Dennis Tuuri

# Daniel Chapter 6

Sermon text today is Daniel chapter 6. Hopefully you got one of the handouts at the doors. If so, you can read along with that text as you listen to my reading. The first two pages is the straight text beginning at chapter 5:31. However, and then the next two pages you will not want to use. It’s a structure of the verses where I’ve put together the matching pairs of texts as they move toward a center of the text.

So please use the first two pages if you’re using the handout provided. Please stand for the reading of God’s word beginning at chapter 5 verse 31 of the book of Daniel.

And Darius the Mede received the kingdom being about 62 years old. It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom 120 satraps to be over the whole kingdom and over these three governors of whom Daniel was one that the satraps might give account to them so that the king would suffer no loss.

Then this Daniel distinguished himself above the governors and satraps because an excellent spirit was in him and the king gave thought to setting him over the whole realm. So the governors and satraps sought to find some charge against Daniel concerning the kingdom, but they could find no charge or fault because he was faithful. For there nor is there any error or fault found in him.

Then these men said, “We shall not find any charge against this Daniel unless we find it against him concerning the law of his God.” So these governors and satraps thronged before the king and said thus to him, “King Darius live forever. All the governors of the kingdom, the administrators and satraps, the counselors and advisers have consulted together to establish a royal statute and to make a firm decree. And whoever petitions any god or man for 30 days except you, oh king, shall be cast into the den of lions. Now, oh king, establish the decree and sign the writing so that it cannot be changed according to the law of the Medes and Persians which does not alter.

Therefore, King Darius signed the written decree. Now, when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went home and in his upper room with his windows open toward Jerusalem, he knelt down on his knees three times that day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as was his custom since early days. Then those men assembled and found Daniel praying and made supplication before his God. And they went before the king and spoke concerning the king’s decree.

Have you not signed a decree that every man who petitions any god or man within 30 days except you, oh king, shall be cast into the den of lions? The king answered and said, “The thing is true according to the law of the Medes and the Persians which does not alter.” So they answered and said before the king that Daniel, who is one of the captains from Judah, does not show due regard for you, oh king, or for the decree that you have signed, but makes his petition three times a day.

And the king, when he heard these words, was greatly displeased with himself, and set his heart on Daniel to deliver him. And he labored till the going down of the sun to deliver him. Then these men approached the king and said to the king, “Know, O king, that it is the law of the Medes and Persians that no decree or statute which the king establishes may be changed.” So the king gave the command. And they brought Daniel and cast him into the den of lions.

But the king spoke, saying to Daniel, “Your God, whom you serve continually, he will deliver you.” Then a stone was brought, laid on the mouth of the den, and the king sealed it with his own signet ring, and with the signets of his lords, that the purpose concerning Daniel might not be changed. Now the king went to his palace, spent the night fasting and no musicians were brought before him. Also his sleep went from him.

Then the king arose very early in the morning and went in haste to the den of lions. And when he came to the den, he cried out with a lamenting voice to Daniel. The king spoke, saying to Daniel, “Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you serve continually, been able to deliver you from the lions?” And then Daniel said to the king, “Oh king, live forever. My God sent his angel and shut the lion’s mouth so that they have not hurt me because I was found innocent before him. And also, O king, I have done no wrong before you.”

Now, the king was exceedingly glad for him and commanded that they should take Daniel up out of the den. So Daniel was taken up out of the den. No injury whatever was found on him because he believed in his God. And the king gave the command and they brought those men who had accused Daniel. And they cast them into the den of lions. Them, their children, and their wives, and the lions overpowered them, and broke all their bones in pieces before they ever came to the bottom of the den.

Then King Darius wrote, “To all peoples, nations, and languages that dwell in all the earth, peace be multiplied to you. I make a decree that in every dominion of my kingdom, men must tremble and fear before the God of Daniel. For he is the living God and steadfast forever. His kingdom is the one which shall not be destroyed and his dominion shall endure to the end. He delivers and rescues and he works signs and wonders in heaven and on earth. Who has delivered Daniel from the power of the lions. So this Daniel prospered in the reign of Darius and in the reign of Cyrus the Persian.

Let’s pray.

Oh Lord God, it’s with great joy that we come before your presence today. We joy in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, whom you delivered from the mouths of the lions that sought him. We thank you, Lord God, for this wondrous type of our savior we read in your book of Daniel. And we pray that you may cause our hearts to soar with delight this day into you and in the context of your presence with us that we may praise the Lord Jesus Christ that he has raised us up in Jesus name we ask it. Amen.

Please be seated.

What a wondrous gospel text we have delightfully before us today. What a delightful picture. Hopefully most of you with just the reading of the text have come to a sense today of joy of the resurrection—not ultimately of Daniel raised up from the lion’s den but of Jesus Christ brought out of that tomb that had been sealed with the rock and then the seal and sign of the Roman Empire in conjunction with the Jews set upon that stone. Yet our savior arises destroying his enemies. What a delightful text before us, a prefiguring of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, the day of resurrection.

Earth, tell it out abroad. The Passover of gladness. The Passover of God. What a delightful thing God has brought us over. And that should cause our hearts to be delightful and joyful and thankful to him today in spite of whatever context we’re in our lives individually. This church is a corporate group, the nation and the city in which we live, the nation in which we reside—all the problems we know about, all the difficulties. We’re probably really tired of hearing some of these problems by now in this election cycle.

Or maybe there’s personal problems in your life that have really, you know, overwhelmed you, so to speak, and brought you into a lion’s den of darkness and difficulty. This text is the great text in the book of Daniel that even surpasses that glorious gospel text we read in Daniel 4, right? When Nebuchadnezzar proclaims the wonders of God. This text is a light text now set in the context of the next empire, the Persian Empire. So it’s a delightful gospel text that we have here.

We have sung the praises of the valiant one, right? In the context of Martin Luther’s rendition of Psalm 46 and other psalms that talk about the mighty fortress that God is to us of Sabaoth, Lord of hosts, the mighty one, Jesus Christ, pictured by Daniel, overcoming the myriad thronging powers of the ungodly, who would claim the kingdom of Persia for their own instead of Cyrus, Darius, who would rule it for the purposes of God. Daniel does mighty work against them. He does it by prayer. We come together as the host of Jesus Christ of Sabaoth, Lord of hosts, armies, and we sing these songs. We delight in the victory of Christ.

We’re assured of that victory every Lord’s day. We sing it forth. We’re formed up as the army of God to joyfully and boldly sing forth his word of conquering over all the kingdoms and nations that would raise themselves against him. We throng together as the host, the army of God to be equipped with songs of prayer and praise and thanksgiving to God. And we emerge from this place victorious as Daniel emerges from the context of his chamber and then the chamber of the lion’s den to go forth having the proclamation then come from the next Nebuchadnezzar, Cyrus, Darius that indeed all men are to tremble in fear before the God whom we worship and serve today and the rest of our lives.

What a glorious grand gospel text. The Son of God going forth to war in the picture of Daniel conquering this empire of Persia the way that the empire of Babylon had been conquered. Delightful, joyful text that I hope causes your hearts and the hearts of your children to soar today with a comprehension of all the things that Jesus Christ has accomplished for us. And then being buoyed by this and assured by this that God is—but not just that, but he’s the rewarder of those who faithfully obey him and believe him—we go forth into the rest of this day and into the rest of our lives confident and assured of God’s great love upon us for the work of the greater Daniel, the Lord Jesus Christ.

So we proceed now into a discussion of this text and the wondrous things found in the context of Daniel chapter 6.

On your outlines for the adults, I’ve given you once more. I do this over and over. I’m not sure why. But you know, for those who are visiting today and have not seen this before—we are in the last of six stories of Daniel. Next week I’m actually going to sum up Daniel 1-6 and talk about the implications for reformation in our day in more of a general way on these details we’ve talked about. And then after that we’ll move on to Daniel 7 and then we’ll begin the last half of this book which is prophecy.

It’s really interesting that I’ll talk about this a little later, but we think of Daniel as a prophet. Well, yeah, I mean he’s certainly a prophet. We have prophecies from him. But you know, he is a ruler. He rules with Nebuchadnezzar and then here we are in the Persian Empire ruling. This is what his life is mostly about, I think we could say. And we’ll talk about the implications of that in a little bit. This is the last story.

It kind of, it’s set in the context, you know, we have this context that we’ve used to describe the book following the Ten Commandments. And when we recited the ten commandments earlier, of course we begin what is commonly thought of as the second tablet with “You shall not murder.” But remember we said there’s a sense in which the commandments can be seen as the first four as a unit. The first four chapters of the book of Daniel went through the first four commandments culminating in the fourth—Sabbath day enthronement of Nebuchadnezzar as it were through his being brought to repentance and humility before God and then being exalted.

So the fourth commandment, the Sabbath, is a day when God comes to be with his people. We’re to keep it because God is going to honor us and empower us and enthrone us in Lord’s day worship. And so the fourth commandment is like that. There’s a cycle of four commandments. Then there’s a cycle of three commandments and then another cycle of three that image the first three commandments. And so if we think of the last ten commandments, we’ve got, you know, don’t murder, don’t commit adultery, don’t steal, right? And then we’ve got don’t bear false witness, don’t covet your neighbor’s wife.

And so there’s a connection between bearing false witness and murdering someone. And what we’ll see in today’s text is that’s exactly what goes on. The ungodly men will be those who bear false witness against Daniel—as it were that he doesn’t have regard for the king. But he does. And they will be ones who are doing this to try to kill Daniel. But the Lord God will not only rescue Daniel but also bring his just judgments against those who sought to have false witness, lying and slandering Daniel, chewing him up. The text literally says those that chewed up the pieces of Daniel, those that slandered Daniel in the latter part of the chapter. That’s what the word literally means.

They’re like the lions. These men will receive the just judgment of God. Bite for bite, lion for lion, eye for eye, tooth for tooth. They’ll be chewed up by those very lions they had set the trap for Daniel with. They’ll fall into their own trap. And so this sixth story would line up with the sixth commandment—not to commit murder. And then lining up, you know, as well with the idea of bearing false witness in an attempt to get someone killed or murdered by the civil magistrate.

And so we’ve got that.

I also have on your outlines for you a different outline that we’re going to follow today of this particular text. So we’ve got here the beginning of a new Exodus. David Dorsey has a book “Literary Structures of the Old Testament.” His outline for Daniel 6 is this chiastic structure that we’re now very familiar with. Another sevenfold structure. And Doug H. used this structure for his Sunday school class which I think may be available on the internet. If not, it’s certainly available through the church office.

And so this is one way to look at the structure of this text. And then I don’t think Dorsey necessarily relates it to the beginning of a new Exodus, but Doug did. And so what we have here, and we’ll talk about this in just a minute, is that really we have a nighttime deliverance. I think that the way we’re looking at the text today—where the king all night worries for Daniel—we have a nighttime deliverance, right? And in the early morning, he comes out and Daniel is brought up.

Passover at night. God works in the dark of night, at the midnight time to change and transform a situation, to bring his people out, to establish them as controllers of the land, and to destroy his enemies in terms of the Egyptians at the original Passover. And there’s a reason why this is here now, because we’re approaching the time when a later Persian ruler will then empower Ezra and Nehemiah to go back to Israel.

So remember we said that when the people of God in the first deportation are taken out of Jerusalem to go into Babylon, Jerusalem has been guilty of enslaving one another in idolatry. She’s become Egypt. So God rescues his people out of Egypt. Daniel’s a picture of that. He gives them a new law in the wilderness, a retelling of the Ten Commandments with different implications and they’re in this wilderness situation.

But now the place where they’ve been rescued to—Babylon—has turned against them in the person of Belshazzar at the end of the Babylonian kingdom. Now at the beginning of the Persian kingdom, these men that want to kill Daniel. So it’s kind of become like Egypt now too. And God is going to bring his people back into their own land. So this is preparation for a new exodus from new persecutors and back into the promised land, right? Ezra and Nehemiah are going to take the people back, the temple rebuilt, and that’s all in the context of the Persian Empire.

And in fact the Babylonian Empire had gathered all the gods of the people. Remember we saw that at Belshazzar’s feast it wasn’t just, you know, the furniture from the temple—he had everything, all the gods were gathered in Babylon. And what Persia is going to do—we know historically the first thing the Persians do is send all the stuff back to all the different countries. Go back, you know, and worship your gods the way you want to. More decentralization than the centralization of worship through Babylon.

So maybe this command that these guys get Darius to sign—that for 30 days they got to pray to him—is because it’s going to take 30 days to get the articles of all the different worship and gods back to the lands. We don’t know. But we do know that the coming of the Persian Empire replacing the Babylon Empire is the beginning of sending people back and he will send the Jews back in a few years and Ezra and Nehemiah will rebuild the temple.

So there’s a movement that’s kind of coming to a completion here in Daniel’s book where the first return back is going to happen. Now there’s more than that goes on in the prophecies of Daniel. We’ll talk about that in just a minute, but that’s the context. And that’s why Doug had in his outline at the beginning of it, “the beginning of a new Exodus.” They’re coming out now of a land that was originally provided as their protectors. And yet it’s turned sort of bad as well. Okay.

So what I want to do now is turn to pages three and four of your outlines. And what I’ve done here, because I’m using the structure that James B. Jordan has provided for Daniel 6—his outline—and it’s a little complicated. It has 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, then 21 elements, 10 middle, 10 back out. And I just want us to talk our way or work our way slowly through the text by looking at how these verses line up and what they’re saying. Why do we structure it this way? And I think this may be helpful to you to sort of see the flow of the text. I think it brings our attention to something at the center that isn’t primarily the deliverance of Daniel, but it’s this nighttime worrying of the king. Okay.

So you see on page three—oh, if you don’t have a handout, if there are more out in the foyer, I would encourage you to stand up and go get one. It’ll be a lot easier to follow what we’re going to say now. And if you have the printed version of this text with these matching brackets, don’t feel embarrassed. There’re probably more out there. So I’ll just wait a minute here for people to go get those handouts.

And as they’re doing that, you see on page three for those of you who have it, you’ll see 5:31 and then 6:28b. So that’s the last little snippet of verse in Daniel 6. And what I think is the proper first verse, 6:31—probably belongs at the beginning of chapter 6 rather than at the end of chapter 5. And when seen that way, then it’s very obvious, right? What we see matching up here: “Darius the Mede received the kingdom being about 62 years old” and then at the end “in the reign of Darius and in the reign of Cyrus the Persian.” You see, this is the way the text is concluded. So the bookends of this story are “Darius the Mede receiving the kingdom.” What does that mean? It doesn’t mean receiving the Persian kingdom because he’s already ahead of that, right? The story is he’s receiving now, not the Babylonian kingdom. He’s receiving the kingdom in the sense of the structure of empires that had been established by God as the dwelling place for the people of God for this period of time.

So the kingdom transcends the specific kingdom of the Persians or the kingdom of the Babylonians. The kingdom in its ultimate sense is not the kingdom of America. It’s the kingdom of Christ that rules overall. That’s what Darius receives. You see, he’s already had the Persian kingdom. Now he’s called Darius the Mede. And in the end of this, the final little snippet that pairs up with it, it says “in the reign of Darius and in the reign of Cyrus the Persian.” Now today most Bible scholars, evangelicals think that’s the same guy. Darius the Mede, Cyrus the Persian. Same guy. And you say, “Well, it says ‘and’ in verse 28.”

But that “and” in the Hebrew can be used in fancy terminology called “epexetically.” And what it means is the word “and” can even mean “even in.” Okay. So “in the reign of Darius, even in the reign of Cyrus the Persian.” It’s an equating phrase, not a contrast or a coupling conjunction phrase. Now it doesn’t always used that way, of course, but it can be used that way. And I’ve listed some notes in your outline from chapter 11 of Daniel. Don’t bother to turn there, but listen. Daniel 11 verse 1 and 2: “Also, in the first year of Darius the Mede, I even I stood up to confirm and strengthen him. And now I will tell you the truth. Behold, three more kings will arise in Persia, and the fourth shall be far richer than all they.”

So what’s the point? Well, in Daniel 11, we’re told that Darius the Mede will be followed by three more Persian kings. What that means is Darius the Mede is a Persian ruler. You see, so it seems like it’s very clear evidence that Darius and Cyrus—first king of Persia, the first emperor of Persia—which we know historically is the same guy. Darius is not a personal name like Richard or Bob or Dennis. Darius means “doer of good” and it’s more a title for these kings, not a personal name.

Darius, this doer of good, was actually a prince in—let’s see—the son of a ruler in Persia, king, and a woman. His mother was Persian. I’m sorry, his mother was Median from the Medes. The Medes were the dominant empire before the Persians come along and eventually conquer them. And now it becomes Persia. So you’ve heard of the Medial-Persian Empire. Well, first it’s the Medes, then it’s the Persians. And Darius himself, this first ruler, Cyrus, ruler of Persia, emperor of Persia—his mother was Median and his father was Persian. So he is a Mede. He’s the doer of good from the Medes, but he’s also Cyrus the Persian. It’s the same guy. That’s the point here.

And I’ve listed some other texts on your outline—some significant cross-references (I refer to them as) from the book of Isaiah and Jeremiah where the prophecies that are made much earlier than this period of time about the Babylonian Empire being judged by another empire conquering it refers to the conquering empire as “the Medes.” The Medes will come and, you know, be God’s instrument of vengeance against Belshazzar and the Babylonians. And so from one perspective that’s right—it is the Medes. And at the time of the giving of Isaiah’s and Jeremiah’s prophecy there was really no Persia. I mean, there was a Persia—very insignificant, small tribal group—but there was this Median Empire that would become the Medial-Persian Empire.

And so the prophecies in Isaiah and Jeremiah—you know, it’s a temporary language. It’s those Medes will be used by God to punish the Babylonians. But by the time that happens, the Medes now emerged with the Persians. The Persians are dominant. So all that’s brought together here in the first and ending verse. So it’s a nice structure here to show us that, you know, this all happens in the context of the Persian empire, but this is the fulfillment of the prophecies in Isaiah and Jeremiah.

And so we have “Darius, the Mede receives the kingdom,” and we’re “in the reign of Darius,” that is Cyrus. And so these cross-references are listed in your text.

Another thing we should note here is that Darius and Daniel, Cyrus, Darius/Cyrus and Daniel, they are not unacquainted with one another. Now, see, we’re reading this right? And what we just read was that Belshazzar has been killed as the Persians come in. And Belshazzar’s one of his three right-hand guys—two right-hand guys is Daniel. Now as I said, this Darius/Cyrus was actually, you know, his mother was a queenly mother in the context of Media. And then he’s also, you know, from the Persians. So when Daniel, who has been Nebuchadnezzar’s right-hand man for, you know, 40 or 50 years ago—he, Nebuchadnezzar actually married a close relative of Darius the Mede’s sister, I believe—so when Daniel is assisting Nebuchadnezzar as the right-hand guy in his empire he’s certainly going to have relationships with the rulers in Media and Persia. He’s going to know him when the rulers of Media and Persia come over and talk to Nebuchadnezzar. When he goes over there, Daniel, his right-hand guy, is going to be with him.

So he knows Darius. Darius knows him. As I said before, in Daniel chapter 8, when Daniel begins to describe this vision he has in Daniel 8, he says that when he got it in the vision he’s in Persia. And so, well, is he physically located there when the vision comes? Or when he receives this vision in the middle of the night, does he recognize Persia in the vision that’s been given to him? We don’t know for sure, but either way, the point is Daniel knows what Persia looks like. He’s been there, okay? He’s been on service for the king.

And at the end of chapter 8, after the vision is over, Daniel returns and begins again his service for the king, for the emperor. So the point is that Darius and Daniel know each other. I mean, why is Darius so friendly to Daniel? The context here—why doesn’t he kill Daniel when he takes over Belshazzar’s reign? And when he kills Belshazzar, probably kill the rest of Belshazzar’s assistants—not Daniel. The first thing he does is promote Daniel. Well, he knows who Daniel is. He’s already been—he knows the story of Daniel’s relationship to Yahweh. He knows that Nebuchadnezzar became converted to Yahweh. And he shows, you know, leanings that same way when he’s tricked into killing Daniel—you know, he mourns over it. He attempts to deliver him.

So there’s this relationship with the ruler that Daniel already has. And then finally, before we move on—I know there’s a lot of time to spend on a little couple of little snippets—but I think it’s kind of important: This is the only gentile king in the scriptures that we’re told how old he is, okay? So it says he receives the kingdom when he was about 62, right? We read that in the text, which I now have misplaced. But you see there in verse one, it says that he received the kingdom when he was 62. Well, this is the only king whose age we’re given—gentile king.

So the question is: Why is it given to us here? Well, in Daniel, and we’ll see this more as we get into the prophecies, what happens in the book of Daniel is that there’s 70 years that predate the return to Jerusalem. So if you have 62 years here and it’s leading up to the period of time in which they’ll be returned to Jerusalem, the idea is that the 70 years is about to find its fulfillment and they’re being sent back now to rebuild Jerusalem. So they’re in captivity for 70 years. And we’ll see later this is structured as seven and then 62 and then a final year. And so all this is beginning the Persians come and send back and they’re going to prepare the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem. So they’re going back.

And so Daniel’s life, kind of, you know, is a picture of all of that in this last year, in this last period of time leading up to all that. He’s going to go through tribulation. And what the prophecies will tell us is that there’s 70 weeks of years that will then take place leading up to the coming of Jesus Christ. And in the same way, in the last week of years, Jesus comes, right? And there’s a period of time in which he is in tribulation. So the text, if we understand the flow of the captivity and then being pictured later that the extended captivity, so to speak—the extended period of time leading up to the coming of Christ—will be 70 weeks. We’re now placed in that last period of time. And from the beginning verse then some very deliberate parallels start to be drawn between Daniel and Jesus Christ.

A very explicit type of Jesus Christ is given to us here because at the end of the 70 weeks, the prophecies of Daniel will culminate in Jesus Christ in and his being thrown into a den and his den being rolled a rock on top of and his den of lions where they’re trying—they killed him and buried him. Now this will be sealed, as it were, by the Roman Empire and the Jews conspiring against him. And he will be taken up out of that and be resurrected. You see. So some very deliberate parallels are going on here between Daniel and the Lord Jesus Christ.

So that’s how all of this begins. And then we read that Daniel prospers in the context of all of this. You know, the king knows Daniel already. That’s why he immediately puts him in a ruling position. But not only that, then Daniel does really well in that ruling position. And as a result of doing really well, the king then begins to exalt Daniel even further and he’s got a mind to put him over everything—to make him, you know, the ruler over everything under him, not just one of three guys.

So the exultation of Daniel is described in verses 1 to 3, and mirroring that is at the end of the tribulation, what happens? Well, we read in verse 28: “So this Daniel prospered.” It’s just like the earlier stories. He’s doing well because of certain things. Tribulation comes to try that. But at the end of all of that, he’s victorious. He’s the one still standing. And not only that, but he’s prospered. He gets even more authority, power, and rule. And so this is a picture of the individual Christian as well.

As we prosper in our work and God exalts us to more positions, opposition comes from ungodly men typically. And we come through that opposition doing things correctly, not fighting in the flesh, but through prayer and supplication. And the Lord God prospers us even further.

The next set of verses is verse 4. “The governors and satraps sought to find some charge against Daniel.” So, you know, it says he’s faithful. Daniel’s faithful. They can’t find any sin or charge or fault against him. Now, what are the charges or fault? So they’re trying to show something he did wrong in serving Darius—either, you know, unfaithfully, he’s messed up in some small way. Even they’re looking for some reason why. Because they’re driven by envy. They see the exaltation of Daniel and they don’t like it. They’re driven by envy and so they try to then find some reason to get him killed or get kicked out of his position of authority, but they can’t find it in him.

Matching with this is at the end: “Daniel is delivered from the power of the lions.” We’ll look later at Psalm 7 and 57, and very explicitly those psalms can be read in light of the book of Daniel. Perhaps Daniel sang them in the midst of his lion’s den. But there, and in other places, ungodly people are referred to as lions that are seeking to devour God’s people. So we have these men who are plotting against Daniel as personifications of a lion. Why? Because they become more beasts. They’ve denied the image of God in them as men. And they become like beasts.

As I said later in the text, they slander Daniel. They’re chewing up his bones. They’re chewing him in pieces by their slander to the king. Probably much more than we have written here, but they’re slandering Daniel. And in doing this, when we slander people like this, we become like beasts. We become like these ungodly men who are lions. And the power of the lion, the power of the beast is this deceit and false witness that we bring against each other. Where, you know, we’re not so harsh as to kill one another. They don’t just slit his throat in the night, but they do the same thing with their words. They kill his reputation. They try to bring him down. They try to get him killed through their false witness, you see.

And so these men in this matching are matched up as the power of the lions. And the Lord God is going to deliver Daniel out of the power of the lions. He’s going to deliver him from these men who come against him.

Then in the next section, in verse 6, “these governors and satraps thronged before the king.” Kind of interesting. Mighty men—they’re called here. These men, this word is used to refer to them as mighty men later in the text. But they’re not so mighty men. They have to come together, 120 of them, and throng in the presence of the king to intimidate him. None of them is strong enough on his own, but they have strength. They’re cowards, but they have, you know, courage in numbers, so to speak.

So they throng together before the king and they say, “King Darius live forever.” Matching that in 6:26b, then on your handout: “that in every dominion of my kingdom, men must tremble in fear before the God of Daniel. Not ‘and’ fears, but then who fear ultimately and tremble before the God of Daniel. He is the living God. Ultimately, the king lives forever if he honors the king, if he honors the living God. So it’s God who lives forever and his dominion shall endure to the ends of the earth.

Next week we’ll look at this progression of the pronouncements by Babylonian ruler Nebuchadnezzar and then now by Cyrus or Darius, and we’ll see there’s been a progression in the religious submission of the empire to Yahweh. It’s gotten better and better and better. And we don’t have time today to look at these in specifics. We’ll look at them next week. To say that this is really something now. Now this is not just “this is the God who has power more than other gods.” Not just “this is the God who can’t be spoken against.” Now this is “the God that all peoples, tribes, and nations have to fear and tremble before.” Do you see the progression?

So this is the living God.

Moving in from there, verse 7: “All the governors of the kingdom, the administrators, the satraps, the counselors and advisers consulted together to establish a royal statute, to make a firm decree.” We’ve seen this before in Daniel. The words of men, the decrees of men contrasted with the decree of God. They can’t make the decree firm enough to countervene or counterbalance against God’s decree. And so this decree is made and it’s the decree of the Medes and Persians which cannot be altered. So the idea is that once the king has said something, the laws of the Medes and Persians cannot be altered. We see the same thing of course in the book of Esther, right? A decree is made. These guys can kill all the Jews. He can’t counter that decree, but he can write another decree saying the Jews can defend themselves and kill those that attack them, which he does in the book of Esther.

So there’s a preeminence of law in this text. There’s this great authority of the law that condemns men to death that can’t be overturned. And this has significance for us in this text as well. But in any event, so we’ve got that going on.

And then matching with that at the end, there’s a new decree by Darius. Darius is changed at the middle of this—through his Passover. I mean, in a way it’s prefiguring the Passover of Daniel, the Passover, the coming out of the Jews from persecution. Ultimately the Passover affected by our savior that we experience every Lord’s day. But there’s a sense in which Cyrus is also going through a Passover and he’s changed. From this, he makes a decree first that isn’t righteous. But then he makes a decree at the end to tremble and honor the living God of heaven rather than him. So there’s that matching up.

Moving in, verse 9: “Therefore King Darius signed the decree.” And at the end of it: “Then King Darius wrote to all peoples, nations and languages that dwell in all the earth peace be multiplied to you.” So he’s signing and he’s writing. And what is this? Before he’d signed a decree to worship through him. Now he writes. And his transition—affected at the middle—he writes a decree to publish the gospel, that peace is multiplied to all the earth as we tremble in fear before Yahweh. You see, so this transition.

Moving in, verse 10: “Daniel knew the writing was signed. He went home in his upper room with his windows open toward Jerusalem. He knelt down on his knees three times that day and prayed, gave thanks before his God, as was his custom.”

And this is a long section here. The response to that is these men then assembling against him. And they go to the king. They say, “Hey, he’s broken your decree. You got to cast him into the den of lions.” The king says, “Well, yeah, the law can’t be altered.” And they answer and said before the king, you know, they say, “You made this decree.” He says, “Yeah, the law can’t be altered.” They said, “Well, Daniel, that captive from Judah, has broken your law.”

We’ve seen that before too, haven’t we? Where these cowards, who have courage as a group, then use their words to humiliate someone. This is what Belshazzar first said to Daniel, right? When Daniel is going to rescue him from his sins, the first thing that Belshazzar does is make fun of him. Oh, yeah. You’re that captain. You’re that slave we got from Judah. Even though he knew that Daniel had been Nebuchadnezzar’s right-hand man and all that stuff. And these guys know that Daniel’s the one that, you know, Cyrus is on the verge of making the head of all. But how do they refer to him? They demean him. He’s this captive from Judah.

But of course, for our purposes, that’s right because we’re sort of being reminded again that the Babylonian captivity is coming to its end and he’s going to be delivered from that. And so we see their purposes and God’s purposes in showing us this text.

You know, I want you to notice here this kind of back and forth that goes on in the context of these verses. It’s a long section of any of them here. And it sort of gives us the sense of the king trying to work with these men, not to have Daniel put to death. And yet they insist. They come back. He tries all day long to deliver Daniel. And they finally prevail upon him and he kills him. But notice that Daniel in this text—you know, it doesn’t say that he decided then to pray because they told him he couldn’t do it this way. No, it says that this was his custom. He’s not doing anything different. He’s not doing something to say “in your face, you 120 guys.” He’s not doing that. That’s the effect. But his desire is to honor and serve God. So that his religious practices, right, his prayer is not altered because of the pronouncement of the civil government.

He knows who the great ruler is and he’s got to honor and submit to him even if it means breaking the king’s law. You see? So if the king, our parents, our husbands, our wives ever want us to do something in opposition to God’s word, we can’t obey them. Whether they’re our boss, our husband, elders of the church, rulers in the state. Daniel’s a clear example here. That we don’t want to be, you know, rebellious, mean-spirited. Daniel’s none of those. He’s submissive and loves the king. And yet he’s going to honor the King of Kings, the Lord Jesus Christ, by doing what he always did.

Notice that he goes up, right? He goes up to a den, to a place, to a chamber that has windows open. He’s going to have to go down to a place where windows are closed, right? And then be brought back up. So there’s this kind of connection between his chamber with windows open and he’s going to be cast into the chamber, the den where the windows are closed against him. He’s going to go through a dark night.

That’s what it is—all night long along with a ton of lions. A bunch of them. I mean, 120 of these guys with their wives and children are going to be cast down into this lion’s den at the end. And the lions are going to eat them up before they hit bottom as they’re thrown into the den. Got to be a lot of lions in there. So Daniel’s being thrown into a place with a lot of lions clamped off against light. He’s being buried, right? And he’s going to be resurrected.

But it begins with this seeking God. They’re seeking Daniel’s death. They’re seeking to put Daniel to death. And the word for Daniel praying here is an unusual word, not the usual word. It means he’s seeking God. You see? So the question is: What are you seeking? Your own well-being by destroying others? Or are you seeking God and bringing all your thoughts and attitudes in submission to him?

Well, at the end of the day, if you’re seeking yourself, your own glory, the destruction of others—chomp, chomp, tight bite—you go down. Those mighty men don’t stand. But the mighty man is the one who goes up into the presence of God, worshiping him, seeking him. And he’s the one that then gets his prayers answered to sustain him so that the mouths of the lions are closed in the dark night of his soul, we might say.

So these connections are made in this text.

And at the end of it, matching up with all of this long set of verses here: In verse 24, “the king gave the command and they brought those men who had accused Daniel, who had chewed the pieces of Daniel literally. They cast them into the den of lions.”

Now remember we said this is the sixth commandment, right? Don’t kill, don’t commit manslaughter, don’t put men unjustly to death. And that connects up with the commandment to not bear false witness. In Deuteronomy 19:14-21, the case law exposition of the sixth commandment says that if you lie in court to try to get somebody else damaged and it’s found out, the judge is to do to you whatever you wanted done to the person you’re lying against. So I sue you. I take you to court. I want $500 from you and I lie. I make up a story. When the judge finds out that I made up a story, well, I wanted 500 from you. But now you get 500 from me. Whatever penalty I wanted from you is what is exacted to me. It’s the lex talionis. It’s the law of the hand. It’s eye for eye, tooth for tooth.

These men desired that the lions chew up Daniel and they lied to accomplish that. And when it is obvious that Daniel is the one who is right in the context of this, they trap him. Then what happens? Their false testimony that Daniel was not submissive, had no regard for the king, is shown to be a lie. And as a result, what happens to them is what they had planned for Daniel. Over and over again in the Psalms, the snare they set for the godly becomes the snare they fall into. The den they had prepared for Daniel to be chomped up in, they’re thrown into that den and they’re chomped up. And these things match up. You see?

Their accusation against Daniel matches up with the other bookend. God’s judgment comes against them in a very specific way that Deuteronomy tells us should happen to them by their sin. So that happens in the next section that we looked at here as we move toward the center, the heart of this text.

Next thing in verse 16 matches up with verse 21. “The king gave the command. They brought Daniel. They cast him into the lion’s den.” So the king commands, throw him down into the den of lions. Matching up with verse 21: “In verse 21, Daniel says to the king, ‘King live forever.’ This is as the king goes to meet Daniel after he’s been spent the night in there. And ‘Are you still alive? Was your God able to deliver you?’ Daniel? My God sent his angel, shut the lion’s mouth so that they have not hurt me because I was found innocent before him. And also, oh king, I have done no wrong before you.’”

See that? Why is he delivered? He’s delivered because he’s found innocent to God and men. To God and the men that represent God’s rule and authority. He had no disregard for the king. He loved the king more than the other men. He knew the king had done something wrong—trying to say that prayer had to go through him. And his job was to show the king that wrong. Not in a rebellious way, but in a submissive way. And he does that.

And so then the king then gives command. He’s exceedingly glad, right? And he commands that they should take Daniel up out of the den. So he commands that he be thrown down into the tomb. And he commands that he be brought back up and raised up from the den. So Daniel was taken up out of the den. Says it twice. Doesn’t want us to miss it. This is a resurrection story. It’s connected with what will happen with Jesus in the 70th week that Daniel will prophesy about in these next few chapters. What’s going to happen is Jesus will be cast in. Jesus will be raised up, right? And so Daniel is cast in and raised up by the same man, the king here, who comes to conversion, we can say, in a sense here through this pivot at the middle.

What does it say? “No injury was ever found on him because he believed in his God.” We’re noting all of these. We’ll note it at the end in the major lessons. There are specific things that Daniel is like—that this text says—is the reason why he’s resurrected. And ultimately we can see beyond this to the greater Daniel, Jesus Christ, who was totally innocent. But this was a real man. The type, you know, is not a made-up fictional story. This is a real guy like you and me. Okay? And yet he does all these things faithfully, innocently, et cetera. And this is why he’s given more power and authority and delivered from those who plot against him.

Okay? Continue to move into the center. “King spoke saying to Daniel, ‘You’re God whom you serve continually.’” See another qualifier. What’s this guy like, Daniel? He’s very important. What’s he like? Well, now we’re told he serves God continually, right? “King says this, ‘He will deliver you.’ The king gives assurance to Daniel before he throws him into the den that God will deliver him. Doesn’t know what manner, but he believes already in Yahweh. It’s kind of like, you know, the man who told Jesus, ‘I believe. Help me in my unbelief.’ He believes, but then he spends the night troubled without being able to sleep. Help me in my unbelief. And then the next day he’s already said, ‘God will deliver you.’ But he says, ‘Daniel, did God deliver you? Has he delivered you?’ You see, help me in my unbelief. Very much who we are, right?

So the thing that connects up with this—he cries out: “The lamenting voice to Daniel. The king spoke saying to Daniel: ‘Has the living God, has your God whom you serve continually, been able to deliver you from the lions?’”

And then moving toward the center, after the king says God will spare you, it says in verse 17: “A stone was brought, laid on the mouth of the den. The king sealed it with his own signet ring, with the signets of his lords, that the purpose concerning Daniel might not be changed.”

Sealed into the cave. And then connecting with this in verse 19: “The king arose very early in the morning. Went in haste to the grave where they had laid him. No, went in haste to the den of lions. And when he came to the den”—and the center happens—but you see, he’d set his seal. He’d gone to that cave where the stone was rolled on at the den of lions. He’d sealed it. He’d gone right up to it. Now he comes back to it—after the middle section—to where the seal was and calls out to Daniel. Opens it up. Calls out, “Did God deliver you?” You see, so they match up here again, bringing us to the heart of the matter from one perspective in this text, which is verse 18:

“The king went to his palace, spent the night fasting. No musicians, no amusements were brought before him. Also his sleep went from him.”

Nighttime deliverance. And this is what we’re called at the center of the text to regard as kind of the heart of the matter. We can identify with this king. Our sleep leaves us. We become troubled. You know, there’s kind of almost a twinning here between Darius and Daniel. I mean, they’re kind of, you know, we can see elements of ourselves in Daniel, elements of ourselves in Darius for a purpose. And the Lord God is telling us something, I think, very significant at the heart of this text.

That long nighttime waiting for the deliverance of God to be affected for both Daniel but also for Darius, who desired with all his heart to believe that Yahweh would bring him out. That long wait is what our lives are normally like. We come to the position of seeing deliverances, but it takes a long time to get there frequently. And the king is awake all night long. And it’s not a period of time in which he’s playing musical instruments for diversion. He’s focused on his trial. He’s focused on his lamenting. He’s focused upon his trust in Yahweh and hoping that Yahweh will bring Daniel back up to him, whom he loves and whom he knows the spirit of God is in. This man—that’s what he said earlier. That’s why he wanted to promote Daniel, because the spirit of God is in him.

So it takes us to this center of the text. And the center of the text—so much we can look at the obscure 62 at the beginning verse, right? And you go, “I didn’t understand that.” Well, my point was: It just begins to make the connection to Jesus when he comes to go down and up for us. But now it’s not some obscure 62-year-old gentile king going on now. It is so obvious that you can’t hardly read this text and not immediately start to think, as I just said: “He ran with haste to the place where they had laid him.” No, he ran to the lion’s den. It’s so obvious to us, right? Daniel’s put down. And early in the morning the king gets up and races to the tomb. You see? The way the women early in the morning and the disciples go to Jesus’s tomb where he was laid, where the power of the envious dogs who struck out at him was conquered through the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is a gospel story. It is gospel because it leads to the proclamation of the good news to all peoples, languages, and nations. And the good news that all must fear and tremble before him. It’s gospel, good news to the whole world. And it’s gospel because it’s focused upon the person and work of Jesus Christ who will suffer and die for us in the context of his tomb, raised up that we might be raised up. The way Darius was exceedingly glad and joyful for the resurrection of Daniel.

Let’s talk about some major lessons in this text.

First of all, we have, as I’m saying here, another grand and glorious proclamation of the gospel. Don’t miss it. We saw it in the mouths of Nebuchadnezzar. We saw that Babylon was brought to proclaiming the gospel to all peoples, tribes, nations, and tongues. And next week we’ll look at how some of the very language that Darius uses is identical to the language of Nebuchadnezzar, but it builds on it. So this is even more grand and glorious than what we had in Nebuchadnezzar, which was a wondrous thing.

So this is another grand and glorious proclamation that peace is multiplied to all the world through the coming death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. That God does these wondrous things in heaven and on earth. You see, glorious, grand proclamation. And this time the focus is on the substitutionary atonement of the greater Daniel.

Now on your outline we’ve got these matchings up of these six stories. And you know, whenever we forget the structure of the six chapters, but when we read the story of Daniel in the lion’s den, we immediately—you boys and girls must think about this, right? You must say, “Well, yeah, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they were kind of in the same situation, right? They were thrown into the fiery furnace and they came out unharmed. Daniel’s thrown into the lion’s den. He comes out unharmed.” Three guys—Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. There’s a fourth in there like the Son of God. And with Daniel, the angel of the Lord comes and stops the mouths of the lions, right? Stops the slanderers. Stops the lions from chomping on him. So a very connectedness.

But what’s different? What’s different is that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego are able to encourage one another. They’re going through trial and tribulation, their time of distress jointly with other people, okay? But not so Daniel. Daniel’s a picture certainly of us going through trial and tribulation. But even clearer now—what Daniel is a picture of is the one who will come who will die for us in our stead. Who will make atonement for our sins by all of our hopes and dreams being focused upon him and through him fulfilling that law perfectly for us—the law that cannot be changed—and yet coming up out of there, taking the penalties for that law upon himself.

So I think that the difference here is that now we have a focusing down to one man who is an obvious, overt type of the Lord Jesus Christ who will die and be raised up, not just so that we can be happy about things, but so that the whole world may be changed as a result of the proclamation of this grand and glorious gospel. That we may be sustained in our individual trials and tribulations by the work of the one who provided the substitutionary atonement in our stead. Jesus dies in our stead in that den on the cross and then buried for us and raised up for our justification.

So here at the conclusion of this first half of Daniel, the focus becomes very clear and intense upon the person and work of the coming greater Daniel, the Lord Jesus Christ—the antitype of which Daniel is the type—who will die and be buried and raised up for us. This is the gospel. This is what we delight in and sing about and proclaim on the Lord’s day and live out in the rest of our days as well.

So it focuses on that. And as we’ll see, the prophetic section, the prophetic half of the book of Daniel will focus on the same thing. It’ll focus upon the work of Jesus Christ. Not some far-off distant thing, but the focus on the work of Jesus who comes and dies and is raised up for us. And everything else is the working out of that great gospel message.

Now it has implications for us. Clearly seeing Jesus in this doesn’t mean we don’t see Daniel. We still see Daniel. And we see the sort of men you and I should be and the sort of Christians we should be. Boys and girls, women and men. We see Daniel who was placed before us certainly as a type of Christ—innocent, flawless, all that stuff—but who was a real man.

So I’ve listed a few characteristics here on your outline.

Daniel attains excellence. Remember at the beginning of these stories, back in chapter one, he really did well at school, right? He worked hard. He got all A’s. He’s top of the class by tenfold. Well, here the same thing’s true. He’s exalted. He has excellence. And he has excellence specifically, the text told us, because the spirit of God is in him. Boys and girls, men and women—this should be us. This is us in Christ. We’re to be people of excellence in this world. We should be the most excellent at whatever God puts our hand to do. Whether it’s peeling potatoes or writing computer programs or doing our schoolwork or cleaning the dishes. Don’t leave the spot on the dish. Attain to excellence. Make that your goal because that’s what we’re supposed to be like.

How do we do it? What is it like? Well, there’s some characteristics I’ve given for you. This, by the way, I think would make an excellent article if some businessman wrote it up to say, “What should our employees look like? How should we, as managers of businesses, be?” We think of Daniel as the prophet. Let’s think about him as a vocational guy. He’s doing a job for the king. He’s an administrator, a bureaucrat, a ruler, whatever you want to call him. He had a real job, okay? Like Laura Bush had a—I shouldn’t have thrown that in. He had a real job, not just, you know, a prophet. Important as that was. And really most of his life that’s recorded for us. The implication in the book of Daniel is that this is what he does most of the time—is advise the king. Sometimes that’s interrupted by a vision. Then he gets back to the king’s matter.

So how did he do that? Well, he was full of the spirit. And we know he was full of the spirit by these evidences, you see?

As employees, workers, we should be faithful. The one thing it’s required of stewards is faithfulness. Be faithful to the task. Be on time. Be a little before time getting to work. Faithful to wanting to serve your employer well, to serve your employees well, and to govern them correctly. Faithfulness is at the heart of Daniel’s exhibition of a spirit-filled life. We want to be spirit-filled. We are spirit-filled. What are the manifestations of the spirit? Faithfulness. Don’t say you’re going to do something and don’t do it. Follow through on your word. This is easy stuff, but it’s very important. It’s a demonstration of our faithfulness, our belief that God is. And Hebrews says that he’s a rewarder of those that do good. You see, it’s not just believing in God and thinking, “Well, the blood of Jesus will cover everything.” No, God will temporally reward or not reward you in terms of how you do your job. And that’s proper.

We’re faithful—enduring difficulty, rushing out the door to get to work on time because we believe that God is and that he’s a rewarder of those who do right, who follow through with their word and get to work on time, right? That’s faithfulness, you see? And that’s faithfulness—is following through in the task that God has called us to do because we believe in a God in heaven. And the spirit of God urges us to be faithful in whatever we put our hand to do. We should be known as men and women of our word. We recite that, you know, “Don’t swear at all. Let your yes be yes, your no be no.” Our word—we have to be faithful to our word.

Daniel was faithful. Daniel in verse 4 said there was no error or fault found in him. This is qualification of elders, 1 Timothy 3, but it should be true of all of us. Can someone outside the church bring a just charge against you? If so, that’s not good. Can you be a person that is innocent, that has no charge or fault found in you? Yeah, I mean, not perfectly. We all have elements of sin in terms of motivation, and we might fall short of the mark. But can your life generally be one where you haven’t slept with somebody you shouldn’t sleep with? Where you haven’t taken what isn’t yours? Where you haven’t been lazy and stolen time from your boss? Or you’ve been a diligent worker and generally not made mistakes every day you go to work?

If Daniel was the guy that made goofups every time he did his job, he would not have been said to have been without error or fault. Our life should be characterized by getting to the next stop—if you’re a FedEx driver—on time, okay? No excuses. You do it. Not picking on anybody. I’m just saying that in the little details, the vocations we have, we’re called to faithfulness. We’re called to be men and women, boys and girls, in whom there is no error or fault that somebody can’t bring a charge against us.

He had customary thanksgiving, supplication, and prayer. He regularly didn’t do it when the problems happen. Yeah, when troubles happen we should give thanks to God. That’s what Daniel did. It says his prayer was one of seeking God. Supplicating him was another term used. And giving thanks, okay? We give thanks in the midst of troubles. But not just that—the only time we ever give thanks to God and pray is in troubles. He may well not hear an answer. Bible says that in Proverbs. But Daniel, explicitly as a spirit-filled man, demonstrated by the fact that he’s a man of prayer. This was his custom—to pray three times at three set times throughout the day, seeking God’s face, thanking God.

John S., the elder of the church, Church of the King in Sacramento—when we did our elder evaluation, his wife said, “Well, you know, I’ll know that something’s wrong with John and he needs some talking to by one of you elders. If I get up in the morning and I don’t see him on his knees because that’s the way he starts the day.” Faithful men are praying men who regularly, as Daniel did, engage in thanksgiving even in the midst of trouble.

These lions are snapping at him. They want to kill him. They’re lying about his regard for the king. And he doesn’t moan and complain. I’ve heard people say, this, rant to God. I don’t understand this. Maybe I need instruction. But Daniel does not rant to God. Now, brothers and sisters, Daniel knows the one he’s coming before. He’s not going to grumble in dispute and be a black coal coming before the face of the shining bright God. He’s going to come with light. He’s going to give thanks even in the context of difficulties. And that’s who we should be. Spirit-filled people who are faithful, never at fault, customarily given to thanksgiving, supplication, and seeking God.

Who assures moloch worship? Daniel won’t worship the king. He’ll serve the king, but he will not worship him. And we need to understand that this text—I could—we could preach a series of sermons on this text. How analogous it is today where all the gods are okay as long as you submit ultimately to Caesar, ultimately to the civil laws of our country, ultimately the king is to be worshiped the way that these men wanted Cyrus to be worshiped.

Moloch is from the same root as Milcom or Malcolm, which means “king.” Moloch worship is king worship, state worship. And that’s what these evil men were engaged in. They wanted all worship to go through the king. He had to approve it all. You see, Daniel was filled with the spirit of God and would not get close to moloch worship. You see, he wouldn’t do it. He honored God’s authorities. He doesn’t—even though this king has made a horrible thing, he’s done a decree that he can’t get out of. He’s been tricked, but he’s got to put Daniel to death. Daniel doesn’t rail against him. “Live, king, forever,” he says in the morning. First words out of Daniel’s mouth, right? What would you have said? Guy says, “Well, I hate to have him. I’m going to have to kill you. Going to put you in this hole. I’m going to send down some black adders. They’re going to bite you. You’ll be dead in the morning.” And he comes back in the morning. Well, did you make it? What’s the first words out of your mouth?

See, Daniel—of course, part of this is their relationship. He knows the king has been tricked. But see, he’s submissive to authorities. He doesn’t rail against the king. His whole life has been given to the service of godless men frequently, right? He serves them honorably and respectfully, not violating the law of God, but still a spirit-filled man honors God’s authorities.

He’s innocent before God and men. That’s the word that’s used. Can a person be innocent before God and men? Yeah, he can be generally so—not perfectly, again. Ultimately that’s a picture of Christ. But it’s also an example to us. Our lives should be generally ones in which we’re innocent of wrongdoing or crime, not innocent just in his attitude toward God. He immediately says in terms of you, oh king, that’s where the slander had been—that he was not innocent relative to his submission to the king. And he says, “No, I was. Are you? And if not, you need to repent today as you come forward in response to God’s word.”

We’ve engaged in sinful attitudes toward those that God used to govern in us. If we’ve been something less than innocent, the way we treat our brothers and sisters, boys and girls, parents, children—we need to repent of these things because the spirit-filled life is one in which we’re innocent before God and men.

He believed God. This is what I said earlier—faithful earlier. Believes God. He believes that God is the ruler of all things and he’ll reward us for doing what’s well. And then he, according to two different testimonies given in the text, he served God not on Sundays alone, not when he got home from the office, not just before he went to bed, not just at the beginning of the day—would he pray and then serve God. He served God continually. This is the model for us.

Now he served God continually and as a result of that suffered those who hated God. Whenever people act in this way—to the degree that we are blessed and prospered by God and being spirit-filled and exemplars as Daniel was—we can expect opposition. So we put out a biblical message about, you know, the truth of certain political issues. And people? You can expect opposition. These men just like those who crucified our savior are driven by envy. They want what you have but they refuse to submit to the God who gives it all to you. And as a result they will never have it. And as a result of that they simply want to kill you. And in our day they may not actually strike at you, but they’ll try to kill your reputation. Another way of bringing death to bear.

Envy is set in motion by the righteousness of God’s people as it was here. And as a result of that envy and as a result of our own sin, we could say, we have difficult times that come to us. I won’t have time to read Psalm 7 and 57, but I would highly recommend them for Lord’s Day consideration as you go into the rest of your day today. Psalm 7 and Psalm 57 are very much retellings of this story—that it is our deeds before God that is linked to his rescue of us. His judgment upon those who are envious against us will mean they’ll fall into their very same traps.

Finally though, and I’ve made the connection between Daniel and Jesus, but again, his aloneousness in this den, his aloneousness—he doesn’t have friends around him. This is emblematic of what some refer to as the dark night of the soul. We can gather solace from this text for our dark nights of the soul. For there is indeed, as Isaiah says, grass even in the habitation of dragons.

The center of the text is not, you know, resurrection. The center of the text is the dark night of the soul for Darius. And no doubt an element of the dark night of the soul for Daniel as he sits throughout the night wondering, “Will God really? Is this the way God will deliver me or will he deliver me by killing me and then bringing me forth?” He doesn’t know really. God is able to deliver him, but like Shadrach, Meshach,