.
SPEAKER_00: Is Daniel came out of the lion's den.
SPEAKER_00: He came out of the place of death.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if you picked up on it.
SPEAKER_00: Go back and read it later, not while I'm preaching because that'll hurt my feelings.
SPEAKER_00: But read it later.
SPEAKER_00: Is Daniel, Daniel's account is very similar to Christ.
SPEAKER_00: He's put into the place of death, a stone is put over it, the stone is removed, and he comes out alive.
SPEAKER_00: That sounds like Easter that we're going to celebrate in a couple of weeks.
SPEAKER_00: This is a prototype saying God can rescue from death.
SPEAKER_00: But then it brings up another question for us.
SPEAKER_00: Is will he?
SPEAKER_00: And how can I be, how can I know that God will do that?
SPEAKER_00: And the reason we can know is because God has given us a better Daniel.
SPEAKER_00: Daniel went into the tomb, he went into his tomb alive and came out alive.
SPEAKER_00: Daniel, uh Jesus went into his tomb dead, and he was resurrected just three days later and came forth.
SPEAKER_00: We have a better Daniel.
SPEAKER_00: It's Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And if you can imagine being those Old Testament people who are reading, God can save us even from potential death, then you can see how that would encourage them.
SPEAKER_00: But for us, God has delivered us in Christ from certain death, from real death.
SPEAKER_00: And the Bible says, Yet though I die, yet shall I live.
SPEAKER_00: This is pushing us.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't save everyone from certain death, but from sin and death and hell together for all those who believe.
SPEAKER_00: Darius recognized that God saved Daniel because he trusted in his God.
SPEAKER_00: Daniel wasn't the plucky hero, he was the damsel in distress, and God saved him.
SPEAKER_00: Your life is not to be lived as the plucky hero, but the person of faith who says, I believe.
SPEAKER_00: I believe.
SPEAKER_00: I trust you.
SPEAKER_00: And I give myself completely and fully to you.
SPEAKER_00: You are my rescuer, you're my father, and you're the one who's going to bring me safely home.
SPEAKER_00: Let me pray for us.