Daniel And The Lion’s Den
Text: Daniel 6:10-23
Pastor Phil Hughes, American Fork Presbyterian Church, UT
July 21, 2024
The story of Daniel is about when the ancient power Babylon conquered Israel and Judah and destroyed Jerusalem. The king carried away the best and brightest of the Jews. Daniel was one of those.
Daniel tells about living faithfully for the Lord in a place that is not friendly to faith. Daniel is an example of keeping our spiritual identity when the culture around us is more favorable toward power and popularity. Read Daniel to learn how to be obedient in a time of adversity.
We also learn about three of Daniels friends, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. This group of young men and exiles is so impressive to the king that he uses them in his service.
One time the king had a dream and when none of his astrologers could tell him the meaning he had a tizzy fit and ordered all his officials be put to death. Daniel hears of this, asks for his friends to pray and God reveals the meaning of the dream to Daniel who shares it with the king.
There is an incident, also worthy of this sermon series, of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego refusing to bow down to an image the king made. They are thrown into the fiery furnace but not burned. God rescues them.
Daniel continues to serve the king, interpreting his visions and dreams.
The king appoints 120 satraps in his kingdom. Persian kingdoms were often divided into smaller regions with satraps acting as governors. The king of Babylon appoint three people over all the satraps. One of those is Daniel. And it says, “Now Daniel so distinguished himself among the administrators and the satraps by his exceptional qualities that the king planned to set him over the whole kingdom.” Daniel is rising. He is recognized for his wisdom, integrity, and character.
But the other satraps become jealous of Daniel. Their attempts to get some dirt on him fail because he is so darn trustworthy. So they conclude that they have to find an issue with his faith. Daniel is known to be a devote Jew who takes his faith seriously.
They go to the king and tell him to approve an edict they have come up with that no one can pray to any god or human being other than the king for the next thirty days. If anyone violates this edict, they will be thrown into the lion’s den. King Darius, being your typical Babylonian power-hungry leader, signs the edict. This is how we get to Daniel in the lion’s den.
The devil can work as effectively under the guise of law and order as he does under the guise of permissiveness. When Jesus was crucified his opponents were all about law and order. The devil can be conservative and progressive. He can work in drug houses and in courthouses. Here the law is used to catch one of God’s faithful.
Daniel hears about the edict. But instead of forfeiting his convictions, he does what he always does. He continues to pray to the God of Israel. Daniel goes to his room and opens the windows toward Jerusalem. Why is this noted? Because Daniel never forgot Jerusalem. He remembered the temple there. He remembered the words of the prophets that God would act in Jerusalem. Though Nebuchadnezzar had destroyed the temple and Jerusalem, Daniel believed that was where God’s future would take place. He prayed that God would restore it and that it would come. Jews believed that salvation for all could come only from the God who had chosen Jerusalem (or Zion) as his dwelling place.
Facing Jerusalem, Daniel gets on his knees and prays. We are told that Daniel had a spiritual discipline of praying three times a day. Daniel gives thanks to God and asks God for help.
The officials find Daniel praying. They report this to the king. They remind the king of the edict. The king is now sorry he has done this because he likes Daniel. He wants to rescue him but he has been put in a tough position. He is stuck because of the edict he signed and he ends up condemning Daniel to the lion’s den.
The king looks to Daniel’s God and cries “May your God, whom you serve continually, rescue you!” The king cannot sleep or eat. First thing in the morning he cries out “Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you serve continually, been able to rescue you from the lions?”
Daniel, very much alive, responds, “My God sent his angel, and he shut the mouths of the lions. They have not hurt me, because I was found innocent in his sight.” And it says “when Daniel was lifted from the den, no wound was found on him, because he had trusted in his God.”
It is God who has as the power to rescue and it is Daniel’s trust in God that brings him through.
Mahatma Ghandi, the great leader of India and a warrior for peace, was deeply impressed and influenced by this event in Daniel. Gandhi was impressed with Daniel’s personal piety and commitment to prayer but was even more inspired that Daniel refused to change his practice of praying in front of an open window even after that behavior was outlawed. Gandhi’s strategies of respectful disobedience, which he often referred to as passive resistance, formed the backbone of his resistance campaigns for social and political change in South Africa and India.[1]
Babylon was not Daniel’s home. He had been taken there against his will. It was a place full of other religions. But Daniel was a strong witness for the living God in that foreign place.
Those of us who worship and follow the Lord Jesus Christ may find that our witness may not always be welcomed. We may feel like a minority or even alone in our family, where we work, in our neighborhood. Jesus warned his disciples that their faithfulness to him would result in harsh reaction. The Christian conviction that Jesus is the Good Shepherd and all others are thieves and robbers, and that Christ alone is the way, the truth and the life, that forgiveness of sins only comes through him and that there is no other name by which we must be saved, may cause conflict. This is where we stand.
I often hear people say they won’t be in worship because they have friends or family staying with them who aren’t Christians. Maybe we need to show our friends and family what is most important to us and quietly witness to our faith in Christ by letting them know that on Sunday we will be worshipping God. Why do we give up the worship of our Lord in the face of secular or nonbelieving circumstances?
Daniel knows who he is and who he belongs to. There are many brothers and sisters around the world who are in prisoned or being persecuted for their witness to Jesus because they live in hostile places. Let’s remember them.
These times are not always friendly to Christian faith. Maybe the way we will endure and be strong is to have regular habits of prayer and worship. We need to get in our prayer closets and close the doors. We need to spend time with God and get a faith as strong as Daniel’s.
Daniel was delivered because he trusted in God. The emphasis is on God, not Daniel’s faith.
What about the many faithful people who trusted God but were not kept alive? Thousands of Christians die every year because of their faith. There have been many faithful people whose trust did not keep them alive. All faithfulness in whatever form, and all the good people have done for God in the face of death will be vindicated in light of God’s coming victory. Even if we are not rescued like Daniel was, we know that in Jesus Christ death has been destroyed by the power of God. Death will not be our end.
When people read the account of Daniel they notice some strong parallels with Jesus.
There was a conspiracy against Daniel by governmental officials. They wanted to trap him. Again and again in the gospels we see a conspiracy against Jesus by religious officials who want to trap him.
The authorities in Babylon know they cannot catch and convict Daniel because of his character so they put his convictions against the law of the state. Leaders who feel threatened by Jesus know they cannot catch him through his character so they claim he was saying he was the “King of the Jews.”
On eve of his arrest Daniel prays. Before he is arrested Jesus prays. In fact Judas and the soldiers are able to find him because of his habit of prayer and where he prays, which was Gethsemane.
King Darius doesn’t want to see Daniel die and tries to get his release. Pilate didn’t want to crucify Jesus. Both Darius and Pilate succumb to the law and popularity.
Both Daniel and Jesus are left to die. The lion’s den and the tomb are both sealed with stone.
Daniel is miraculously kept alive. Jesus really died but is raised by the Father.
It is understandable why Christians throughout the ages have seen Daniel as a kind of foreshadowing of Christ. Both are about the victory and vindication of God.
Throwing people who professed faith in Christ to the lion’s was a form of death for early Christians. Lions became a symbol of the adversary and the struggle to be faithful to Christ.
Peter writes in 1 Peter, “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”
Paul writes, “ But the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. And I was delivered from the lion’s mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will bring me safely to his heavenly kingdom. To him be glory for ever and ever. Amen.”[2]
When Darius hears Daniel cry out the king praises Daniel’s God. He makes a decree that everyone is to worship Daniel’s God. I don’t know that making worship of God a legal thing is the best way, and it doesn’t last in that place, but Darius seems to be taken with the God of Israel. He says,
“For he is the living God
and he endures forever;
his kingdom will not be destroyed,
his dominion will never end.
He rescues and he saves;
he performs signs and wonders
in the heavens and on the earth.
He has rescued Daniel
from the power of the lions.”
When Jesus healed and taught people’s hearts were turned to God. People believed God had visited his people. People believed they were seeing God in action. And people would praise God.
Can we pray that our family, friends, and larger world will see Christ in how we live and give praise to him? That is what it means to be a witness. A testimony. Even Jesus said, “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”[3]
And again, as we have seen in the other famous Sunday School stories we have heard, it isn’t really about Daniel or that he manages to survive a lion’s den. This is about God. Rachel Hackenberg, a pastor and writer, has said that Daniel and the lion’s den is about “God’s ability to be God, no matter the circumstances.”
The background to this whole story of Daniel is that the Jews are in a crisis. They have had their nation taken over, their temple destroyed, and their homeland occupied. The people have been taken away and are in exile. They wonder if God maybe has abandoned them. Isn’t that what we feel or think when we are in a crisis? Perhaps those from Israel were even wondering if Babylon’s gods where stronger that Israel’s one God. In this time of crisis of faith is Daniel who confidently trust his God, and that God can still be God and do God’s work even when the temple is gone, even in a foreign land, even in a lion’s den.[4]
Rev. Hackenberg makes this the takeaway from Daniel, and I agree:
Not every moment in this life,
not every battle or crisis or stress that comes to you is yours to fight.
Not every battle or crisis or stress that comes to you is about you,
or about your tenacious ability to plow through and survive.
There are battles and crises and stresses that come to us
which are about God’s ability to be God,
about God’s ability to rescue
and to foster life in ways
we haven’t even envisioned.
It doesn’t mean it’s not a crappy night in the lions’ den.
It means you can let yourself off the hook of playing God in the lions’ den
— because it’s God’s turn to do the work of being God.
Scary, perhaps, but also incredibly good news:
it’s God’s job to be God.
This is God’s work.
This day is God’s mercy.
This life is God’s possibilities.
We are called to be part of it but
not to lose sight that it’s not about us.
Watch for God at work.
Wait for a vision besides your own.
Let God be God.[5]
In life or in death, in what is good and in what is hard, in our smooth times and in our times of trial, let’s let God be God. Because he is faithful. He is God. The one and only, almighty, everlasting and all-powerful God. And the God who sent his angel to Daniel so long ago is the same God who is tending us come what may.
Prayer: Almighty God, give us the devotion of Daniel. Give us the trust that in all circumstances nothing can separate us from you. Thank you that you are God – ou rock, strength, deliverer, helper. And that we can commit our lives into your hands confidently.
We pray this through your Son, Jesus Christ, who trusted you, committed his life into your hands, and won the victory for us. Amen.
[1] https://knowhy.bibleodyssey.com/articles/daniel-in-the-lions-den/
[2] 2 Timothy 4:17-18
[3] Matthew 5:16
[4] https://rachelhackenberg.com/letting-god-be-god/
[5] From a sermon preached at Grance United Church of Christ, 8/19/12