Word of Salvation – Vol.11 No.14 – April 1965

 

God Saves Daniel From The Lions

 

Sermon by Rev. S. Cooper on Daniel 6

Scripture Reading: Daniel 6

Psalter Hymnal : 124:4,5,6; 407 (after Creed); 43:3,4 (after Law);
293:1-4; 292:1,2,6,7.

 

Beloved in the Lord,

There is drama in every chapter of this book of Daniel.  The battle seesaws back and forth.  The great war is on and we are not allowed to forget it.  At first the battle was in the palace of the king of Babylon in his kitchen and dining room.  Then it shifts to the plain of Dura, where the golden image of Nebuchadnezzar was set up.  Now we find Satan attacking Daniel in his own private sanctuary, the place where Daniel kneels before the windows that open toward Jerusalem and prays to his God.  The world keeps up the attack, first here, then there.  It is not easily defeated.  And if it is, it always comes back for a new attack.  As Christians we must always be ready to do battle with Satan himself, for we fight not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.  These demons swoop down on us while we sit at our table, or at the Lord’s Table.  They attack us at the work bench, while we are reading, or praying, or even right now as we sit in the church!  It was a very dark hour in the history of the Kingdom of God.  Nearly all the lights were out!

The covenant people of God were scattered.  Jerusalem was a heap of rubble; the temple a pile of stones.  The worship services had stopped; the church was in gaol.  Many of the people of God in exile had adopted the ways of their new fatherland.  In all that darkness there was still one little candlelight that glowed in Babylon, in the room and heart of a man whose name was Daniel.  If the world is able to blow this candlelight out, we can expect calamity to come to the whole Kingdom of God.  The candle-light that shines is the prayer of Daniel to His God, three times a day.  The window was open to Jerusalem and before it Daniel kneels and lifts his heart to God.  His prayer was like a very thin thread that reached from earth to heaven.  If Satan can cut this thread, the kingdom of God will be in trouble.  If this candlelight can be blown out, darkness will envelope the earth.  If these open windows to heaven are closed, then the gates of heaven will swing shut.  This then is a very critical hour in the Kingdom of God.  Daniel 6 is not just a private episode in the life of a single individual.  It is a major episode in the life of the Kingdom of God.  This is not a minor personal feud between Daniel and a few enemies: this is the fight between light and darkness, between the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of this world, between God and Satan, and the battlefield is the very heart of Daniel – where all life’s real battles take place!

Imagine for a moment that Daniel had stopped praying for thirty days, and then started again.  Would this not really mean that King Darius is mightier than King Jesus?  Is our prayer life something that we can turn on and off at will?  Do Christians live by the laws of the Lord or by the decrees of men?  This chapter shows us that all the mighty breath of the world of the world is NOT ABLE to blow out the candlelight of prayer.  God keeps it on.  We see that all the sharpest swords of the world cannot even cut the thin thread of prayer that goes from earth to heaven.  Nothing in all this world is really able to cut the church off from God!  Through prayer we can transmit all our praises and petitions to the Lord, and nothing is able to blow our transmitters up!  So the gospel message in Daniel 6 is:

God Saves Daniel from the Lions

1.  From the Roaring lion
2.  From the Hungry lions

1)  From the Roaring lion.

The Christian must stay on his toes, for Satan goes about as a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour.  Satan varies his tactics from person to person; his approach is always different – it depends on who you are, and what mood you are in.  If possible, Satan prefers to use somebody else to do his job – a housewife maybe, a father, a daughter, an elder, a fellow-worker.  He will use smooth talk to trick; he hates to use force – only when he has to.  Only when he meets tough customers like Daniel or Shadrach, Meshech and Abednego.  Satan saves his biggest ammunition for his toughest opponents.  For prophets and priest and kings like you people; Daniel got into trouble with Satan only because Daniel was a faithful servant of God.  If Daniel was weak-kneed, if he was slothful in prayer, he would not have had any trouble from Satan.  The world attacks only the people who live close to Jesus Christ.  Satan has no demons to waste and no time to lose.  There is too much to do, and his days are very short.  If you and I do not live by our faith, we do not need to worry about the devil, he will not bother us.  Our only worry then will be the Lord.

Daniel is in trouble.

He has become the prime minister of Babylon and he was doing a terrific job.  In fact, it was too good to suit his fellow presidents.  They watched him every day, trying to find some fault in his work.  The more they saw of Daniel, the more they were embarrassed.  Daniel worked hard and faithfully.  They became jealous of him.  Daniel wasn’t the type  who said, “Business is business”.  He didn’t complain bitterly, “I work in such a godless place, I just can’t witness for my Lord here.” Nothing of the kind…!  God was his employer and he brought an account of his daily work unto the Lord, three times a day he prayed to God for strength and wisdom.  Daniel’s work and even his faith was a matter of public record.  His neighbours were able to see that Daniel was a man of God.  The eyes of the world are still upon us.  Christians live in glass houses.  People do expect something different from us, What do they know about you?  That you go to church on Sunday?  And live like a devil during the week…?  What is your attitude toward the boss?  Do you waste time?  Do you cheat?

Are you a salt that leavens the lump?  Does your presence make a difference?  Do you embarrass anyone because of your faithful work and witness?  You cannot hide your faith, can you?  The world must meet God in us.  Is anyone jealous of us?  Our way of working, our way of talking…?  Our peace and power and joy… our sense of direction, that we are not without God and without hope in the world – but that three times a day – yea, much more, we can go right to our Father in heaven and pour out before him our hearts?  We don’t have to make a show of ourselves and stand on the street corners to pray but there are nevertheless many opportunities we have each day to let our light shine before men that they may see our good works and glorify our Father who is in heaven.  A Christian is not a member of a secret society: God shoves us out into the world – he wants us to sing in public, and pray in public, and confess our faith in public; he drives the church out into the world.

The princes have made plans to assassinate Daniel.  They are out to kill him.  They went to the king and asked him to make a decree that no one be allowed to pray to any God or man, save to thee O King, for the next 30 days.  The suggestion made the king feel good, and so he made it a law, not thinking of the carefully laid plot that will ensnare his much beloved prime minister, Daniel.  The decree is a compliment for Daniel.  His fellow workers know him well enough.  They know he is faithful.  They know he loves God.  They know he simply must pray to God.  That he couldn’t survive without it; that he must do it every day; just as regularly as we brush our teeth.  When the king made the decree, they rubbed their hands in glee and said to one another, “We’ve got him now!”  And yet, brothers and sisters, they didn’t know Daniel either.  They really forgot that Daniel was a child of God, and that when you attack the child, you attack his Father.  Whoever takes on the church, takes on Jesus Christ.  That explains why God terrified Saul on the Damascus road with the cry, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”  Whoever attacks any part of the body of Jesus Christ, at any time, for any reason, has declared war on God.  The world doesn’t really know the strength of the church.  It is the power of God that comes to the church by faith.  It is the Spirit of God that lives in the church.  It is the life of God that is the life of the church.  These men said 30 days – but they could just as well have said – 3 days!   Do you think Daniel will stop praying to his God for even 3 days?  The world doesn’t know the strength of the church.

When Daniel hears about the new law, we do not read that he got a terrible fright, or that he became very nervous and upset, or that he had a few sleepless nights, or that he gorged himself on pills.  Not Daniel!  We simply read that he went up into his house to pray – and before the window open toward Jerusalem he kneeled down three times a day and prayed and GAVE THANKS before his God, AS HIS CUSTOM WAS.  As if nothing had happened!  As if his own death warrant had not even been signed!  This was his custom, and do you think he is going to change just because some king has signed some silly decree?  Should he quit praying because some men have said so?  WOULD YOU?  Suppose the Prime Minister of New Zealand or of Australia made a decree that all the Christians should cease praying to God for 30 days.  What would we do?  Some might say: well, let us not make any trouble; we are law abiding citizens; if the prime minister had said 3 years, that would be a different story, but, after all it is only for 30 days.  Could you last for 30 days without prayer to God?  How many survivors would there be?  How many would be willing to give it a go?  If the government would make a decree that all the pubs would be closed for 30 days, there would be a holler from Southland to Northland (from Sydney to Perth) and the demons would take such possession of us that we could expect a serious revolt among the people until the pubs were reopened.  But if the state said – all prayers to God must cease for 30 days – would there be much of a protest?  But now we must go one step further.  There is not only the law to cease praying, but there is also a penalty attacked to the law that if you don’t stop praying, you will be thrown into the lion’s den!  Now let us quickly count again all the hands that are still raised in favour of disobeying the decree of the king.  How many of you are not only willing to keep on praying to the Lord, but also willing to get killed for it?  How many would rather die within 30 days than stop praying to God, that’s the question!  How many of you would rather not pray for 30 days and live, or pray and die?  What a miserable choice.  It seems as if God is trying to push us into a corner!  No, brother and sister and girls and boys, not God, but Satan: Satan knows that prayer is our lifeline to God.  If he can cut this lifeline, he will have us in his hand.  Today, Satan is still the roaring lion in our life, who tries to get us to stop praying to God.  He will try anything to get us.  He will not use the law of the land, if he can help it.  This is only the very last resort, when everything else fails.  Satan prefers to use a slothful wife, a lazy mother, a tired father who doesn’t have the time to teach the children to pray.  Satan works as an angel of light.  He hates to give you a fright.  He prefers to use the innocent means – so long as he reaches his goal that you and I stop praying!  For some of us, Satan only needs to give us the newspaper that will keep us from praying or maybe he lets us work in a certain environment that makes us think, “It is impossible to pray with all those cobbers around”.  He may give you overtime; he may use your girlfriend… your boyfriend, or some secret sin – so long as he keeps you and God apart!  God has everything for us, his children, but we must pray.  We must seek, we must ask, we must knock.

We can see the lions in the den, but can we see the roaring lion who is not in the den, but who GOES ABOUT, who is on the loose, in this world?  He roams the earth; he dogs your trail; he lies around on your couch, and sits at your table and sleeps in your bed and goes with you off to school.  He breathes down our throat… and are we not afraid of him?  Do we fear the lions that can tear us limb from limb and not that lion who can devour our soul?  We are now in the lion’s den, and poor Daniel must make the great decision now: to pray and die, or not to pray and live.

2)  God saves Daniel from the hungry lions.

Daniel chose to pray and die, for die he would.  The lions in the den ate everybody.  They didn’t care whether you were a Christian or not.  But Daniel has won the greatest victory of all: he has defeated the prince of this world, even the devil.  There lies ahead of him yet one battle: will Daniel endure to the end?  Will he be willing to pay the supreme price and seal his faith with his blood?  He trusted God so far, will he trust God right unto the very end?  Will he show us that his only comfort in life and death was that he really belonged, with body and soul, unto his faithful Saviour Jesus Christ?  Or is this just Sunday religion with Daniel?  And now looms before Daniel another temptation – even though he is 90 years old, he doesn’t desire to die and there below him, stand these hungry lions, who are yawning and prowling around, waiting for their next meal.  No doubt Satan is still working with Daniel, tempting him.  “Daniel, is it really worth all this?  Daniel, is this how your God treats those who are faithful to him?”  It is the same temptation that we suffer when we have tried to live faithful lives, and then things seem to go against us.  A courtship breaks up.  A loved one is taken away.  Our business goes on the rocks.  We flunked the exam that we had to pass.  All small matters compared to how you feel two minutes before the Lord calls you from this life, either via lions or some other way.  It may have shocked us a bit to see how the Lord tossed His evangelist Jonah into the water, but we must remember that Jonah DISOBEYED the Lord.  But how different with Daniel..!  Look how faithful he had been!  He defied the law of the land in order to be faithful to the law of the Lord.  And now, because Daniel obeyed God and feared before Him, he is going to get killed!  Is this fair?  Is this right?  Is this the way God treats his children?  Daniel had the Word of God to go by, not his feelings.  He that endures to the end shall be saved.  God has not run out of angels He did once, when our Saviour died upon the cross but now God has all the angels in the world to help you and me, at any time, that He deems it necessary.

Daniel tells us how he fell before the lions and that the angel shut the mouths of the lions.  They must have been like big pussy cats to Daniel.  It was only a small flickering candle-light, but God would not let it go out.  God saved Daniel from the roaring lion and from the hungry lions because this was more to His Honour and Glory.  God does not always allow His children to escape from the edge of the sword only when it is more to His glory… only when he needs His children more on earth than on heaven.  Many times God’s children have been ripped limb from limb.  These are the ones God preferred to have with Him in heaven.  When God doesn’t need you and me anymore in this world, He will come for us, and not a day sooner.  The big miracle in Daniel 6 is not so much how Daniel was spared from the hungry lions – which of course is really a mighty miracle of the Lord in itself, but how Daniel was spared from the roaring of Satan, who tried to devour him.  What a miracle of God’s grace and power that, notwithstanding the threat of death itself, Daniel kneeled before his window which was open to Jerusalem, and there prayed to his God, three times a day as his custom was.  And that’s the miracle of grace and power that the Lord must work in our behalf each day.  As Satan roars through the congregation, and roars into the classroom, and into our homes, and enters our very hearts, how we must be kept by the power of God unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time.  This world is Satan’s den, and we live our whole life under his nose.  And yet, remember that into the lion’s den of this world has come another LION – from the tribe of Judah!  And these two lions have grappled, and Jesus has overwhelmed the devil, and when we are close to Jesus, Satan cannot scratch us.  How utterly black Daniel’s future looked!  What a dark time for the Kingdom of God!  And yet how wonderful that Daniel did not panic; he just did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, that’s all.  He just kept right on praying!

Let the Australasian Christians today do the same thing – just keep right on praying!

Amen.