S - Daniel Pt. 6 (Daniel 6)
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8 Now, Your Majesty, issue the decree and put it in writing so that it cannot be altered—in accordance with the law of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be repealed.”
9 So King Darius put the decree in writing.
10 Now when Daniel learned that the decree had been published, he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened toward Jerusalem. Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before.
Have you ever been afraid? Have you ever been in a scary situation for too long? I have a love-hate relationship with Halloween. I love Halloween because of the candy, and because I get to dress up. Do you know what my favorite kid show is? Bluey! I love Bluey. Lastyear, guess who I dressed up as? I didn’t dress up as Bluey. You know why I didn’t dress up as Bluey? Because Bleuy is a girl! I dressed up as Bandit. This is Bandit:
Bandit is Bleuy’s dad. So I dressed up as Bandit. Dressing up and candy makes Halloween fun right? You know why I hate Halloween? Because of 2 things:
Scary Commercials or movies
And haunted houses.
Have any of you guys ever been to a haunted house? I went one time. It was the worst things ever. My brother took us to this haunted house AND he didn’t tell us that we were going to a haunted house. Now, i don’t scare easy. Like you try and jump scare me and it’s going to be hard for you to scare me, but I hate scary movies, I hate scary costumed, I hate those kind of things. Well, the only thing our there, was scary costumes, and people that looked like zombies and witches and everything. Now, some of you guys might like haunted houses, but I was so afraid! I was absolutely mortified. My brother knows this, but there was a guy in front of me, and we running away from this dude in a ski mask and a chainsaw and the guy in front me lost and his shoe and fell down.
I jumped over him and kept going. I abandoned this guy because I was so afraid!
Now, it was all fake right? Like none of it was real. but sometimes, being afraid, it makes us do things we don’t normally do. Being afraid might make you run away, it might make you angry, it might make you completely freeze. But sometimes, when we are afraid, we may do things we shouldn’t. Just like I did when I jumped over one of my friends and left him to die to a chainsaw man.
how do you respond when you are afraid? Today, we are going to spend some time reading through Daniel and we are going to see what he does when he was afraid.
Have you ever read or heard of the story of Daniel in the lion’s den? Well, that is the story we are going to read today. Let’s read a few verses together, and let’s pray.
1 It pleased Darius to appoint 120 satraps to rule throughout the kingdom,
2 with three administrators over them, one of whom was Daniel. The satraps were made accountable to them so that the king might not suffer loss.
3 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.
4 At this, the administrators and the satraps tried to find grounds for charges against Daniel in his conduct of government affairs, but they were unable to do so. They could find no corruption in him, because he was trustworthy and neither corrupt nor negligent.
So now, we’ve moved on to a new king. This new King’s name was Darius. King Darius restructured the kingdom. He set 120 Satraps in charge of specific parts of the land that the king owned. You know what a Satrap did? They worked as peace keepers (Police) and they collected Taxes and made sure everything was in order. And Darius has 120 of them. And then, He put 3 guys over all 120 of those satraps. What’s 120 divided by 3? 40. Which means that the king split up 120 of those guys between 3 administrators.
It looked like this:
Show the slides
So the Satraps were divided into 3 groups. Each group had 40 people in it. And there was 1 Administrator in charge of each group. In one of those groups, Daniel was in charge. But the king noticed some things about Daniel. What does verse 3 day:
3 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.
So the King wanted to do this:
Show last Slide
The king wanted to out Daniel in charge of the 3 Administrators and then Daniel would report to the king. Well, verse tells us what happened next:
4 At this, the administrators and the satraps tried to find grounds for charges against Daniel in his conduct of government affairs, but they were unable to do so. They could find no corruption in him, because he was trustworthy and neither corrupt nor negligent.
The other people got jealous of Daniel and tried to get him kicked out of that job. Why? Maybe because they wanted Daniel’s job. Maybe because they were doing shady stuff and the new that if Daniel got this new job, they would lose theirs. honestly, I don’t know. And I don’t want to speculate why, but we do know they wanted Daniel out, and they tried to find him doing something wrong. But what does verse 4 say?:
They could find no corruption in him because he was trustworthy and he was not corrupt or negligent.
Daniel loved God, and he did things well, and people noticed. The king noticed, when we serve God, other people will notice. You know who else notices? God notices and when you serve Him, he blesses you. And when God blesses you 1 of 2 or both things happen.
people that know you and know God will be happy to see that you are being blessed by God. But the people who know you but hate God will get jealous, and mad at you and will try to tear you down. Can you do me a favor? Don’t listen to those people. What does God say about you? What does your Christian family say about you?
You know why it’s hard not to listen to jealousy or to people who bring us down when we are serving God? Because sometimes the people who bring negativity in our lives are our friends and family. That’s why it’s hard not to listen. But try to tune those voices out and listen to God, listen to His people and what they think about what you do.
These guys tried hard to find Daniel make a mistake and they couldn’t. So they hatched a plan. Because of time I’m going to summarize it. Daniel’s coworkers thought to themselves: “We can’t catch Daniel slipping on anything, so why don’t we make a new law to mess him up”
They went to the king and said:
King Darius, make a law that says this:
“No one can pray to any god or man except to the king for 30 days”
And if anyone prays to anyone else, throw them into a cave full of hungry lions. Isn’t that crazy? And the king did it. And everyone heard of this new law. You know who else heard about this law? Daniel did. And guess what he did?
10 Now when Daniel learned that the decree had been published, he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened toward Jerusalem. Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before.
Daniel goes into his house, he opens the window and looked in the direction of Jerusalem and he prayed to God.
What do you do when you hear bad news? What do you do when you find out some bad news? what do you do when you hear your siblings or family are doing things they shouldn’t? What do you do when you are afraid?
Daniel got on his knees and prayed. I love how this verse explains it too, it says he looked into the direction of Jerusalem. Why is that important? Back then, the Holy Spirit didn’t live in everyone who is a Christian. When you become a Christian, the Holy Spirit comes to live inside of you. But back then, it didn’t work that way.
Back then the Holy Spirit was in one place. Guess where He was? He was in Jerusalem. So Daniel would get on his knees and look for God, seek God’s face and he would pray. We don’t know what his prayer looked like, we don’t know what Daniel said. But we do know that when Daniel heard bad news, he reached out to God. When Daniel heard good news, He reached out to God, when Daniel was having a bad day, he would pray, and when Daniel was having the best day of his life, he would also pray. How do we know that Daniel prayed all of the time no matter what?
Because the last part of the verse 10 says: He gave thanks to God, just as he had done before.
Daniel prayed. All of the time. And even when things got difficult, he gave thanks to God.
When my wife got pregnant, we went to the doctor maybe 8 weeks into the pregnancy. The doctor took this little machine and put it on her belly so we could hear the baby’s heartbeat. And you know what happened? The doctor could not find the heartbeat. The doctor tried and tried and she couldn’t find anything. The doctor left the room for a minute or two. I don’t remember why she left, I don’t know if it was to change the batteries, or what, but she was going to come back and try again.
But when we couldn’t hear my baby’s heartbeat I was so afraid. My wife started crying because it was so scary. And I looked at Steph and I said: “It’s ok, the doctor will be right back, let’s not worry yet.”
You know what I didn’t do? I didn’t pray. I didn’t thank God. I didn’t reach out to God. Shame on me.
Not on my wife, because I’m the man in the relationship, I should’ve prayed in that moment. My instinct should’ve been to reach out to God when? immediately.
But I didn’t. Shame on me. What do you do when you’re afraid? Do you reach out to God? Is it our instinct to reach out to God? Sometimes we don’t reach out to God because we think He’s too far away. Sometimes we don’t because we think He’s going to be like my earthly father and just lecture me or yell at me again. Sometimes we don’t reach out because we made a mistake and we don’t feel worthy.
That doesn’t matter to Him. God wants to hear from you, He wants to know how you feel, He wants to know where your head space is at. In that moment I should’ve gotten on my knees and thanked God for all of the good things I had, and should’ve told Him I was afraid I was going to loose my baby. But even though I didn’t: God still blessed us. The doctor came back, tried again and we heard our baby’s heartbeat.
You know why? Because God chooses if He’s going to take care of you regardless of your prayer. I was told as a kid I needed to pray for my food before I ate because if I didn’t my food could be poisoned and I needed God to clean my food. And if I didn’t pray I could die.
I was told as a kid that if someone was sick, that if I just prayed hard enough, God would heal that person.
I was told as a kid that God could not answer me or give me anything unless I prayed.
Can I just say this morning: NONE OF THAT IS TRUE.
My prayers don’t motivate God to take care of me, my prayers don’t change His mind, my prayers don’t help God make decisions. God will heal the sick or not heal the sick whether we pray or not. God will bless our meals or he may not bless our meals whether we pray or not, and God may have an answer for you or He may decide not to answer you whether you pray or not.
There is only one reason we pray to God:
We PRAY because God is WORTHY of being prayed to; my PRAYER is WORSHIP.
Don’t think for a second that our prayers are strong enough to move God or change His mind. So what does that mean? I shouldn’t pray to God then? WE SHOULD PRAY EVEN HARDER! Why should this make me pray even harder? Because the God of the universe, the most powerful person in the existence of humanity, the creator of heavens and earth, the One who is powerful enough to create everything we see just by speaking, wants to hear from YOU.
God loves you, God wants to be near you, and He loves when we pray.
God, I am in a very difficult situation and you already know what you are going to do about it, but I love you and I wanted to share with you that I am having a hard time.
God, I’m having a great time today and you are powerful, you are worthy of being praised, and I just wanted to tell you that.
God, good morning. I love you because you loved me first, I am excited to see how you are going to bless me today. God give me the desire to read the Bible today. God, put someone in front of me that I can be nice to, that I can share a Bible verse with. Give me an opportunity to love others the way you love me.
We should always pray to God for everything. We should even ask God for help in every situation, but we should NEVER take worship and thanksgiving out of our prayers. I know that when we are sick or hurting or suffering or struggling it may be very hard for us to think about thanking God, but even in your pain, God has blessed you somehow.
Thank God for those things, even if it’s hard. We also pray because we are being obedient to God when we pray, God is pleased when we obey Him. And that’s what Daniel did.
Our prayers don’t shape God, God shapes our prayers.
God makes us better, stronger, worthy and righteous.
So we notice that when Daniel was in trouble he prayed. But let’s see what happened next:
11 Then these men went as a group and found Daniel praying and asking God for help.
12 So they went to the king and spoke to him about his royal decree: “Did you not publish a decree that during the next thirty days anyone who prays to any god or human being except to you, Your Majesty, would be thrown into the lions’ den?” The king answered, “The decree stands—in accordance with the law of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be repealed.”
13 Then they said to the king, “Daniel, who is one of the exiles from Judah, pays no attention to you, Your Majesty, or to the decree you put in writing. He still prays three times a day.”
These guys caught Daniel praying so they went and told the King. They said: Remember you said that if anyone prayed to someone other than you, you would throw that person in a lion’s den. Well, Daniel is praying to his God. You have to throw him in with the lions. And this is the King’s response:
14 When the king heard this, he was greatly distressed; he was determined to rescue Daniel and made every effort until sundown to save him.
But the king could not save Daniel. The king figured out that these guys had taken advantage of him, and there was nothing he could do. So the king does the same thing Daniel does:
HE relies on God.
16 So the king gave the order, and they brought Daniel and threw him into the lions’ den. The king said to Daniel, “May your God, whom you serve continually, rescue you!”
The king put Daniel in the lions den, and king was so upset he couldn’t sleep. But, the next morning, as soon as he could the king went over to see Daniel.
19 At the first light of dawn, the king got up and hurried to the lions’ den.
20 When he came near the den, he called to Daniel in an anguished voice, “Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you serve continually, been able to rescue you from the lions?”
21 Daniel answered, “May the king live forever!
22 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. Nor have I ever done any wrong before you, Your Majesty.”
23 The king was overjoyed and gave orders to lift Daniel out of the den. And when Daniel was lifted from the den, no wound was found on him, because he had trusted in his God.
See, the king also found himself afraid. He was afraid he was going to loose Daniel. And he didn’t pray like Daniel did. Because the king did not know how to pray. But the king tells Daniel, man I hope your God protects you. In this moment I’m going to rely on God as best as I can.
When the world has problems, they don’t pray. But when the world sees you pray, even when you’re afraid, they will see your example. And although they may not be able to pray, they may reach out to God somehow.
They may come to church, they may try to open the Bible, they may look for a pastor or church leader. But, when the world sees how God blesses you, they will want that blessing for themselves too.
Daniel was an example of Jesus to King Darius and the king does something he has never done before:
25 Then King Darius wrote to all the nations and peoples of every language in all the earth: “May you prosper greatly!
26 “I issue a decree that in every part of my kingdom people must fear and reverence the God of Daniel. “For he is the living God and he endures forever; his kingdom will not be destroyed, his dominion will never end.
27 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.”
Look at that, all of a sudden the King knows things about God he didn’t know before, why? Because Daniel more than likely took an opportunity to talk to him about God. And the king learned that God lives forever, his kingdom will not be destroyed and that God rules over everything. Who taught him that? Daniel did! What are you teaching the world about Jesus?
The king worshipped God. let me ask you again, what do you do when you’re afraid?
I hope that starting today you will reach out to God wherever you are. I hope that today you are encouraged to pray in every situation in your life. God is with us in everything. Remember our memory verse for the month:
7 Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?
God is always with us, why don’t pray like He is? You may be thinking, Pastor Luis I want to pray but I don’t know how. Let’s get together and I’ll teach you how.
But I also want us to notice something that happens int he story:
17 A stone was brought and placed over the mouth of the den, and the king sealed it with his own signet ring and with the rings of his nobles, so that Daniel’s situation might not be changed.
A stone was brought and out in front of the lions Den. Some people say that the cave was sealed so that Daniel couldn’t get away. Others believe the King put the stone there so that he could protect Daniel from his enemies through the night. I don’t know why, but I do know that it prevented Daniel from leaving and prevented anyone from coming in.
You know who else went into a cave and had it sealed by a stone? Jesus did:
57 As evening approached, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who had himself become a disciple of Jesus.
58 Going to Pilate, he asked for Jesus’ body, and Pilate ordered that it be given to him.
59 Joseph took the body, wrapped it in a clean linen cloth,
60 and placed it in his own new tomb that he had cut out of the rock. He rolled a big stone in front of the entrance to the tomb and went away.
After Jesus died on the cross, they sealed the grave with a big stone. No one could get in, and no one could get out. And just like Daniel came out of that cave the next day, three days after His death an angel moved that giant stone and Jesus came back to life!
1 On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb.
2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb,
3 but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus.
4 While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them.
5 In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead?
6 He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee:
Guys, I don’t know what else to tell you. Jesus dies for our sins on the cross. I know you’ve heard me say that like a 100 times, but do we know what that means? Sometime when we talk about Jesus dying for sins we say:
He died for sins of the world, He died because other people sinned and while that is true, Jesus died for my sins specifically. He died for yours too. But what does it mean that He died for sins? It means that you and I have sinned. We have sinned against God, and our sin separates us from God. And when we break God’s law, God requires us to pay for our sins with OUR lives. that means that if you have sinned at least once, one day God is going to ask you for payment. And the only thing you have that will pay for your sins, is your life.
But God doesn’t want you to pay, so He sends Himself, in the form of Jesus to pay for that price. Jesus dies on the cross so that you don’t have to. But what’s most incredible about ALL of this, is that Jesus laid down His life because He was the ONLY One who could take His life back.
He knew that if He payed the price, we could be with Him for ever. If you pay for your sins, you will not be with Jesus in heaven. But if God pays for your sins, You will have eternal life. Isn’t that a God worth worshipping? Isn’t that a God we can pray to? Then why don’t we do that?
I want to invite everyone in the room to do something before we finish today:
If you are a Christian, will you make a habit of praying every time you get a chance? I’m going to put the quote I put up earlier:
We PRAY because God is WORTHY of being prayed to; my PRAYER is WORSHIP.
It’s that simple. If you are NOT a Christian:
I encourage you to pray too. Did you know that everyone can pray? Not just Christians. Pray for anything you want to pray for. Ask God for help, ask God to be with you, but will also pray that God will save you? If you don’t know what it means to follow Jesus, let’s have that conversation.
Why don’t we practice praying right now. Let’s listen to this song and while this song is playing, will you pray. Don’t look at anyone else, don’t talk to your neighbor. Just pray. And if you want me or a house parent to pray with you, will you come to the front of the stage and we’ll pray together.