How many of you know the story of Daniel in the Lion’s Den? It is probably the most famous story in the Bible. Even people who have never read the Bible will know that Noah had an ark and that Daniel was thrown into the lion’s den. Parents and grandparents love to tell kids the story of Daniel and the lions. But if you read the story in detail, you will see that it is not some cute little story for kids.
It is the story of an innocent 80-year-old man who is condemned to death in a horrible way because he chooses loyalty to God over obedience to the government. It is not a story with some cliche moral point. Often, when we read Daniel 6, it is easy to make Daniel the hero and maybe think that the main point is that we should all “dare to be a Daniel.” But the real hero of this story is not Daniel; the real hero is God.
The point of this story is this: that I can keep trusting the God Daniel knew because I understand God’s posture toward me—I understand who God is and His character, and because of that, I can have the courage to do the right thing, knowing He is faithful.
The title of the series we have been in for the past 5 weeks is Courage by Faith. And specifically what we will see here in Daniel 6 is that we can Serve Well and Stand Firm—but there are no shortcuts to doing that. Sometimes doing the right things means going through the hard things. We will never have the courage to do the right thing if we do not know and rely on the same truths about God that Daniel did.
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If you were here last week, Pastor Matt walked us through Daniel 5 and how King Belshazzar, king of the Babylonians, was killed by Darius the Mede after Daniel interpreted the handwriting on the wall. As we head into chapter 6, there is a new king in town. The Babylonians have been conquered by the Medo-Persians, and now Darius is king.
Dan 6:1-3 (CSB)—Darius decided to appoint 120 satraps over the kingdom, stationed throughout the realm, and over them three administrators, including Daniel. These satraps would be accountable to them so that the king would not be defrauded. Daniel distinguished himself above the administrators and satraps because he had an extraordinary spirit, so the king planned to set him over the whole realm.
This is a bit of a rabbit trail, but I think it is interesting in light of current events: Do you know where in the world Daniel 6 takes place? It is Iran. If you flip over to the OT book of Ezra, about 100 years after Daniel, the king of the Medo-Persian empire returns the Jewish exiles to their own land and helps rebuild Jerusalem with Persian gold. In 1979, the Iranian Revolution happened, and the Ayatollah took control and established the Islamic Republic of Iran. Up until then, Iran was a supporter of Israel. Iran was the second country to recognize Israel in 1950. That support for Israel dates back to 458 BC, when the Persians helped rebuild Jerusalem. Iran’s hatred for the Jews is a relatively recent posture that began in 1979. I thought that was an interesting bit of history, and it should remind us that we are talking about real people and real events. These aren’t just Bible stories; this is real history about real people and real situations.
Back to Daniel 6. Daniel is about 84 years old at this point. In 6:3 it says, “Daniel distinguished himself above the administrators and satraps because he had an extraordinary spirit, so the king planned to set him over the whole realm.”
Daniel had shown himself trustworthy over the years because of the presence of the Holy Spirit in him. He had faithfully carried out his duties. He had shown that he could be trusted.
Daniel served well.
Despite being placed in a pagan culture that rejected everything that Daniel valued, a culture that turned its back on the one true Creator and God of the universe, it says that he served well.
Is Daniel’s situation much different than the situation we find ourselves in today? As we move further and further away from the Christian culture that many of our grandparents and great-grandparents lived in, it can be tempting for us, in order not to compromise and blend in, to try to completely remove ourselves from the culture. We may want to circle the wagons and isolate ourselves, or to stand outside of our culture and scream and shake our fists at it. Instead, we are to be like Daniel and
Serve Well.
Daniel’s proving himself trustworthy didn’t happen overnight. It started in chapter 1. It started with the decision serve faithfully despite being carried off into captivity and finding himself in a situation he certainly did not want to be in.
Daniel took Jeremiah 29:7 seriously. These words were written specifically by God to the captives in Babylon.
Jer 29:7 (CSB)—Pursue the well-being of the city I have deported you to. Pray to the LORD on its behalf, for when it thrives, you will thrive.
If you are here today and you are old like me (or older), this should remind us, like Daniel, to cross the finish line well. To live our lives with integrity, taking seriously the things that God has told us about how to live a life that shows the world (not just tells the world) who He is. The temptation to compromise does not go away just because we are old. Don’t slow down just because the finish line is near.
If you are here today and you are young, set your life on a course that when you get to Daniel 6 in your life, you will have been found faithful, and it will be said of you that you have served well. That begins with the little decisions that you make today. Even when you find yourself in the middle of the temptation to compromise.
Character is both developed and revealed by tests, and all of life is a test.
—Rick Warren
In 2 Chron 16:9, it says:
2 Chron 16:9 (CSB)—The eyes of the LORD search the whole earth in order to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him.
Our Father is still looking for men and women in whom He can show Himself strong as He did for Daniel, so we can, like Daniel, serve well.
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Daniel is appointed chief administrator over all 120 administrators of the kingdom. As is often the case, there is a great deal of jealousy by the other governors and administrators, so they try to find a way to undermine him and accuse him before the king, but because of Daniel’s extraordinary spirit, they can’t find anything against him, so they attack his faith.
Knowing that Daniel often prayed to his God, they convinced the king to sign a law stating that, for thirty days, anyone who petitioned any god or man other than the king would be thrown into the lions’ den. This was, of course, a political maneuver meant to frame Daniel exclusively.
Look at how Daniel responds:
Dan 6:10 (CSB)—When Daniel learned that the document had been signed, he went into his house. The windows in its upstairs room opened toward Jerusalem, and three times a day he got down on his knees, prayed, and gave thanks to his God, just as he had done before.
Why did Daniel face Jerusalem? Because in 1 Kings 8, when Solomon dedicated the temple in Jerusalem, he prayed that if God’s people rebel and are conquered and carried into captivity, when they come to their senses and pray to God in the direction of Jerusalem and the temple where God dwells, that God would hear their prayers and uphold their cause.
Daniel would have known this scripture and understood that it was his responsibility to pray for God’s mercy, deliverance, and blessing on behalf of the people. That’s why he faced Jerusalem.
And why did he get on his knees to pray? God is certainly more concerned with the posture of our hearts than our bodies, but getting on his knees to pray was a picture of the intensity of Daniel’s prayer and reflected the reverent position of his heart. His practice was to do this three times a day.
Just like David wrote in Psalm 55:
Ps 55:16-17 (CSB)—But I call to God, and the LORD will save me. I complain and groan morning, noon, and night, and he hears my voice.
Those were probably not the only times Daniel prayed, but they were the times he set aside to pray regularly. Daniel was 84 or 85 years old and responsible for running the entire Babylonian empire, but he took time to pray three times a day.
I don’t know about you, but this was convicting for me. The excuses that I’m too busy or that I get so tired when I pray just don’t seem like very good reasons for not praying regularly. Especially in light of Daniel’s situation. He was simply doing what he had always done. And that’s where the power is. If the source of Daniel’s success was the Holy Spirit, the secret of His success was consistent prayer. This was a good reminder for me.
When he found out about the law, he simply did what he knew was right. He didn’t shout “religious persecution” or bow to the pressure by changing his practice. Instead, he petitioned God as he always had, because God had always been faithful, and Daniel knew God would be faithful in the future.
In other words, he decided to …
Stand Firm
The men who were out to get him went to his home, found him breaking the king’s law and praying to God. They then went to the king, who immediately understood what was happening. They were trying to frame Daniel. But the law had already been signed, and because the Medes and Persians had a constitutional monarchy, their laws stated that once a law was established, even the king could not circumvent it.
Dan 6:16-18 (CSB)—So the king gave the order, and they brought Daniel and threw him into the lions’ den. The king said to Daniel, “May your God, whom you continually serve, rescue you!” A stone was brought and placed over the mouth of the den. The king sealed it with his own signet ring and with the signet rings of his nobles, so that nothing in regard to Daniel could be changed. Then the king went to his palace and spent the night fasting. No diversions were brought to him, and he could not sleep.
Even though he didn’t want to, the king threw Daniel into the lion’s den. These were lions who were bred for this kind of work. They were especially aggressive and kept on the verge of starvation, so when someone was executed this way, it was extremely violent.
The next morning, the king ran to the lion’s den and shouted, “Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you continually serve, been able to rescue you from the lions?”
Dan 6:21-23 (CSB)—Then Daniel spoke with the king: “May the king live forever. My God sent his angel and shut the lions’ mouths; and they haven’t harmed me, for I was found innocent before him. And also before you, Your Majesty, I have not done harm.” The king was overjoyed and gave orders to take Daniel out of the den. When Daniel was brought up from the den, he was found to be unharmed, for he trusted in his God.
God sent an angel, or, a messenger. It is the exact same language that we see used of the one who was in the fire with Daniel’s three friends, Shadrack, Meshack, and Abednego. I mentioned it in chapter 3, but I’ll mention it again: many scholars think that the one in the furnace and the one who shut the lion’s mouths was Jesus before he came to earth in human form. Whether it was Jesus or an angel, God intervened and was faithful just like he had always been.
In the end, the guys who tried to frame Daniel and their families were thrown to the lions, and it says that before their feet hit the ground, the lions overpowered them and crushed all their bones.
Dan 6:25-28 (CSB)—Then King Darius wrote to those of every people, nation, and language who live on the whole earth: “May your prosperity abound. I issue a decree that in all my royal dominion, people must tremble in fear before the God of Daniel: For he is the living God, and he endures forever; His kingdom will never be destroyed, and his dominion has no end. He rescues and delivers; he performs signs and wonders in the heavens and on the earth, for he has rescued Daniel from the power of the lions.” So Daniel prospered during the reign of Darius and the reign of Cyrus the Persian.
Daniel served well, but stood firm. The result: God was faithful to Daniel, because that’s God’s posture towards us. He is faithful. And in the end, God received the honor He deserved.
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You might think that is where the story ends, but this account of Daniel was simply a warm-up for what God would do 600 years later. This rescue of Daniel from the lions, although a real event, was a foreshadowing of our own rescue from the jaws of a lion that seeks to devour us.
We, too, have an enemy: the devil. I’m sure the Apostle Peter was thinking of Daniel when he described the devil this way:
1 Ptr 5:8 (CSB)—Be sober-minded, be alert. Your adversary, the devil, is prowling around like a roaring lion, looking for anyone he can devour.
Our victory over our enemy also comes when the mouth of the lion was shut by God. It happened two thousand years ago when God’s one and only Son was sacrificed on a Roman cross, and his body was laid in a borrowed tomb. But the lion would not have the last word. Three days later, Jesus rose from the dead, victorious over the enemy.
When we confess our sin, which the enemy loves to exploit, and we receive the free gift of abundant life that God offers, Jesus’ victory over sin and death becomes our victory.
Just as the law of the Medes and Persians condemned Daniel, the law of sin and death condemns us. But in the same way God was faithful to Daniel, he is faithful to us and provides a way of rescue from the enemy who wants to destroy us.
How do you take advantage of the rescue God offers?
Rom 10:9 (CSB)—If you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.
That is God’s invitation to you. If you have never responded to His invitation, I encourage you to do it today.
Jesus’ empty tomb reminds us of the deep love the God of Daniel has for us, and how he has delivered us from the mouth of the lion. One day all those who respond to God’s invitation to share in the victory of Jesus will gather around God’s throne in heaven and celebrate that victory and worship the God who loves us.
Chris Hankel 
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