Chapter 6. So in our last lesson, chapter
5, we had the big party that Belshazzar put on. And we learned that he didn't think
so much of Daniel, and Daniel was kind of an afterthought to
him. The prophet Daniel has been greatly
blessed and admired by the previous rulers in Babylon, and yet Belshazzar
just didn't have much use for him. It's kind of nothing new
there. And we found that in the prophecy
that we learned before that Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar that he had
this dream about the image that had the golden head and the shoulders
of brass or silver and the abdomen of brass and the legs of iron
and clay, and how that was going to be these kingdoms that came. He said, you're that head of
gold, Nebuchadnezzar, and after you will come a kingdom of silver
that's inferior to you, and then after that will be a kingdom
of brass, and after that will be a kingdom of iron and clay,
and then after that, the kingdom of God. At the end of chapter 5 we find
Belshazzar killed and the Persians came in, the kingdom of silver
came in, the inferior kingdom came in, and Darius, or Darius
is the way the Persian pronunciation of that, received the kingdom
and he was, it says he was about three score and two years old,
62 years old when this occurred. And so now we're in chapter six
and he's reigning. Actually, there was three Daryushas. There was a previous one that
was in the Persian kingdom. And then we have this one here
that's related in Daniel. And then a couple of hundred
years later, there would be another Daryush that was replaced by
the Greeks and Alexander the Great in that kingdom. So this Darush, it actually was
kind of a, it's kind of like a title, like Pharaoh. And Pharaoh
always had like a name attached to it. But generally, they called
him Pharaoh. Well, it's, that's kind of the
way it is with this Darush. It means king, king of the land,
or the good governor, kind of expresses that kind of an idea.
So in Daniel chapter 6, we have this account of his early reign and
the things that he did and how Daniel was, he liked Daniel. Daniel was special to him and
he appreciated Daniel. And then we have the plotting
that goes on, the jealous plotting of the ones that hated him. And that's kind of the main theme
of this. But throughout it all, we're
introduced to these wonderful terms about God and His deliverance. Let's read through Daniel chapter
6 real quick. And it pleased Darius to set
over the kingdom 120 princes, as he's setting up his government
as he takes over, which should be over the whole
kingdom, and over these three presidents. So he put 120 princes
out there that were governors of the provinces and things.
And then he put three presidents over them, of whom Daniel was
first, that the princes might give accounts unto them and the
king should have no damage, nothing going wrong in the kingdom, that
these were responsible to make sure that everything went well.
And this Daniel was preferred above the presidents and princes
because an excellent spirit was in him and the king thought to
set him over the whole realm. You know, we find that a lot
where, you know, Daniel's kind of a slave. You know, they were
conquered by the Babylonians and brought 1,750 miles to Babylon. But we find many times in the
scripture, we find that those situations are that God has purposed
them all. And like Joseph, he was taken
down to Egypt and God made him special in the hearts of certain
ones down there and to further his purpose. And he gives us
an excellent account of that. His brothers sold him. And he
says, you meant it for evil, but God meant it for good to
save much people alive. And he had an excellent, an excellent
understanding of God and his purposes. Well, Daniel's that
way. And he was special. An excellent spirit was in him.
And the king sought to, thought to set him over the whole realm
there in verse three, verse four, then the presidents and princes,
They're mad because they put this slave Jew over above them. The princess sought to find occasion
against Daniel concerning the kingdom. It's interesting that Daniel,
he's in a foreign country, he's in a foreign land, he's kind
of made a slave, but he understands that it's all according to the
purposes of God and he is there to act righteously. in the kingdom
that he's in for the purposes of God. Kind of reminds you of
that little slave girl that was captured by the Syrians and taken
back to Syria as a slave. When they raided down in there,
the Syrians would come down there and raid Israel and take all
their crops. stuff and they took this little
Syrian girl or this little Hebrew girl slave and took her back
and it turns out that she ends up in a in a quite different
situation where her the captain the general of the Syrian army
has leprosy And she says, well, you know what? There's a God
that can take care of that. There's a man that can tell you
about that. And so, naming the Syrian becomes a part of scripture. And so anyway,
we find those kind of recurring themes throughout the Bible where
God uses people and they put some sometimes in situations
where we're on the surface, you think, well, it's not the best. if I was to choose this, that's
not what I would choose, but God has a purpose. And when we
understand that, then we look at things in a different way
than we might normally look at it from a physical standpoint
and say, well, God must have a purpose in it. And we just
have to trust Him all these things, all these adjectives
that describe him. So the presidents and princes
sought to find occasion against Daniel concerning the kingdom,
but they could find none. They couldn't find anything wrong,
no occasion or fault. He had the interest of the king
at heart, even though he was a pagan king, a foreign king. He had an allegiance to him because
of the purposes of God. But he didn't abandon his core
concept of God. He didn't abandon his belief.
He didn't abandon his faith. He stuck with that. They said
they couldn't find any occasion or fault with him for as much
as he was faithful. Neither was there any error or
fault found in him. God blessed him with the wisdom
of Daniel, it tells us in the Bible. Then said these men in verse
five, we shall not find any occasion against this Daniel, except we
find it against him concerning the law of his God. Then these
presidents and princes assembled together to the king. So they
had their little secret meeting and they had their little plot.
They said, okay, we got our story straight. Let's go to the king. And so they go, all the presidents
of the kingdom, and the governors, and the princes, and the counselors,
and the captains have consulted together. In verse 6, they come
up to him, and they flatter him, and they try to assign things
to him that are only applicable to God. Okay, live forever. you're so wonderful, we just
wish you would live forever. But most of the time they got
assassinated by their relatives or by someone. They didn't usually
live too long. So they all came together and
consulted together to establish, we came up with a really good
idea. We came up with a royal statute to flatter you and make
a firm degree, that whomsoever shall ask a petition of any god
or man for thirty days, save of thee, O king, he shall be
cast into the den of lions." Now, I might make a note here
in verse 7, we find that word capitalized, G-O-D, and if you
look it up in the Strong's Concordance, it has the same reference of
when it talks about God like in Genesis. In the kind of the
subcontext of that definition, it just means deities. And in the view of these Chaldean,
or Persian rather, these Persian rulers, these captains, these
princes, these presidents, Daniel's God was just another Baal, just
another little g-god, another deity. They had hundreds of them,
just like Mars Hill. We have all these gods, but Daniel's
God is just one of them. But he's pretty faithful to him,
and they knew that. And they knew that that was the
only way that they were going to find an occasion against him. So they said, anybody that makes
a petition of any god or man for 30 days, save of thee, O
king, he shall be cast into the den of lions. Well, they had
been observing Daniel for a long time, and they knew that he was
habitual in his worship of God. He was faithful. He was steadfast
in his worship of God. You know, we come here every
Wednesday and Sunday, and pretty faithful, at most everybody's
pretty faithful to either come in person or tune in by sermon
audio or by Zoom here. And so they knew that Daniel,
he worshipped in a certain way without fail. And they said,
well, anybody that doesn't do the way we say, doesn't worship
the way we say, that comes with any petition except of you, O
King, they should be thrown in the den of lions. It's kind of sad that they had
a den of lions to start with. But they had one, and they said,
well, here's the appropriate punishment. And so they said,
now, O king, establish the decree and sign this writing that we
did, that it be not changed according to the law of the Medes and the
Persians, which altereth not. So once the king agreed to this
document and signed it, he couldn't even alter it. He was unalterable. Wherefore, King Darush signed
the writing and the decree. Now, when Daniel knew that the
writing was signed, he said, that's a big surprise. These
guys are plotting against me. He went to his house. and his
windows being opened in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled
upon his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before
his God, the real God, as he did aforetime. Then these men
assembled, and they found Daniel praying and making supplication
before his God." not by accident, they just didn't happen to be,
oh, we just happened to be walking by here and we saw that Daniel
was, it's kind of like the woman caught in adultery, you know?
They knew that she would be caught in adultery and they went there
and purposed that. They would catch him in the act.
They knew Daniel prayed every day at this hour, this hour,
and this hour. So they went there purposely
and said, Oh, we were just strolling by and we heard him making a
petition to any other god save you, oh king. So they came near
and they spake before the king concerning the king's decree.
Hast thou not signed a decree that every man that shall ask
a petition of any God or man within 30 days, save of thee,
O king, shall be cast into the den of lions? And the king answered
and said, the thing is true according to the law of the Medes and the
Persians, which altereth not. Then answered they and said before
the king, that Daniel guy, which is of the children of the captivity
of Judah, and one of them slaved Jews. He regards you not, O king,
nor the decree that you sign, but maketh his petition three
times a day. Then when the king heard these
words, When he heard them, he was sore, displeased with himself
because he allowed himself to be entrapped by people that didn't
have the best interest. Daniel always had the best interest
of the kingdom at heart. And he was sent on these missions
from the king to go solve problems and take a look around and see
what was going on. And he always made sure that
the king suffered no harm. These guys, on the other hand,
were plotters. And he was sore displeased with
himself that he fell for their little scam through flattery. That's something you need to
watch out for. And even in this day, watch out
for flattery. We know you're a pastor. You
should come over and fellowship with us bail worshipers. These other things. We know you're
a good guy, and we know this, and we know that. You should
come. Don't fall into that. These men assembled unto the
king and said, King, know, O king, that the law of the Medes and
Persians is that no decree or statute which is king established
may be changed. They said, remember that law.
Then the king, commanded, and they brought Daniel.
You know, that night when they did that, he stayed up all night. He said, oh, how did I let them talk me into
that? And he spent all night trying to figure out how to deliver
him. That's what it said in verse
14. He was sore displeased, and he set his heart on Daniel to
deliver him. And he labored till the going
down of the sun to deliver him. But you know, he was just a man.
He couldn't deliver him. And, you know, that's a lot of
trouble with religion is they think they can be the deliverers,
but they can't be. The law of this king can't be
altered and the law of our king can't be altered. You must be
born again. There's no getting around that. So the king commanded, and they
brought Daniel, and they cast him into the den of lions. Now
the king spake it and said unto Daniel, Thy God, whom thou servest
continually, he will deliver thee." I think Daniel had been talking
to this guy. I think he'd been telling him
some things about the true God. And a stone was brought and laid
upon the mouth of the den, and the king sealed it with his own
signet, and with the signet of his lord, that the purpose might
not be changed concerning Daniel." You know, that's kind of the
same thing happened when Christ was crucified. They said, hey,
you know, let's roll the stone over the tomb, and we'll seal
it and set a watch so that there's no monkey business. No one can
alter our plot. which is to kill him. But we
know that that didn't work out either. So the king went to his palace
and passed the night fasting, and neither were instruments
of music brought before him, and his sleep went from him.
He didn't have his usual means of entertainment and pastimes
and things. He was just, he was fixated on
Daniel being in that lion's den, and it troubled him all night
long. His sleep went from him. Then
the king arose very early in the morning, and he went in haste
unto the den of lions. And when he came to the den,
he cried with a lamentable voice unto Daniel." You know, I think
he thought, no one's going to answer me. No one's going to answer. It's
like going to the tomb and thinking you're going to find the corpse
of Jesus there when he said, I'm not here, I've risen. He cried with a lamentable voice
to Daniel, and the king spake and said to Daniel, O Daniel,
servant of the living God, Is thy God whom thou servest continually
able to deliver thee from the lions? And then a voice came
back that said, O King, live forever. My God has sent his
angel and has shut the lion's mouth that they have not hurt
me. For as much as before him innocence he was found in me,
and also before thee, O King, have I done no hurt. That, that
word innocency means transparent. Everything I've done is transparent. You know, in politics, they're
always saying, we want to be transparent. We want to, we want
everybody to have a complete view of what we're doing. Well,
we're letting you have a complete view of what we're doing. They're,
they're not truthful. But Daniel, he said, innocency
was found in me. provided by the only one that
can provide innocency. And he said, before the king,
I've done no hurt. I haven't done one single thing
that would be damaging to the kingdom or to you. That's a nice
thing to have recorded for you. Then was a king exceeding glad
for him, and he commanded that they should take Daniel up out
of the den. So Daniel was taken up out of
the den, and no manner of hurt was found upon him, because he
believed in his God." Same thing as with those fellows, the Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abednego that they threw in the fiery burning furnace. It was heated up seven times
more than usual, and they didn't even have the smell of smoke
on them. And the king commanded, and they
brought those men that had accused Daniel, and they cast them into
the den of lions. Them, their children, their wives,
and the lions had the mastery of them, and break all their
bones and pieces wherever they came at the bottom of the den.
As soon as they got through in there, they got gobbled up. Yes,
you know, we find a similar, when Norman taught through the
book of Esther, we find a plot against Mordecai and against
the Jews, and they hated those. And this was in Shushan, which
is a province of Babylon, just a little bit Northeast of the capital of Babylon,
Shushan, the palace is where that book of Esther took place.
And Haman and his henchmen plotted up this, well, let's figure out
a way to hang that old Mordecai and then kill all the Jews. And
what happened? Hayman ended up being hanged
on the gallows that he had built and designed for Mordecai. So we have the same kind of a
narrative here. So they were thrown in the lions'
den. The other ones, their houses
were turned into dung heaps. Then verse 25, Then King Darius
wrote unto all the people, nations, and languages that dwell in all
the earth, Peace be multiplied unto you. I make a decree that
in every dominion of my kingdom, men tremble in fear before the
God of Daniel, for he is the living God and steadfast forever. And his kingdom, that which shall
not be destroyed, and his dominion shall be even unto the end. That's
a remarkable thing for him to say. he delivereth and rescueth. And he worketh signs and wonders
in heaven and earth, who hath delivered Daniel from the power
of the lions." It's kind of like what Nebuchadnezzar said in chapter
4. He came to a revelation about
God, that he is God. So this Daniel prospered in the
reign of Darius and in the reign of Cyrus the Persian. So that's the nuts and bolts of chapter 6. You know, it's interesting that
this book of Daniel. Daniel, he's quoted five times
in the New Testament. by Jesus, who's mostly talking
about, he cometh with clouds in Matthew and Mark and Luke. And he was alluded to or echoed
some 130 times. Remember in Matthew chapter 24,
Jesus was telling him about the things that were going to befall
Jerusalem. And he said, when you see the abomination of desolation
spoken of by Daniel the prophet, get out, flee. That's recorded in Daniel 9.27. So here we have him in this situation
with Darius, the son of Ahasuerus, which we are familiar with from
Norman's study in Esther. From there, we could go to chapter
9 of Daniel. Remember I said that Daniel's
not written kind of chronologically. It kind of hops around. If we
skip ahead to chapter 9, verse 1, It says, in the first year of
Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the seed of the Medes, which
was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans, that we find
in Esther chapter 1 verse 2, that in these days when the king
Ahasuerus sat on the throne of his kingdom in Shushan the palace,
that's what Esther chapter 1 verse 2, So we find that in this time,
in Daniel 9-2, in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, understood
by the books the number of years whereof the Word of the Lord
came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish 70 years
in the desolations of Jerusalem. So if we were to read this chronologically,
we wouldn't find out that that happened until three more chapters. But it actually happened in the
same time block as the Den of Lions and those things. So Daniel,
he had his scripture. And he was kind of a notable
person at the time. A couple of lessons ago we mentioned
that he was a known quantity with different prophets, Ezekiel
and Ezra and all those that mentioned him. In Jeremiah 29, 10, thus
saith the Lord that after 70 years be accomplished at Babylon,
I will visit you and perform my good word toward you in causing
you to return to this place. So we talked about this Dariusha. There was three of them. And
the last one was around, he lived from, he only reigned two years
from, or six years, from 336 BC to 330 BC, before the kingdom
of brass came in. But, you know, we find several
mentions of Dariusha in the Old Testament. He's in Haggai. the
word of the Lord prophecies to Zerubbabel by Haggai concerning
the building of the temple. In Haggai 1.1, in the second
year of Darius the king, in the sixth month, in the first day
of the month, came the word of the Lord by Haggai, the prophet
unto Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to all,
to Joshua, the son of Josedek, the high priest, saying, you
can go back and and build your kingdom, build your temple. Zechariah,
the word of the Lord prophecies to the people of Israel by Zechariah
regarding the restoration of Jerusalem and the temple, and
it's called the Red Horse Prophecy, if you want to go back into Zechariah
and read that. It says in Zechariah 1.1, in
the eighth month, in the second year of Darius, came the word
of the Lord unto Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, the son of
Edo, the prophet, saying, when the angel of the Lord answered
and said, O Lord of hosts, how long will thou not have mercy
on Jerusalem and on the cities of Judah against which thou hast
had this indignation, these threescore and ten years, these 70 years?
So they're reminding him, this is what you prophesied, this
is what you said. Of course, we find Darius mentioned in Daniel
5, 6, 9, and 11. In Ezra, we find him written
about when Norm was teaching on that, where they tried to
frustrate the building, the enemies of the Jews tried to frustrate
the building that was enacted. They hired counselors against
them to frustrate their purpose. All the days of Cyrus, king of
Persia, even under the reign of Darius, king of Persia, Ezra
4 or 5. So that was going on. Nehemiah. The record of the Levites, remember
Norm went through that and said they needed some Levites at the
time of the dedication of the wall in Jerusalem. And in Nehemiah
12, 22, these Levites were recorded and also priests up to the reign
of Darius the Persian. So we find he's written all these
contemporary prophets and things that were going on were recorded
for us. And so, you know what stands
out to the people of God in Daniel mostly is by grace, he's viewed
as special and blessed. In Daniel 6, 1 through 3, we
read about he was blessed, and he was made over a lot of people that thought they
should be the ones that were ruling, and they had this plot
against him. But we also take great comfort in
the sureness of that. You know, many times in the Bible
we find people saying things that They didn't really have
a full understanding of what they were saying, but they uttered
prophetic words. Which high priest was it that
said, it's expedient that one man should die? He didn't know
what he was talking about. He was just trying to prevent
a Roman massacre because everybody was misbehaving. He says, if
we get rid of this guy, it'll all go away. It'll all settle
down. So he said, it's expedient that
one man should die for the nation. that we all not be killed. But he didn't understand what
he was quite saying, that it was expedient that Christ die.
And that's what Jesus said. It's expedient for you that I
go. If I don't go, then everything
is lost. If I'm not killed and raised
again the third day, there's no atonement for your sins. So Darius is used by the spirit
to declare another set of attributes of God Almighty. You know, the
term, as we mentioned earlier, the term God is used by the plotters
in the sense that they refer to any, any deity, any little
God of thunder and the God of moon and the God of rain and
God of fertility and the God of this and the God of that. that anybody that petitioned
any of those outside of the king would be severely punished. And
Daniel, he refers to God as El, the Almighty, in verse 10 and
11. He's the Almighty God. He's a God that's written about
here on this back page of your bulletin. In the ancient Hebrew,
the name of God in the Aramaic, the Chaldean language that Daniel
and bits of other parts of the Bible are written in, L-O-A,
L-O-A expresses first the term L that we find about God, describing
the mightiness of God, God the rock, God the shield, God the
refuge, strength of God. All those things you find here
on this page, it was just amazing. All those attributes are listed
here. And it's coupled with this oah,
or in the Chaldean, but in the Hebrew, it's the oah part of
like Jehovah and expresses his eternal nature. And it's what
we find the second part of that name in Exodus 3.14, where he
says, I am. tell them, Moses said, well,
who shall I say sent me? And he says, tell them that I
am has sent me. And that's that Jehovah, it's
a, I shall be It's a, I am that I am, a present tense verb. It's used quite, that same term
is used quite a bit in Job, in the book of Job, which is one
of the oldest books of the Bible. And this, this is the God of Daniel. This
is the God that delivered him. This is a God that he knew would
either deliver him or maybe if it wasn't for him to be delivered,
it was still according to the purpose of God. But still, he knew that God,
his God, was worthy of trust for deliverance according to
his purpose. And he said in verse 22, my God. my God has sent his angel and
has shut the lion's mouth that they have not hurt me. For as
much as before him, innocency was found in me." Well, we have
to look there and say who the him was that he Before him, innocency was found
in me, and also before thee, O King, I have done no hurt."
So he's talking about two different entities there. He's talking
about his God, God Almighty, and he says, because of the finished
work of Christ, I have innocency. It's a really interesting word. It means transparent, clean,
clear through. When God looked at him, he was
clean, clear through. Innocency was found in Daniel
by the Almighty. That's what it tells us in Romans
chapter 8, verse 1. There is therefore no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh,
but after the Spirit. All these plotters, they were
just flesh pots, plotting in fleshly ways, plotting against
God of whom they knew nothing about. Daniel, transparent, clean, clear
through, without spot, the Bible tells us in Ephesians, made righteous
by the blood of Christ, centuries before the actual crucifixion. And another interesting thing
that we are brought to our attention here is by Darius in Daniel 6.26. He, by the Spirit, identifies
God as the living God. She-lah in the Chaldean, him
that liveth forever. And we found that also in Daniel
chapter 4 verse 34. Joshua, Norm probably mentioned
this back when he was teaching the book of Joshua in chapter
3. In verse 10, Joshua said, Hereby shall you know that the
living God is among you, and he will without fail drive out
from before you all these entities in the land. In Psalm 42, verse 1 and 2, I
like what the psalmist wrote there. He just kind of expresses
this desire that only comes through the new birth. He says, as the
heart panteth after the water brooks. I don't know if you've
ever been just so thirsty that you just give anything for what
David said, I wish I had a drink of cold water out of the well. And he says, as the heart panteth
after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. That
only comes after the new birth. My soul thirsteth for God, for
the living God. Why not shall I come and appear
before God? He says, my soul just wanted
to know more and more and more in growing in grace and knowledge
of the Lord. So that concludes our lesson
on Daniel chapter 6 today. So be free in the living God. The next time we'll get together
will be in Daniel chapter 7, which takes us back to the first
year of the reign of Belshazzar and another prophetic dream given
to Daniel, which brings to our attention the ancient of days. So till then, be free.