July 6, Daniel 6
When Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he went to his house where he had windows in his upper chamber open toward Jerusalem. He got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he had done previously.
- Daniel 6:10
America's founding fathers knew their history and the people they represented. They knew that many of the first immigrants to America fled religious persecution and came to the New World seeking freedom to worship according to their convictions. So the first amendment to the Bill of Rights guaranteed U.S. citizens freedom from government intervention in the practice of their faith. The founders wrote, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”
It might be easy for those of us who have lived with this freedom all our lives to take it for granted. We need to realize that many followers of Christ throughout history were persecuted, not protected by their governments. It's still true in some nations today.
When some leader or law threatens our freedom to worship God, how should God’s people react? It does not help the circumstances to fret or whine about them. Daniel 6 presents Daniel as a man of integrity, faith and courage as he faced a death sentence for worshiping God.
The Babylonian kings respected Daniel and gave him positions of authority and leadership. After the Medes and Persians took over, they also respected Daniel's outstanding character, spirit and wisdom. Darius recognized Daniel's abilities, and put him in charge of all 120 satraps the king had put in place. These provincial governors were the local authorities across the Persian empire. They enforced the king's laws and collected the people's taxes.
In typical human fashion, the satraps resented Daniel's authority over them and looked for a way to discredit him. But Daniel's character and conduct were upright. They could not raise a sustainable accusation against him unless they could make it about Daniel's fervent devotion to his God.
Daniel’s enemies knew that Daniel went home to pray three times a day. So they proposed a new law to Darius that appealed to his ego and pride. They asked the king to enact a new law that prohibited anyone from making a request of anyone except the king for a thirty-day period. The law prescribed death by lions for any offenders. They designed their proposal to trap and get rid of Daniel, because they knew their godly supervisor would not stop praying to God.
When Daniel learned about the law, he continued to pray at his designated time and place, as he had done before. He knelt and prayed at a second story open window of his house that faced Jerusalem. The wicked satraps caught Daniel in the act of praying. The plan was working! They went to Darius, reported Daniel and reminded him that the king's decree was unalterable law. They trapped their king, who realized that when he signed the law into effect, he had also signed Daniel's death sentence.
King Darius labored to find a way to pardon Daniel. By sundown, the king realized there was no escape. He had to throw an honorable man who had done no wrong into a den of hungry lions. He wished Daniel well, and expressed his hope that Daniel's God could deliver him from certain death.
Darius was upset about what he had done. He ate no supper, watched no entertainment and did not sleep. At dawn, he hurried to see if Daniel's God had saved him. Daniel assured the king that God had protected him from the lions, because he had done no wrong. Darius recognized the wrongdoers and ordered the deaths of Daniel's accusers and their families. Like Haman hanged on his own gallows, Daniel's malicious accusers died by their own murderous design, in the lions’ den.
Once again, God moved a pagan king to extol and praise him as the living God. The king of a vast realm acknowledged that God's kingdom would never be destroyed, and that God delivers and rescues his people, just as he saved Daniel from the lions.
Daniel continued in the Persians' royal court into his old age. God's courageous, faithful prophet was a light to the darkened pagans into the days of Cyrus. God was at work through his prophet among the pagans, and he would at his own predetermined time keep his promises to deliver the Jews from their captors by Cyrus’s decree that would free the captives.
We tell children the amazing story of Daniel in the lions' den. But let's never outgrow the big message of the story. Our sovereign God will bless and protect his faithful people through any adversity they encounter. In what part of your life do you need to trust that promise of God's faithfulness today?
Copyright © 2024 by Michael B. McElroy. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Today in God's Word—July 2024
East Tallassee Church of Christ
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