VIA | Same God | Daniel in the Lions' Den | Kris Bowman

You're listening to audio from the via.

If you'd like information on how to get connected, tap the link to our website in the show notes.

Hey guys, um, my name's Kinsey.

Um and about two years ago, um I found myself uh with no community.

Um I was in the I started working for the ministry and um I thought I could do it by myself.

Uh I didn't have anybody to talk to.

Anytime I went through something, I would keep it hidden because of shame and guilt and doubt and all the things.

Uh but over time, you know, I got tired of it.

And um I cried out to God and I was just like, God, I need I need something.

I don't I don't know what to do anymore.

And over time, um I just found myself saying yes to showing up to places.

Um I remember I went to a UTC FCA event, shout out to them, and Chris was there, and he was telling me about Bia.

And at that point in time, I was just like, I need community, I need to show up to places.

And um over time I started to find community myself even here.

And um yeah, there's a reason why we say we experience God best in community because it's true.

Um we have people having people in your life to be able to call you out and sharpen you um with God's word.

Uh it's amazing.

And it saved my life, and it can do the exact same thing for you.

So our sermon tonight is coming from Daniel 6, uh, verses 16 through 23, and it says, Then the king commanded, and Daniel was brought and cast into the den of lions.

The king declared to Daniel, May your God whom you serve, continually deliver you.

And a stone was brought and laid on the mouth of the den, and the king sealed it with his own signet and with the signet of the of his lords, that nothing might be changed concerning Daniel.

Then the king went to his palace and spent the night fasting, and no diversions were brought to him, and sleep fed fled from him.

Then at day break then at break of day, the king arose and went in haste to the den of lions.

As he came near to the den where Daniel was, he cried out in a tone of anguish.

The king declared to Daniel, O Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you serve continually, been able to deliver you from the lions?

Then Daniel said to the king, O king, live forever.

My God sent his angel and shut the lion's mouth, and they have not harmed me.

Because I was found blameless before him and also before you.

O king, I have done no harm.

Then the king was exceedingly glad and commanded that Daniel be taken up out of the den.

So Daniel was taken up out of the den, and no kind of harm was found on him because he has trusted he trusted the Lord his God.

That ain't the word.

But anyways.

Um what do I say?

I'm sorry.

This is the word of the Lord.

All right, you guys can have a seat.

I thought, like, the angels were gonna start coming down when the piano went up for a second, you know.

Uh, but if you have your Bibles, that is gonna be our passage tonight.

And we are continuing this collection of talks through the Old Testament where we're looking at some famous and familiar stories to see how they point us to Jesus and then to pull some principles and takeaways for our lives today.

Now, before we begin tonight, I do have to address one thing.

I've had about eight people come up to me and say, Chris, I thought Jersey night was last week.

You're wearing the same thing that you wore last week.

Number one, uh, my wife is the first one who told me that when I said, Hey, can you make sure to bring my Braves jersey for tonight?

Uh but two, uh, some of you don't know this, but the real ones know that the Braves are playing right now in an elimination game in the playoffs.

And so we're gonna throw up some prayers for them maybe a little later tonight.

But uh we are looking at the story of Daniel in the Lion's Den.

Uh and if you are unfamiliar with the book of Daniel, there's a little bit of background information that we're gonna need to cover.

And so in 605 BC, uh, this is sixth century before Christ, um, there was this ancient empire called Babylon.

Uh, and they had a king whose name was Nebuchadnezzar, and he conquered Jerusalem, the city of the Jews, and he began a time in Jewish history that was known as the Babylonian exile.

And then he took some of the more gifted and young Israelites back to Babylon to serve in the king's palace and to help the kingdom flourish.

And so these young Israelites they found themselves pulled away from their homes and stuck in a foreign land full of people who didn't know God and they didn't respect or honor God.

Our God Daniel is one of those young men.

And Daniel 1 says that God gave Daniel a special wisdom and understanding that was far above anyone else in the king's palace.

Daniel 2 says that Daniel had prudence and discretion, that he consistently sought the Lord in prayer, and the Lord gave Daniel a special ability to understand dreams and visions.

And so what we learn about Daniel is that he was a faithful follower of the Lord.

And Nebuchadnezzar and the rest of the palace officials, they kind of notice these God-given qualities, these gifts in Daniel, and Daniel actually finds favor with them.

And so Nebuchadnezzar, the king, he actually appoints David to be the ruler of the city of Babylon and the highest official in his court, which was like revolutionary at the time.

It's crazy.

But after Nebuchadnezzar dies, uh a guy named Darius takes over, and he also loves Daniel.

And so Daniel, he maximizes his gifts and his position in order to help the city flourish.

And so it's likely that Daniel probably would have heard the words of the prophet Jeremiah at this time, who was alive, and so the book of Jeremiah would have been written about this time.

And so the Lord spoke through Jeremiah.

He said this in chapter 29.

He says, Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.

In verse 7, he says, Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf.

For in its welfare you will find your welfare.

And so Daniel, he found himself planted in the middle of a culture that did not know the God that he served.

But Daniel knew God, and he faithfully served the people around him, and because of his faithfulness, God was going to use him to make the Lord's name known to those people around him.

And now it doesn't take us long to start to see some similarities between the situation that we find ourselves in and the one that Daniel finds himself in.

Like there's all kinds of people and environments and ideas and pressures that are trying to pull us away from Jesus.

But what we're gonna see tonight is that God is always in the business of growing our relationship with him.

And as he grows our relationship with him, he starts to build our character.

And when he builds our character, he then uses us to influence our culture.

And so what we're gonna learn from the book of Daniel and from our story tonight is that fellowship with God builds faithfulness in our lives, and our faithfulness often becomes our witness to an unbelieving world.

And so our story tonight is gonna start in chapter six, verse one.

Here's what verse one says it says, It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom a hundred and twenty satraps, these were like governors at the time, to be throughout the whole kingdom, and over them three high officials, of whom Daniel was one, to whom these satraps should give an account, so that the king might suffer no loss.

Now, just so we're clear, what we're talking about here is taxes.

The king did not want to miss out on any money from the people.

And so Uncle Darius, like Uncle Sam, was gonna get his taxes.

Uh they aren't a new thing, they were alive and well back then, they're alive and well right now.

We don't have to like them, but they're in the Bible.

So, verse 3.

Then this Daniel he became distinguished above all other high officials and satraps, because an excellent spirit was in him.

And the king planned to set him over the whole kingdom.

Now, let's pause for a second.

You and I, when we enter into the culture, we are called to enter into the culture with an excellent spirit.

We are called to do things with excellence.

Like if everything that we do is a representation of our Lord, of the one that we follow, then what does our work say about Jesus?

The Apostle Paul, he wrote in Colossians chapter 3, this is verse 17, he said, Whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

Colossians 3 · chapter mention

And then in verses 22 to 24, he said, bond servants, this would be kind of like an employee today, he said, Obey in everything those who are your earthly masters or your bosses, not by way of eye service, so that they would see you, not as people pleasers, so that you would get something out of it, but with sincerity of heart, fearing the Lord.

Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the inheritance as your reward.

You are serving the Lord Christ.

And so when we work, when we serve, it is actually Christ that we are serving.

And so, if we're looking for kind of modern day application for us right now, it would be get a job and do it with excellence.

You would be wise to remember that in the garden, like when everything was perfect, you know, Adam was given a job.

Jobs are a good thing, they're not a result of the fall, as many of us tend to believe.

We are meant to work, we're meant to labor and to do that with excellence.

And honestly, if I can if I can shoot you straight for just a minute, it's never been easier for you to stand out in our culture of work.

Like people are looking for people who show up on time, who do the work that they ask them to do, when they ask them to do it.

And really, they just want you to work hard.

You don't even have to be good at the job because most of them think that they can teach you.

And so, anyway, that was for free.

But we live in a self-serving kind of instant gratification society.

We want our jobs to serve us rather than to serve people through our jobs.

And we want to be great at things immediately without actually putting in the work to be great.

But a spirit of excellence, it looks different.

It means that we work hard, not because it's gonna get us ahead, not because it's gonna make us more money, or it's gonna elevate our status in the company, but it means working hard because your hard work is an act of worship to the Lord.

And so, do you have a spirit of excellence?

Do you view your work as an act of worship to Almighty God?

Going on in verse 4, the officials they get a little bit jealous of Daniel.

And it says, Then the high officials and the satraps sought to find a ground for complaint against Daniel with regard to the kingdom.

And so don't be surprised when you do things with excellence around a culture that doesn't.

Don't be surprised if they start to get upset with you.

But they can find no ground for complaint or any fall because he was faithful.

And no error or fault was found in him.

I want you to see that Daniel had competence, but he also had character.

He had a spirit of excellence, but he also had a spirit of faithfulness.

And it was his character, his faithfulness, that led him to work hard, to work with excellence, to seek the welfare of the people around him so that they might come to know God.

And so this is ultimately what made Daniel different.

It was that he knew God.

Yes, he he lived and he worked with excellence, he maximized the gifts that God had given him, he was honorable, he respected those in authority above him.

That's a word for some of you tonight, but he was trustworthy.

He was faithful, and he was blameless before God and before men.

And so, if someone were to take an audit of your life, if they were gonna look at every aspect of your character, what might they find?

You know, a life verse for me is 1 Timothy chapter 4, verse 12.

1 Timothy 4:12

It says, Don't let anybody look down on you because you are young, but set for them an example in speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity.

The question that I have for you tonight is what is the example that you're setting to those around you?

Who does your example point to?

Verse 5 says, Then these men said, We shall not find any ground for complaint against this Daniel unless we find it in connection with the law of his God.

What they're saying is they're like, we can't trip this guy up unless we can scheme up like a lose-lose scenario of some sort.

But what I don't want you to miss is the bigger statement that's being made here.

These officials, they're finding out that they cannot find a contradiction between Daniel's faith and his life.

They can find no contradiction between his faith and his life.

And so, if someone were to come after you, if they were gonna try to take you out, would they have to resort to attacking your convictions?

Attacking your faith because they couldn't find anything else.

Daniel's public life was consistent, it was a result of his private life.

We're gonna come back to that in a minute.

Verse 6 it says, Then these high officials and satraps came by agreement to the king, and he said to them, O King Darius, live forever.

All the high officials of the kingdom, the prefects and the satraps, the counselors, the governors, we have all 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 lion's den.

Now, one thing on that our world loves to speak the language of exaggeration.

Oh, everybody is thinking this.

Oh, nobody actually thinks that.

Everybody else is doing this thing.

No, nobody else is actually doing that like you are.

That's exactly what these officials are doing.

They're saying, hey, we all talked, you know, and we all decided that this was gonna be best.

We kind of all said this.

And so now, O king, establish the injunction and sign the document so that it cannot be changed according to the law of the Medes and the Persians, which cannot be revoked.

Therefore, King Darius signed the document and injunction.

So, let's pause for a second, let's get a little bit more context.

What they're trying to do is they're trying to get Darius to pass a law that nobody could pray to their God unless it went through him.

Unless it went through King Darius.

Now, there's a couple things that you need to know.

First, in this ancient kind of Medo-Persian culture, when an ordinance or a law was passed, it was unable to be changed.

Even by the king, if he signed it.

Once it was signed, it was set in stone.

And second, you need to know that Darius wasn't really trying to be like anti-God when he signed this injunction.

What Darius really wanted was for the people's allegiance to ultimately be to him.

He didn't want to feel like other people's gods were over him in terms of authority.

He wanted to be the ultimate authority in people's lives.

So essentially what he was saying was like, yeah, you can you can do your thing with your God.

You can worship your God as long as it fits what the state wants to do, as long as it fits what our empire wants you to do.

And so if your God falls under the king, it's all good.

But if it's God at the top and man and king down here, then we've got a problem.

And this is where Daniel had a problem.

Because Daniel can serve the king, he can honor the king, he can work for the king, he just can't worship the king.

And so verse 10 it says, When Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he went to his house where he had his windows and his upper chamber open towards Jerusalem.

He got down on his knees three times a day and he prayed and gave thanks before his God as he had done previously.

Now there is a ton.

This is really where we're gonna anchor in for tonight.

There's so much happening right here.

But first, the Bible says that Daniel he went to his house and he prayed towards Jerusalem.

And to say that is actually an interesting detail because what it's telling us is that Daniel knew God's word, that he knew the scriptures.

Because back in 1 Kings chapter 8, just a little bit earlier, if we could backtrack a few years, King Solomon, the son of David, he builds this temple for the Lord.

1 Kings 8 · chapter mention

And as he's praying this prayer of dedication over the temple to the Lord, it becomes almost prophetic in nature.

Look at what he says starting in verse 46.

He says, When your people sin against you, for there's no one who does not sin, and you become angry with them and give them over to their enemies, who take them captive in their own lands, far away or near, and if they have a change of heart in the land where they are held captive, and repent and plead with you in the land of their captors, and say, We have sinned, we have done wrong, we have acted wickedly.

And if they turn back to you with all their heart and soul in the land of their enemies who took them captive, and pray to you toward the land that you gave their ancestors, toward the city that you have chosen, and the temple I have built for your name, then from heaven, your dwelling place, hear their prayer and their plea, and uphold their cause.

Forgive your people who have sinned against you, forgive all the offenses they have committed against you, and cause their captors to show them mercy, for they are your people and your inheritance, whom you brought out of Egypt.

And so Daniel, he knew the word of God because he had spent time learning the word of God.

And it was in those moments as he spent time learning the word of God that he began to get to know God himself, that he began to trust him.

And it was because Daniel knew God, because he knew the promises found in Scripture, that he was able to have hope for the future.

And it was Daniel's hope for the future built on God's promises that enabled him to be faithful in the present.

And so here's the application for us our hope for the future enables us to be faithful in the present.

Our hope for the future enables us to be faithful in the present, and our hope for the future is built on a relationship with God and knowledge of his word.

Daniel, he was able to trust God because he knew God.

He was able to walk in obedience to the word of God because he had spent time learning the word of God.

And it was the promise of future hope found in God's word that enabled him to be faithful in his current moment.

But I think the most important phrase in this whole verse is the last five words.

It says he got down on his knees three times a day and he prayed and gave thanks before his God as he had done previously.

As he had done previously.

This wasn't a new thing for Daniel.

He didn't just run to the prayer closet whenever things got hard.

No, it was his normal practice.

He didn't just turn to God only when he needed help.

No, it was his normal practice.

And he didn't pray only after he figured out that he couldn't do it on his own.

No, it was his normal practice.

As he had done previously.

And so when the moment came when Daniel's faith was going to be tested, when it came time for Daniel to have courage in his convictions to stand firm in his faith, his private fellowship with God had already formed the faithfulness that the public moment required.

And so listen, you cannot wait until the storm hits to start building your foundation.

My construction management majors in the room would know that you can't pour concrete in the rain.

And if you're waiting until the moment that you feel like you need God to start growing your trust and relationship with God, then you're not going to make it.

So many of us, we want to do these great things for God.

We want to believe that when the ruling would go out that says that we can no longer pray to our God that we would stand firm and that we would trust that the Lord would deliver us from the lion's den.

But the battle for public faithfulness is one in private.

If we want to trust God with the hard moments of our lives, then we've got to spend time with Him in the ordinary moments of life.

We can't wait until the trial hits, until life knocks us down to build our trust in the Lord.

And so what we see is that Daniel, he had a regular rhythm of spending time with God.

And when it tells us that three times a day that he got down on his knees and prayed, that's not showing you some sort of formula.

It's revealing a relationship.

And so we're not just talking about like checking your prayer or quiet time box.

What we're saying is that Daniel knew God because he had spent time with him.

And because he knew God, he could trust God.

That's what we've been talking about.

Faith the last several weeks.

Relational trust.

Because Daniel trusted God, he could then obey God.

Public faithfulness is formed through private fellowship with God.

So Daniel, he prays to the Lord, the other satraps and officials, they find him.

They tell Darius about what he's done.

Darius is really upset because he loves Daniel.

He tries everything he can to try to get him out of it, but he can't because the law can't be changed once it's been signed.

And so picking up in verse 16, it says, Then the king commanded.

And Daniel was brought and cast into the den of lions.

And the king declared to Daniel, May your God, whom you serve continually, deliver you.

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.

Verse 18 says, Then the king went to his palace and he spent the night fasting.

No diversions were brought to him, and sleep fled from him.

Then at break of day, the king arose and went in haste to the den of lions.

And as he came near to the den where Daniel was, he cried out in a tone of anguish.

The king declared to Daniel, Oh Daniel, servant of the living God.

First time in the whole book of Daniel that God is described as the living God.

Has your God, whom you serve continually, been able to deliver you from the lions?

Dramatic pause.

Then Daniel said to the king, O king, live forever.

My God sent his angel and he shut the lion's mouth.

They have not harmed me, because I was found blameless before him, and also before you.

O king, I have done no harm.

Then the king was exceedingly glad, and he commanded that Daniel be taken up out of the den.

And 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.

This is the story of Daniel in the lion's den.

It is a story that reveals how Daniel had built a life with God that sustained him when following the Lord was costly.

It is a story about God's sovereignty over our situations.

And it is a story about how our faithfulness becomes our witness to a watching world.

I want you to look at what Daniel's faithfulness produced in King Darius.

Because in verse 25, in light of the miracle that had just happened, it says King Darius wrote to all the peoples, nations, and languages that dwell in all the earth, peace be multiplied to you.

I make a decree.

He's changing the decree from earlier.

That in all my royal dominion, people are to tremble in fear before the God of Daniel.

For he is the living God, enduring forever.

His kingdom shall never be destroyed.

His dominion shall be to the end.

He delivers and rescues, he works signs and wonders in heaven and on earth.

He who has saved Daniel from the power of the lions.

It's amazing that a pagan king would elevate Daniel's God like this.

But I want you to see that it was Daniel's faithfulness that put God's glory on display.

And God used the most powerful man in the world to make his name known to every people, nation, and language.

That is the story of Daniel in the lines.

But one of the questions that I want to answer tonight, the one that I want to end with, is how does this story point us to Jesus?

Hang on one second.

I'm sorry.

I want you guys to see something amazing.

So all throughout the Bible, specifically in the Old Testament, there's these kind of parallel, like mirroring, uh, literary structures that are built into different books and stories.

And they're called chiasms.

They're hard to see in the English, but in Hebrew and Aramaic they they kind of stick out a little bit more.

But a chiasm, it builds towards a central anchor point where the story either shifts or it takes a significant turn.

And this point kind of found in the middle, it's often the theological anchor of the story.

And so the author he writes the story in such a way that we would find the anchor point and that it would reveal something crucial about the story.

So anytime that we see a chiasm, we can know that the author, inspired by the Holy Spirit, is trying to communicate something to us.

And so it looks something like this.

This is uh from a couple of weeks ago.

Uh, this is a story of Noah's Ark, but it's one of the easiest to see in Scripture.

And so what you'll see is how the text is gonna mirror itself.

And so they they label it with these uh letters so that it makes it easier for us to see, but it works all the way down to this point, and then from that point, everything changes.

And so, if you'll kind of see, I don't know if you can read it, at the top you've got A.

And at the bottom, you've got A.

And at both of the A's, we're talking about Noah.

Then at both of the B's, we're talking about Noah's sons.

Then at both of the C's, we're talking about the Ark.

And so if we look up at the top, let's just take it from Jay.

There's an entry into the Ark.

Then Yahweh shuts Noah in.

Then there's 40 days of a flood, then the waters increase, then the mountains are covered, then there's a hundred and fifty days where the waters prevail.

And then the story changes.

Chapter 9, verse 1 says that God remembered Noah.

And it starts to build out this idea of covenant faithfulness on God's behalf.

And so then, as we work back down, we saw the 40 days of flood, we saw the waters increase, the mountains get covered, the 150 days where the waters prevail, then God remembers Noah.

Then for 150 days, the waters start to subside, the mountaintops start to become visible, the waters go away, and then there's 40 days, the end of the 40 days, and then Noah opens the window of the ark, and the story begins to parallel itself, all because at this one moment in the story, God remembered Noah.

So this is a chiasm.

So, alright, where are we going?

Hebrew scholars.

There's a chiasm in our text tonight.

When there's a chiasm in the text, we want to pay attention to stay with me as I'm reading this story.

I'm reading this story, and I see, okay, at the beginning of the story, we've got Daniel's success and his promotion.

And at the end of the story, we see Daniel's success.

Towards the beginning of the story, we see the decree by Nebuchadnezzar by uh Darius.

At the end, we see the new decree that we just read.

I'm starting to see this kind of build out.

Then at the top, we see Daniel's faithfulness.

At the bottom in C, we we see the corrupt officials' faithlessness.

Then in D, we see the king's distress and his own efforts to try to fix the situation.

And then afterwards, we see that the king is relieved because God has come to the rescue.

Then in E, we see Darius say, May the God who you continually serve save you.

And then at light of day, Darius runs to the den and he says, Has your God, whom you continually serve, saved you?

So I look at the text.

Like, what's the center point?

What's the central point of the story?

The thing that the author is drawing our attention to through the Holy Spirit, the thing where everything is gonna change, the thing where God shows up and changes the outcome of the story, and it's this verse.

Verse 17.

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.

And I'm reading this, and my mind is blown.

Because I think about a time a little bit later in Scripture, like 600 years later in Scripture, where another innocent man is thrown into a tomb by some corrupt officials, where a stone gets brought and seals the tomb, so that nothing might be changed about the situation.

But it is in that very moment that God Almighty shows up.

At the moment when they had sealed the tomb and said, Nothing is going to change this situation, God says, What's impossible with man is possible with me.

And so Jesus Christ, the Son of God, He shuts the mouth of the enemy, he rolls away the stone.

And where in our story, Darius says to Daniel, Was your God able to save you?

Jesus comes out of the tomb to show us that our God is more than able to save.

Jesus' own name means that the Lord saves.

He brings us from death to life, he transfers us from the dominion of darkness to his own kingdom.

And just like King Darius said 600 years earlier to all the peoples, nations, and languages that dwell in all the earth, that he is the living God.

Enduring forever, his kingdom shall never be destroyed, his dominion shall never end.

And so, dear Christian, this is our hope for the future.

It is this hope for the future that enables us to live faithfully in the present.

Hebrews 12, it says that we are to fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, despising its shame, and is now seated at the right hand of God.

600 years earlier, this story takes place and it foreshadows what is to come in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

It is our hope for the future.

It is a hope that enables us to experience fellowship with Almighty God.

It's a hope that enables us to live faithfully in the present.

And it is a hope that empowers us to be a witness to a watching world so that they might know that there is a God in heaven who loves them and sent his son to die for them.

He is the living God, enduring forever.

His kingdom will never be destroyed, his dominion will be to the very end.

You and I, through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, get to be members of that very kingdom.

And so as we live down here, as exiles on this earth, as we live and work and strive towards the inheritance that's been given by God to us, would the Lord begin to produce in us an unwavering faithfulness, a steadfast devotion for his name and for his renown, so that through our faithfulness, a watching world would get to witness the power of Almighty God.

Let's pray together, Father God.

God, I just bless these men and women in the name of your son Jesus.

God, thank you for his life, death, and resurrection.

God, thank you for the power of his of your word.

God, that as we look in scripture, as we look through the old testament, we see Jesus all throughout it.

That the whole thing was meant to point us to him.

God, thank you for the grace that you've shown us the gift of your son.

God, that you've brought us from death to life, from darkness to light.

Father God, if there's anyone in the room tonight who has not placed their faith and trust in your son Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins and made him the Lord of their lives.

God, I pray that they would do it tonight.

God, would you empower us with an unwavering faithfulness and a steadfast devotion for your name to make you known to those around us that our faithfulness would be our witness to a watching world for your glory in Jesus' name, amen.