Why do the nations rage and the peoples plot in vain?

The kings of the earth take their stand, and the rulers conspire together against the Lord

and against his anointed One.

Let's tear off their chains and throw their

ropes off of us.

The one enthroned in heaven laughs.

The Lord ridicules them.

Then he speaks to them in his anger and terrifies them in his wrath.

I have installed my king on Zion, my holy mountain.

I will declare the Lord's decree.

He said to me, you are my son.

Today I have become your father.

Ask of me, and I will make the nations your

inheritance and the ends of the earth your possession.

You will break them with an iron scepter.

You will shatter them like pottery.

So now, kings, be wise, receive instruction, you judges of the earth.

Serve the Lord with reverential awe and rejoice with trembling.

Pay homage to the Son, or he will be angry, and you will perish in your rebellion.

For his anger may ignite at any moment.

All who take refuge in him are happy.

That's Psalm 2.

It's a Psalm that both highlights and shows the foolishness of the way the world thinks

about God.

They mock him.

They want to throw off any constraint he might

put on them.

They want to be in charge.

And as the Lord sits in heaven, he laughs.

It's like when the Tower of Babel is first

being built, and the people want to build it up to the heavens.

They want to ascend to the level of God.

And God has to come down to take a look at it.

It's like he gets a microscope out and says, hmm, let's see what the ants are up to today.

Oh, I see.

They're trying to be as big and powerful as

me.

It's laughable, but it's also terrible.

It's wicked.

A horrible, evil rebellion against the one to

whom we owe everything, right down to the breath in our lungs.

And there are only two possible ways things could go.

Either you continue fighting this rebellion and you'll be crushed by a God's son, the

Eternal King.

Or you take refuge with the sun and you'll be blessed.

It's not a choice between getting crushed and painful, eternal slavery.

This isn't a fight against tyranny and oppression.

It's a human power play to become tyrants.

But if you don't want to play that game, if you want to come back to the one who lovingly

formed you, you'll be happy.

You'll have the true happiness that God made

you forget.

You can't have it without him.

You can only have it in him.

In the two chapters we're looking at today in Daniel, we see both those things.

We see the result of continuing the attempted rebellion against God and the results of

taking refuge in God.

And so I present to you our next episode of stories of a faithful God.

At the end of our last episode, things were looking really good.

King Nebuchadnezzar had been humbled.

And through that lesson, he had come to

realise that God is in charge of the universe.

He raises up kings and brings them down.

He establishes kingdoms and decides when they

end.

And his kingdom is the only one that'll last

forever.

Once Nebuchadnezzar has recognised that God restored him to his throne and even made him

greater than he'd been before.

At the start of chapter five, we meet a new king of Babylon, King Belshazzar.

Before we get too deep into the story, I want to make a quick comment about Belshazzar and

the Bible.

For a long time, people said, this Belshazzar, he wasn't the king.

We know exactly who was king at that time.

King Nabonidus.

Boom.

There you go.

The Bible got it wrong.

It can't be the word of God.

Mike, drop.

The thing about ancient history, though, is that everything you think you know is just a

tiny sliver of what actually happened.

That's something we explore a little bit in

the club episode on how the Bible came together.

And in the last hundred years of archaeology, more and more things have been discovered, and

the flow of those discoveries has been to come down on the side of the Bible, which is

exactly what's happened here.

Nabonidus, who's not mentioned in this passage, was the king, except for some reason,

probably over a religious dispute, he left the city of Babylon for 10 years.

The person he left in charge was his son, Belshazzar.

To all intents and purposes, Belshazzar was the king and Nabonidus was in exile.

It turns out the Bible was right all along.

So back to our story.

King Belshazzar decides to hold a huge feast for a thousand of his nobles.

The wine is flowing freely.

Belshazzar is clearly showing off his power

and prestige to his nobles.

It's a sort of stick with me, fellas, and everything will be great moment.

And as part of this display of wealth and power, Belshazzar gives an order.

Verse 2 says, under the influence of the wine, Belshazzar gave orders to bring in the gold

and silver vessels that his predecessor, Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the temple in

Jerusalem so that the king and his nobles, wives and concubines could drink from them.

I'm reading there, as I usually do, from the csb, it says Belshazzar's predecessor,

Nebuchadnezzar.

The ESV more closely translates it

Belshazzar's father.

Nebuchadnezzar wasn't his father or ancestor,

as that often means.

Belshazzar's family didn't really have a legitimate claim to the throne.

And the one thing that illegitimate kings always do is they try and make themselves

sound legitimate.

So their propaganda was that Nebuchadnezzar

was their father.

This is all happening about 13 years after Nebuchadnezzar died.

And this claim that he's their ancestor, he's their father, is going to be referred to a few

times in the chapter, and not in any way that actually helps Belshazzar.

There's always an overtone of, okay, you claim him as your father.

Why aren't you doing things like him?

These gold and silver vessels that they're about to drink from, we've heard of them

before.

Way back at the beginning of Chapter 1,

Nebuchadnezzar, before any of the lessons that God taught him.

In chapters 2, 3, and 4, Nebuchadnezzar brought them from God's temple in Jerusalem

and placed them in the temples of his God.

It's his way of saying, my God's tougher than

your puny God.

And now Belshazzar is aligning himself with that way of thinking.

Our nobles can drink with our gods because of our power, as though the last three chapters

never happened.

And so they drink their wine and praise their gods.

And verse four nicely reminds us of everything we need to know about their gods.

It says, they praised their gods made of gold and silver, bronze, iron, wood and stone.

No wonder back in chapter two, Nebuchadnezzar couldn't believe that any God could save

people from his hand.

His entire experience of gods up to that point was of dead statues.

Suddenly, the party is shockingly and miraculously interrupted.

Verse 5 says, at that moment, the fingers of a man's hand appeared and began writing on the

plaster of the king's palace wall next to the lampstand.

As the king watched the hand that was writing, his face turned pale and his thoughts so

terrified him that he soiled himself and his knees knocked together.

How's that for a sudden change?

Moments before, Belshazzar's portraying himself as the great and powerful ruler.

Now he's fearfully trembling in his own muck, unable to control his own bowels, just like

we've seen Nebuchadnezzar do twice before when he was terrified by a spiritual message.

Belshazzar calls for the mediums, Chaldeans and diviners, the wise men who are meant to be

able to work this sort of stuff out.

Just to incentivise them.

He offers a pretty massive reward.

In verse seven, he says to them, whoever reads this inscription and gives me its

interpretation will be clothed in purple, have a gold chain around his neck and have the

third highest position in the kingdom.

Again, on the historical note, this is another indication that the Bible knew the real

situation on the ground long before modern historians.

Belshazzar can't make the winner the second highest ruler in the land.

That's Belshazzar's position.

His dad is the first highest.

Nevertheless, this is still a massive reward.

How's that for climbing the ladder of success? It's like you're playing Monopoly.

Instead of having to work your way around the board where everyone else is scrabbling over

properties, you get the chance card that takes you right to the best position possible.

Imagine being told that you could become the third highest ruler in one of the most

powerful empires to ever exist.

All you have to do is read a few words on the wall.

But just like with Nebuchadnezzar's dreams, none of them can do it.

And that just freaks Belshazzar out even more.

And his nobles are utterly bewildered.

Somewhere else in the palace, the queen hears this big commotion going on in the banquet

hall and comes in to find out what's happening.

Once she understands the situation, she's able to offer a really simple solution.

She calms the king down and tells him some good news.

She says, in verse 10, may the king live forever.

Don't let your thoughts terrify you or your face be pale.

There is a man in your kingdom who has a spirit of the holy gods in him.

Remember, that's the description that Nebuchadnezzar gave about Daniel.

In the last chapter, she goes on, in the days of your predecessor or father, he was found to

have insight, intelligence and wisdom like the wisdom of the gods.

Your predecessor, King Nebuchadnezzar, appointed him chief of the magicians, mediums,

Chaldeans and diviners.

Your own predecessor, the king, did this

because Daniel, the one the king named Belteshazzar, was found to have an

extraordinary spirit, knowledge and intelligence, and the ability to interpret

dreams, explain riddles and solve problems.

Therefore, summon Daniel and he will give the interpretation.

There's something really important about what she's just said.

Did you notice how much she emphasises what was discovered during Nebuchadnezzar's reign?

Daniel was found to have insight, intelligence and wisdom like the wisdom of the gods.

He was found to have an extraordinary spirit, knowledge and intelligence, the ability to

interpret dreams, explain riddles and solve problems.

She also emphasises Belshazzar's link to Nebuchadnezzar.

Three times she says, your predecessor, your father.

And all this raises the question, why on earth didn't Belshazzar summon Daniel before?

He's been partying through the night using the vessels that Nebuchadnezzar won.

He's living the high life off Nebuchadnezzar's successors.

He's claiming this great family connection to Nebuchadnezzar.

So why hasn't he learned anything from Nebuchadnezzar?

What a fool.

Anyway, Daniel's pulled out of a closet somewhere, dusted off and brought before the

king.

And you can kind of hear Belshazzar's

desperation as he makes the same offer to Daniel as he did to the other wise men.

In verse 13, he asks, Are you Daniel, one of the Judean exiles that my predecessor, the

king, brought from Judah? I've heard that you have a spirit of the gods

in you, and that insight, intelligence and extraordinary wisdom are found in you.

Now, the wise men and mediums were brought before me to read this inscription and make

its interpretation known to me, but they could not give its interpretation.

However, I have heard about you that you can give interpretations and solve problems.

Therefore, if you can read this inscription and give me its interpretation, you will be

clothed in purple, have a gold chain around your neck, and have the third highest position

in the kingdom.

He doesn't seem very alert to the irony of the situation.

He's asking a Judean exile for help when he and his cronies have been spending the night

mocking the Judean God.

Daniel hears the offer of wealth and prestige and power, and he says, keep it.

In fact, he's the only person in the room who knows for a fact that Belshazzar's offer is

completely worthless.

Nevertheless, he'll still dutifully pass on the message that's been written on the wall,

but not before he paints a bit of context.

Even though the message has literally come out of thin air, it hasn't arrived in a vacuum.

Things have happened in the lead up to this message that really matter.

And the context that Daniel tells the king is the same sort of context that the queen said

to him as well.

It's something along the lines of, you know,

Nebuchadnezzar, your father in inverted commas, your predecessor, the one who you

claim to be so close to.

Well, he learned some stuff along the way, some really important stuff about the most

High God and how he should be treated.

And if you're so close to him, why didn't you

learn those same lessons from him?

Here's what Daniel says from verse 18.

He says, you, Majesty, the most High God gave

sovereignty, greatness, glory and majesty to your predecessor, Nebuchadnezzar.

Because of the greatness he gave him, all peoples, nations and languages were terrified

and fearful of him.

He killed anyone he wanted and kept alive

anyone he wanted.

He exalted anyone he wanted and humbled anyone

he wanted.

But when his heart was exalted and his spirit became arrogant, he was deposed from his royal

throne and his glory was taken from him.

He was driven away from people.

His mind was like an animal's.

He lived with the wild donkeys, he was fed

grass like cattle, and his body was drenched with dew from the sky until he acknowledged

that the most high God is ruler over human kingdoms and sets anyone he wants over them.

That was the lesson of chapter four, and Nebuchadnezzar learned it well.

He ended up praising God and acknowledging that all his power came from God, and he

didn't keep the lesson to himself.

Remember, chapter four is a letter that Nebuchadnezzar wrote to all the peoples of all

the nations and all the languages.

Kings, especially in those days, didn't really go in for humility.

It wasn't really a survival trait.

But Nebuchadnezzar told everyone how he'd been

humbled so he could show how great God is and so that everyone else could learn the lesson

that he learned without having to go through the same humiliation.

You see God's grace to Nebuchadnezzar in the last chapter of Teaching him the Truth.

It wasn't just for him.

God was being gracious to the world.

Nebuchadnezzar faced the humiliation so that everyone else could learn the lesson,

including Belshazzar.

You know, when people say, oh, if God showed me some of the things in the Bible, then I'd

believe as though that would be really kind craziness.

God's being kind by not making you go through what Nebuchadnezzar went through.

But giving you the lesson anyway.

But what's Belshazzar been doing this very night?

Exalting himself, mocking the most High God, mocking the God who gave him life, and

worshipping the gods that have absolutely no life.

It's so foolish.

Daniel says, but you, his successor, Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, even

though you knew all this.

Instead, you've exalted yourself against the

Lord of the heavens.

The vessels from his house were brought to

you, and as you and your nobles, wives and concubines drank wine from them, you praise

the gods made of silver and gold, bronze, iron, wood and stone, which do not see or hear

or understand.

But you have not glorified the God who holds your life breath in his hand, and who controls

the whole course of your life.

And that's where you start to see the full extent of how foolish Belshazzar's been.

If the Most High God controls the course of your life and you've spat his kindness back in

his face, what's he going to do with the course of your life?

Well, that's exactly what the writing on the wall is there to tell him.

Daniel says the words, read this.

They say, mene, mene, tekel and parson.

Then he gives the meaning of the words.

He says, mene means that God has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end.

Years before, Nebuchadnezzar was told in a dream about how his kingdom would one day be

replaced by another kingdom.

But it seemed to be a future thing sometime in the distance, not something to get too worried

about.

This seems much more imminent, especially because the word mene is repeated.

Belshazzar's kingdom will soon be over.

Daniel continues.

Tekl means that you have been weighed on the balance and found deficient.

In other words, don't just think that this is the ebb and flow of history or the randomness

of life.

God's been watching you.

He's weighed up your heart and your actions,

and judgment is coming.

He's really specific about where the judgment

is coming from as well.

Daniel says, peres means that your kingdom has

been divided and given to the Medes and Persians.

The Medes had been the dominant power to the north of Babylon.

In fact, it was a coalition between the Medes and Babylonians that had brought down the

Assyrian Empire.

But just recently, a Persian king named Cyrus, soon to be called Cyrus the Great, had taken

over the Median Empire with the help of some Medes, and together they were on their way to

becoming the biggest empire the world had ever seen.

We talk about that in the first Club episode.

So what do you do if you're the king of Babylon and you hear that message?

A good response would be to immediately repent, to beg for mercy from God.

God's really responsive to that.

Even the Assyrians were given another 70

years.

When they repented at the preaching of Jonah,

they received a message that was just as dire as this one.

But when they repented, God forgave them.

It was only when they went back to their evil

ways that he destroyed them.

But that's not what Belshazzar does.

Instead, in an almost comically ridiculous gesture, given the circumstances, he keeps his

promise.

Verse 29 says, Then Belshazzar gave an order and they clothed Daniel in purple, placed a

gold chain around his neck, and issued a proclamation concerning him, that he should be

the third ruler in the kingdom.

Umm.

Did you not hear a single word that Daniel said?

What use is it to make someone the third ruler of the kingdom when the kingdom's about to be

destroyed? It's like Vesuvius is erupting and someone

says, you've been so loyal and good, I'm going to make you the governor of Pompeii.

Or the icebergs just struck the Titanic and the captain promotes you to second in command.

That's nothing to celebrate.

You don't go to your cabin and write home to

your parents, hey, guess what?

I've just got promoted.

The foolishness of the gesture just gives another insight into Belshazzar's heart.

He's still ignoring the most high God.

He's still mocking the one who gave him breath

and directs the whole course of his life.

He still thinks there'll be no consequences for his actions.

Remember Psalm 2.

Why do the nations rage and the people plot in vain?

30 tells us that very night Belshazzar, the king of the Chaldeans, was

killed and Darius the Mede received the kingdom at the age of 62.

The fall of Babylon is a little bit like the fall of the Soviet Union.

Here's this massive power.

It seems like it'll last forever.

And then.

Oh, wait, where did it go?

It's a sort of blink and you'll miss it moment.

The Persians are famously generous to the people they conquer.

Comparatively, they could be really nasty.

But they prefer to make friends.

That's why Daniel talks about the Medes and the Persians.

It's because the Persians wooed half the Median army over to their side, got rid of the

Median king And then said, hey, isn't this fun when we all work together?

Lots of places that were under the thumb of Babylon actually celebrated arrival of the

Persians.

And because the Persians are so good at incorporating the people they conquer, it's

totally understandable why this guy Darius the Mede would arrive in Babylon.

Look around, and instead of just killing everyone in the city like say the Assyrians

would have done, he says, ok, who's got talent?

I don't care if you worked for the last guy, come work for us.

We want good people like you.

It's like an aggressive corporate takeover and everyone's afraid for their job.

And instead everyone gets a pay rise.

And there are great promotion opportunities.

No one today really knows who this guy Darius the Mede is.

It's one of those things that some people use to say the Bible's just making stuff up.

We know this guy Darius the Mede never existed.

But remember, it wasn't that long ago that people thought Belshazzar never existed and

he'd been running the empire for 10 years.

There's so much we don't know.

And the more they discover, the more they find

out that the Bible writers were right all along.

Tremper Longman iii, who wrote a very helpful commentary on Daniel.

He suggests that Darius is the general who gets put in charge of Babylon by Cyrus the

Great.

That seems to fit fairly nicely, but there are

other possibilities.

We won't really know until someone digs up some stone with some writing that explains

everything, if that stone exists.

It's happened heaps of times, but not nearly

as often as everyone wants.

It doesn't take long for Darius to discover Daniel in amongst the talent pool.

And in a kind of ironic twist, given what's happened in the last chapter, he makes him one

of the three most powerful administrators in the kingdom.

Chapter 6, verse 1.

Darius decided to appoint 120 satraps over the kingdom, stationed throughout the realm, and

over them three administrators, including Daniel.

These satraps would be accountable to them so that the king would not be defrauded.

Daniel distinguished himself above the administrators and satraps because he had an

extraordinary spirit.

So the king planned to set him over the whole

realm.

I love that I've grown up in a time and place where corruption is relatively uncommon.

If I'm pulled over by a police officer, I don't assume it's just because they want a

bribe.

But for most places in most of history, corruption is just the way the world works.

Not everyone likes it.

Kings certainly don't want to Be defrauded,

but it's still as common as breathing.

So what happens when you get a guy put in charge who's incorruptible, who's genuinely

honest and genuinely wants what's best for his king, and genuinely checks up on the satraps

under him to stop them abusing their position?

You're gonna get some upset satraps, aren't you?

And when the other two administrators, who are equal to Daniel, discover that the king's so

impressed by Daniel he's gonna put him in charge of everything, you're gonna get some

jealousy.

They all want to get rid of Daniel, and so they start to dig for some dirt to accuse

Daniel with and have the king throw him out.

You can just imagine them plotting in a room saying, come on, he must have taken a bribe

somewhere at some time.

And after going away and doing their research, they come back and say, far out.

This guy really is as clean as they say.

He really does match up to the hype.

Verse 4 says, but they could find no charge or corruption for he was trustworthy, and no

negligence or corruption was found in him.

And so then they come up with a new plan.

They say in verse five, we will never find any

charge against this Daniel unless we find something against him concerning the law of

his God.

If there's one thing that everyone knows about Daniel, it's that his devotion to his God is

greater than his devotion to anyone or anything else.

Their plan, though, isn't as simple a task as you might think.

The Persians are famous for their religious tolerance.

It's one of the reasons the people they conquer often really like them.

Even the Babylonians like them.

The Persians actually treated the Babylonian

God Marduk better than Belshazzar's father had.

Cyrus the Great actually paid to have the temple in Jerusalem rebuilt.

So in such a religiously tolerant society, how do you use Daniel's worship of God as

something against him?

Well, you use something that's been a theme throughout this whole book, a theme you'll

find in every kingdom and country in every age, in.

In every part of the world.

You use the pride of the ruler.

You say, o King, all of us who work for you think that you're seven levels of awesome.

And we think everyone else should know that, too.

And so we've come up with a little idea, a little token or gesture that'll really

highlight your awesomeness.

In verse six, they say, may King Darius live forever.

All the administrators of the kingdom, the prefects, satraps, advisors and governors,

have agreed that the king should establish an ordinance and enforce an EDICT that for 30

days, anyone who petitions, any God or man, except you, the king, will be thrown into the

lion's den.

Therefore, your majesty, establish the edict and sign the document, so that as a law of the

Medes and Persians, it is irrevocable and cannot be changed.

It sounds harmless enough, doesn't it? Almost like a token gesture.

It's only for 30 days and it'll really show people who's in charge a little bit.

Like when a previous king of Babylon built a giant statue and commanded that everyone bow

down to it or be thrown in a blazing furnace.

It's the perfect way people can show their obedience and loyalty to their king.

Except what if it's something that the most obedient and most loyal person in the entire

kingdom can't do?

The conspirators go to great lengths to make it sound like everyone working for Darius is

on board with this.

But of course Daniel isn't.

He hasn't even heard about it.

When he does hear about it, it makes zero difference to the way he lives.

It almost sounds like he doesn't even bat an eyelid.

Remember, he was ripped out of his home country decades ago as a teenager, and even

then he drew a line in the sand saying, God is my ultimate king.

I'll serve and be faithful to other kings, but nothing they do or say trumps my loyalty to

God.

He's done that through all the ridiculous ups

and downs and power plays of empire politics that he's witnessed for decades.

He isn't going to change now.

So we're told in verse 10.

When Daniel learned that the document had been signed, he went into his house.

The windows in its upstairs room opened towards Jerusalem, and three times a day he

got down on his knees, prayed, and gave thanks to his God, just as he had done before.

Which is exactly what the conspirators are expecting him to do.

I'd love to be like that.

I'd love to be so predictable in my devotion

to God that people can actually plan for it and rely on it.

Having spied on Daniel and getting the evidence they need, they rush off to Darius,

and you can almost hear the fake shock and horror in their voices.

They're so distressed to have to bring this awful news to the king.

They say, didn't you sign an edict that for 30 days, any person who petitions, any God or

man, except you, the king, will be thrown into the lion's den?

Notice there's no mention of Daniel yet.

They haven't Just worked Daniel into a trap.

It's just as much a trap for the king, he replies, as a law of the Medes and Persians.

The order stands and is irrevocable.

And again, the sadness and shock as they report the terrible news.

Daniel, one of the Judean exiles has ignored you, the king and the edict you signed for.

He prays three times a day.

Immediately the king knows he's been caught.

That rule about how you're not allowed to change an edict once it's been given, it

sounds really logical, doesn't it? It sounds like it secures justice and fair

play.

You don't want to live under a king who can just change his mind whenever he wants.

He tells you to do one thing today, but then kills you for doing the same thing the next

day.

That's tyranny.

No one wants that.

But instead of preserving justice, this rule's been weaponised to create injustice.

The king spends all day trying to find a way around the rule, talking to the lawyers,

reading up on case law.

But as the sun's setting, the conspirators come back to him.

And this time, all the concerns dropped out of their voices, all the words dripping with

honey, making it sound like they just want to honour the king because he's so great.

It's all gone now.

They're like a pack of hungry lions

surrounding their wounded prey, and they step in for the kill.

They say to him in verse 15, you know, your majesty, that it is a law of the Medes and

Persians that no edict or ordinance the king establishes can be changed.

And so, realising he's trapped and there's no way out, the king gives the order for Daniel

to be thrown into the lion's den.

Obviously, there's a lot of similarity between these events and the events of chapter two.

The time when Nebuchadnezzar had Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego thrown into the furnace.

Both kings had made a law that exalted them and their power.

God's people defy the law and get thrown to their deaths.

There's a big difference between the two stories, though.

When Nebuchadnezzar has the men thrown to their deaths, he's exulting in his own power

and glory.

He makes that arrogant statement, what God

will be able to save you from my hand?

As though he's the most powerful force in the universe.

The difference in this situation is that instead of exulting in his own power, Darius

is absolutely crushed by his powerlessness.

He's made the law about how people can only petition him.

He's the only one you're allowed to pray to or petition for 30 days and yet he can't do a

single thing to save his most loyal servant.

Why would you ask him anything?

He's powerless and he knows it.

And so, as Daniel's been thrown into the lion's den, the king actually breaks the law

himself.

He makes a request not to himself, but to Daniel's God.

He says to Daniel in verse 16, May your God whom you continually serve, rescue you.

A stone is brought and placed over the mouth of the den.

We're told the king sealed it with his own signet ring and with the signet rings of his

nobles so that nothing in regard to Daniel could be changed.

The seals are meant to indicate power.

The king sealed this den so that no one can

change the fate of the person inside.

But we already know how powerless he is.

And the king goes back to his palace for a sleepless night.

He fasts, we're told.

No diversions are brought to him.

All this powerless king can do is wait.

Have you ever had one of those sleepless nights where it feels like every second lasts

a minute and every minute lasts an hour?

Finally, though, the first rays of the sun lift over the horizon and Darius rushes to the

lion's den.

He's almost hopeless, but he's desperate for

there to be a good news story.

He calls out in anguish into the den in verse 20.

Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you continually serve, been able to

rescue you from the lions if the night was long for the king?

You can almost hear the nanoseconds of silence ticking by as he waits for a reply.

And then, wonderfully, miraculously, Daniel's voice rises up out of the darkness.

May the king live forever.

Darius's relief must be enormous.

Even those first words highlight Daniel's loyalty.

Even though Darius has had him thrown into the lion's den, Daniel still shows this amazing

loving respect.

But the greatest loyalty and respect goes to his God.

There's no doubt at all about why Daniel's life.

He's been saved by his God.

There's also no doubt about why God saved him.

It's because God, the judge of all the earth,

has examined the case and found Daniel to be innocent.

Daniel says, my God sent his angel and shut the lions mouths and they haven't harmed me,

for I was found innocent before him.

And also before you, you, Majesty.

I have not done harm.

The king is overjoyed.

He's bouncing in his sandals.

He gives orders for Daniel to be lifted out of the lion's den.

And again we see another similarity to Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego.

When they were brought out of the furnace, not a single hair on their head or strand on their

clothes was singed.

And there wasn't even a smell of smoke.

As Daniel's brought up, they discover that he's been completely unharmed.

He doesn't have a scratch on him.

And in case you're still unsure of the reason,

the author reminds us it's because he trusted his God.

That's why we talk about the faithful God around here.

If he's faithful, you can trust him.

He's trustworthy.

Daniel trusted him.

And once again, he's proved to be faithful.

When Psalm 2 says, all who take refuge in him are happy, that's a promise you can take to

the bank.

Daniel could have just thought, oh, it's only 30 days, God won't mind.

I better keep myself safe and obey the king, just for 30 days.

But instead of seeking refuge looking for safety in that course of action, he looks for

safety in God and he gets the happy ending.

Unlike those who plotted against him, no king likes to be manipulated.

They tend to find rather extreme ways of showing their displeasure.

And so we're told this in verse 24.

The king then gave the command.

And those men who had maliciously accused

Daniel were brought and thrown into the lions den.

They, their children and their wives.

They had not reached the bottom of the den

before the lions overpowered them and crushed all their bones.

Just in case you thought maybe the lions weren't that hungry or they weren't feeling

particularly violent that day.

That's clearly not true.

Daniel's escape is miraculous.

It's come from the power of God.

And so, just like we saw with Nebuchadnezzar, Darius wants his subjects to know about this

God.

He wants them to know that he's the most

powerful God and he's the Saviour God.

He's the God who saves his people, we're told in verse 25.

Then King Darius wrote, to those of every people, nation and language who live on the

whole earth, may your prosperity abound.

I issue a decree that in all my royal

dominion, people must tremble in fear before the God of Daniel.

For he is the living God and he endures forever.

His kingdom will never be destroyed, and his dominion has no end.

He rescues and delivers.

He performs signs and wonders in the heavens

and on the earth.

For he has rescued Daniel from the power of the lions.

You Might wonder, if God's so good, why is the appropriate response to him to tremble in

fear?

We've talked about this a few times, but this is a really good example of it.

So let's go again.

When Darius decree came out, petitions can only come to me for 30 days or you get thrown

to the lions.

That's designed to create a fear response, right?

Lions are scary and Darius is scary.

He's backed up by the greatest army of the

greatest empire the world has ever seen.

This empire is going to end up stretching from northern Greece to Afghanistan and the edge of

India.

There is no greater power in the world, it

would seem.

Daniel can be afraid of that, or he can fear God.

What are the consequences for disobeying God?

An eternity in hell.

But like we said right at the start, it's not like fear of God means you live your life in

terror.

If you fear him, and so listen to him and

trust him and take refuge in him, that leads to happiness.

God saves Daniel.

The last verse of this chapter says, so Daniel

prospered during the reign of Darius and the reign of Cyrus the Persian.

He was right to fear God and not fear the lions.

So does that mean that everyone who puts their trust in God will become healthy and wealthy

in this life?

Not at all.

That's a horrible distortion of what the Bible

says about happiness, the happiness that comes from taking refuge in God's son, as Psalm 2

says.

To understand that happiness, it's worth picking up on the clues that this passage

gives us about a much bigger story.

I'm sure for some of you the parallels were screaming out to you when I read them out

before.

When Daniel was thrown into the lion's den, the place of his death, his tomb, if you will.

A large stone is rolled over the entranceway and the ruler seals it with his signet ring so

people know not to open it.

Doesn't that just remind you of Good Friday, when Jesus dead body was laid in a tomb with a

large stone rolled in front of it that the ruler seals so people will not mess around

with it?

And when Daniel comes up out of the den having been saved from death by God, doesn't that

just remind you of the first Easter, when Jesus bursts out of the grave, miraculously

escaping death even more powerfully than Daniel?

Daniel never actually died.

He was saved by God preventing him from dying.

But God the Father saved Jesus after he'd already died.

And when you hear the reason that Daniel's saved because God found him innocent, doesn't

that just remind you of why God saved Jesus, the one who's perfectly innocent.

Even more than Daniel.

He'd never done anything wrong, not a single sin.

Humans declared him guilty and sentenced him to death, but God overturned the sentence.

God also saved Jesus because Jesus trusted him.

Long before Jesus died, Jesus told his disciples that he'd die, but that God would

raise him to life.

He didn't fear humans and their crucifixion.

He feared and trusted and loved God and the

faithful.

God raised him to life, made him the

victorious king and judge of the world.

And now God promises that everyone who trusts his Son, who takes refuge in him, has a share

in that victory, has a share in that joy and happiness.

Just like Daniel, just like Jesus.

We're going to face hardship in this life.

Hardship with happiness.

Don't get me wrong.

There's always a joy in following Jesus, even

in the hardship.

But the final victory and eternal happiness of Jesus and his people is a foregone conclusion.

The victory's already been won.

Daniel's salvation.

Looked forward to it.

Jesus, salvation from the grave has secured it.

Our salvation, the salvation of everyone who takes refuge in Jesus is assured.

So any pain and suffering and persecution that comes from following Jesus, and it will come.

2 Timothy 3:12 says, all who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

But it's worth it.

Because anyone or anything that looks scary now, it's fleeting, it'll come to an end.

Just like Babylon, just like Persia, no matter how big and powerful and scary it looks.

But God rules forever.

Christ's kingdom is an everlasting kingdom that'll never perish, spoil or fade, as we

read before from Darius.

For he is the living God and He endures

forever.

His kingdom will never be destroyed and his dominion has no end.

He rescues and delivers.

He performs signs and wonders in the heavens

and on the earth.

For he has rescued Daniel from the power of

the lions.

More importantly, he's rescued Jesus from the power of the grave, which means he'll rescue

all his people from the power of the grave.

And on the day that that happens, we'll never suffer or struggle or cry again.

And so we live in hope.

Guaranteed hope, Certain hope.

We don't need to fear what the world fears.

Everyone who takes refuge in Jesus is happy.

I hope you've enjoyed this series in Daniel.

I've tossed and turned a little bit about

whether to go on and do the next few chapters.

They're great chapters.

Daniel 7 is actually one of the most important chapters in the Old Testament in terms of the

big Bible story and understanding Jesus.

The chapters are a little bit weirder, the style is quite different.

They're apocalyptic, so a lot of picture language.

I've decided not to do them in this podcast just so I can stick closely to the story

format.

That might be a bit of a cop out though, so sorry in advance.

I have preached on those chapters in the past though, so here's what I'm planning to do.

I'm going to re record those sermons and post them in the club over the next couple of

weeks.

That's over on Patreon.

If you haven't joined the club yet, maybe that's the trigger to go and give it a try.

As we come to the end of the year, I thought I'd fill you in on my plans over the next

little while.

I'm hoping to squeeze one last episode in

before Christmas, a special Christmas episode, and then I'm going to take a little break.

In January.

I'm hoping to work on a different podcast

specifically aimed at people who aren't yet followers of Jesus.

I'm going to focus on the Gospel of Mark and tell the story with that audience specifically

in mind.

It'll be a resource for them, but it'll also be a resource for those of you already

following Jesus for you to share with people you know who may be skeptical or unsure or

whatever.

In February, I'll be returning to this and the Kids podcast.

There's lots more great stuff coming up next year.

Make sure you're following the show in whatever app you use so that you're notified

when a new episode comes out.

I can only do this work with the help of generous supporters.

For much of this year I've been right on the edge of running out of money, but God keeps

looking after us.

Would you consider either a one off donation or an ongoing donation, small or big?

It'll help me keep telling Bible stories for young and old alike.

You can do it by becoming a member of the club on Patreon.

There's a link in the show notes or you can make a one off or ongoing donation over on

faithfulgod.

Net.

I'm just a tiny operation and anything you can do to show your support is greatly

appreciated.

Keep trusting Jesus.

Bye for now.