An Accurate Accusation

Daniel 6:1-9 ESV

1 It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom 120 satraps, to be throughout the whole kingdom; 2 and over them three high officials, of whom Daniel was one, to whom these satraps should give account, so that the king might suffer no loss. 3 Then this Daniel became distinguished above all the other high officials and satraps, because an excellent spirit was in him. And the king planned to set him over the whole kingdom. 4 Then the high officials and the satraps sought to find a ground for complaint against Daniel with regard to the kingdom, but they could find no ground for complaint or any fault, because he was faithful, and no error or fault was found in him. 5 Then these men said, “We shall not find any ground for complaint against this Daniel unless we find it in connection with the law of his God.”

6 Then these high officials and satraps came by agreement to the king and said to him, “O King Darius, live forever! 7 All the high officials of the kingdom, the prefects and the satraps, the counselors and the governors are agreed that the king should establish an ordinance and enforce an injunction, that whoever makes petition to any god or man for thirty days, except to you, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions. 8 Now, O king, establish the injunction and sign the document, so that it cannot be changed, according to the law of the Medes and the Persians, which cannot be revoked.” 9 Therefore King Darius signed the document and injunction.

As we now come into the month of March, we begin a series of sermons focusing on an Old Testament narrative. And as I thought about which narrative that we should work through this month, I thought of the book of Daniel.

Now, as I looked back at some of the old sermons that I have written I realized that, for whatever reason, I haven’t preached many sermons from Daniel throughout my career. And as I thumbed through the book, meditating, asking God what He would be pleased to have me preach from, I found my way to chapter 6; the narrative of Daniel in the Lion’s Den.

Now I, as I’m sure most of you as well, first learned of this narrative when you were children. It’s one of those biblical narratives that is exciting, intense, and leaves you in suspense as to what is going to happen next. But as a child, I didn’t quite understand and appreciate the message that this narrative conveyed.

In this narrative and throughout this series, we will be focusing on five primary topics. We will focus on 1. The good reputation that Daniel possessed. 2. The courage that Daniel possessed. 3. The faith that Daniel possessed. 4. The devotion that Daniel possessed. And lastly, and most importantly, we will focus on 5. The sovereignty of God, as it is the sovereignty of God that caused Daniel to possess all of these positive attributes and that brought about the miraculous aspect of this narrative.

And as we look to this narrative, we will start by examining the introduction, found in verses one and two, where it says:

Daniel 6:1-2 ESV

1 It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom 120 satraps, to be throughout the whole kingdom; 2 and over them three high officials, of whom Daniel was one, to whom these satraps should give account, so that the king might suffer no loss.

So, we begin this narrative by speaking of a man named Darius. Darius was a king who was likely subordinate to the greater king Cyrus of Persia. At the end of Daniel, chapter 5, we read that the Babylonian empire was divided between the Medes and the Persians, and Darius was a Mede.

Thus, in the realm ruled by Darius, it is written that he was pleased to, or he desired to and thus went about setting up 120 satraps over the kingdom that he ruled.

These satraps were like governors who held jurisdiction over certain provinces within the king’s domain. So, as there are fifty states in our country with a single governor representing each state, so would it seem as though there were 120 provinces in the Darius’ kingdom with a single satrap representing each province.

So, of course, at the top of the chain of power, so to speak, was Darius, the king, then farther down the chain were these 120 satraps, but as verse two in our reading tells us, in between these two links in the chain were three high officials who these satraps were to give account to.

And these three high officials were men who the king obviously placed great trust in as their job description was to ensure that the king suffered no financial loss. Thus, the three high officials were to keep an eye on the 120 satraps to make sure that the king received everything that was coming to him.

And one of these three high officials was Daniel. Now, we may wonder why, out of all of the people in his vast kingdom, did Darius entrust Daniel, a Hebrew, with this high and powerful position in the government.

And there are probably several reasons why this was the case. Among them was likely the report that Daniel had rightly relayed and interpreted the dreams of Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel, chapters two and four; and therefore, the king was likely impressed by the wisdom of Daniel and his ability to rightly prophesy.

On top of that, if Darius had learned of how Daniel had rightly predicted the downfall of Belshazzar, the king who Darius had conquered, he would have trusted that Daniel would not remain loyal to the fallen kingdom that he rightly predicted would fall.

But more than anything else, and this is the most important aspect of all, Darius observed Daniel, and through his observation, he knew that God was with Daniel.

So, with this information in mind, we move to verse three, which reads:

Daniel 6:3 ESV

3 Then this Daniel became distinguished above all the other high officials and satraps, because an excellent spirit was in him. And the king planned to set him over the whole kingdom.

So, in time, Daniel became distinguished, he stood apart and above not only from the satraps that he was set over, but also above the other two high officials that held the same position as he did.

And this happened, our reading tells us, “because an excellent spirit was in (Daniel)”. What exactly this excellency entailed is uncertain. It could be that the king had observed that Daniel was much more honest in his dealings than the other high officials, or it could have been that the king observed that Daniel was much more efficient than the others.

But regardless of what it was exactly that the king saw in Daniel, what we see here in this verse is that the king saw enough in Daniel and was confident enough in his performance that he was willing to place Daniel over the other two high officials so that he would be their direct supervisor.

Now, these other high officials and several of the satraps underneath them were not very comfortable with the king’s desired course of action, probably because they feared that if Daniel was over them, he would discover some of their corrupt practices and then report them to the king, therefore, they sought to be a stop to the king’s desire before he could ever act upon it.

We see this in verses four and five of our reading, where it says:

Daniel 6:4-5 ESV

4 Then the high officials and the satraps sought to find a ground for complaint against Daniel with regard to the kingdom, but they could find no ground for complaint or any fault, because he was faithful, and no error or fault was found in him. 5 Then these men said, “We shall not find any ground for complaint against this Daniel unless we find it in connection with the law of his God.”

We read that the other high officials and the satraps underneath them came together so that they could find some kind of dirt on Daniel in connection with his job performance. I’m sure that they figured that because they had been corrupt in regards to their service to the king, that surely Daniel was too and therefore it would be easy enough to uncover some kind of discrepancy on Daniel’s part.

They figured that as soon as they discovered a discrepancy, they would report it to the king and that at that point, Daniel would not be so favored by the king any longer.

But the problem that they ran into was that Daniel was not like them. He wasn’t sneaky and underhanded, rather, he was trustworthy, faithful, and without fault in his secular employment.

So, because these had found that Daniel was not guilty of any kind of corruption, they reasoned that the only way that they could find something in Daniel that would be offensive to the king would be in regards to religious matters.

As was said, Daniel was faithful. He was faithful to the king that he served under, he was faithful in his line of work, but most of all, Daniel’s faithfulness to his God was unwavering. Therefore, these opponents of Daniel believed that they could use his unwavering faithfulness to his God against him.

And so, as we move on to the remainder of our reading, verses six through nine, we see how these opponents of Daniel went about using his faithfulness to God against him where we read:

Daniel 6:6-9 ESV

6 Then these high officials and satraps came by agreement to the king and said to him, “O King Darius, live forever! 7 All the high officials of the kingdom, the prefects and the satraps, the counselors and the governors are agreed that the king should establish an ordinance and enforce an injunction, that whoever makes petition to any god or man for thirty days, except to you, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions. 8 Now, O king, establish the injunction and sign the document, so that it cannot be changed, according to the law of the Medes and the Persians, which cannot be revoked.” 9 Therefore King Darius signed the document and injunction.

The high officials, the satraps, the prefects, the counselors, all of the important officials in the kingdom, except Daniel of course, came to an agreement on the matter.

And coming to this agreement, they all, this great body of authority came together before the king. And this great body of authority, when coming before the king, immediately sought to flatter him, saying, “O King Darius, live forever!”.

This surely inflated the king’s ego and what they said next surely flattered him all the more when they suggested that he was so spectacular and great that they feel that it is only proper that for the next thirty days everyone within the bounds of his great kingdom should cease from their prayers and sacrifices to their gods and offer prayer to the great king alone.

Furthermore, to show how great and powerful the king is, they suggested that anyone who violates this ordinance should face capital punishment, being cast into the den of lions!

This suggestion by the highest officials in the land certainly pleased the king and sounded very favorable to him, but there was still the issue of the king’s great respect and favor that he had towards Daniel.

You see, these opponents of Daniel knew that this was an order which he could not and would not obey. They knew that Daniel would not break his faithfulness towards his God by praying to Darius, and so they knew that Daniel would certainly violate the king’s order.

But because the king respected and favored Daniel to such a great extent, they feared that once he saw that this order of his meant Daniel’s execution, that he would go back on what he had previously ordered so that he could save Daniel’s life.

Because this was the case, these high officials implored the king to “establish the injunction and sign the document” so that, in accordance with the law of the Medes and the Persians, it cannot be changes, even if the king realizes that he had been manipulated and seeks to undo what he had put in place.

Thus, the opponents of Daniel used Daniel’s faithful religious persuasions, the secular law of the land, and the great ego of the king to accomplish their deplorable desire. And having appealed to the great ego of the great king, the king then signed the document and the injunction, seemingly sealing the fate of the faithful Daniel.

What we see in this passage is an excellent testimony of the godliness of Daniel. Think about it this way… the only thing that the enemies of Daniel could justly accuse him of was remaining faithful to God. What an amazing testimony!

Look, we live in a world that pushes everything but godliness and sound theology. It’s not popular in the world to be godly, to be honest, it’s not always popular to be godly and have sound theology in the church.

When you stand on biblical doctrine with unwavering allegiance to your God, there will be a lot said about you, you will be falsely accused of a lot of different things. You will be misunderstood, reckoned as dangerous to society and to the community that you live in, and called a troublemaker. But in all reality, the only thing that they can justly accuse you of is standing on the truth, remaining faithful to the Lord, and not moving from the truth.

Beloved, may we be justly accused of remaining faithful to our God today!

Amen?