May We Tremble and Fear!

Daniel 6:25-28 ESV

25 Then King Darius wrote to all the peoples, nations, and languages that dwell in all the earth: “Peace be multiplied to you. 26 I make a decree, that in all my royal dominion people are to tremble and fear before the God of Daniel,

for he is the living God, enduring forever; his kingdom shall never be destroyed, and his dominion shall be to the end. 27 He delivers and rescues; he works signs and wonders in heaven and on earth, he who has saved Daniel from the power of the lions.”

28 So this Daniel prospered during the reign of Darius and the reign of Cyrus the Persian.

The scriptures emphatically declare, and our own consciences declare to ourselves that naturally, we are totally depraved. Naturally, we seek our own welfare first and foremost, usually not considering the welfare of others and many times seeking our own welfare even at the expense of the welfare of others.

And because this is the case, one of the most glaring aspects of our natural depravity is not admitting that we are wrong when we are indeed in the wrong. We typically know that we are wrong, yet we seldom admit it to others; even to the very ones whom we have wronged.

I see it myself in my own marriage. I will know that I have wronged Jordan in some way, she may even call me out for wronging her, she might even say, “just admit that you wronged me, and everything will be ok” yet I still pridefully find myself refusing to openly admit that I was in the wrong.

Indeed, admitting that we were wrong is something that is not natural for us, it almost feels abnormal to us. But what is even more unnatural for us is to be reformed, that is, to not only admit our wrong, but to go so far as to right the wrong that we have committed.

And though that is the case, God can still and when it is His will to do so, He does cause us to legitimately repent of our wrongs committed against Him and others and thus causes us to do what is naturally unnatural for us to do.

We emphatically see this in our reading for today as we see God causing a prideful, pagan king to not only admit his own wrongdoing but also causing that same prideful, pagan king to ascribe glory to the God that he doesn’t even worship and then commanding his subjects to do the same.

We begin to see this as this king, King Darius in verse twenty-five of our reading begins to make a new decree, where we read:

Daniel 6:25 ESV

25 Then King Darius wrote to all the peoples, nations, and languages that dwell in all the earth: “Peace be multiplied to you.

This verse begins with the word “then” which means that what takes place here comes after what was spoken of before.

And what was spoken of before was the account of Daniel being kept safe from ravenous lions and being delivered by God from the den where these lions were kept. What had also taken place prior to this word “then” was Darius casting those who conspired against Daniel into the same den of lions that Daniel had been delivered from, and them being executed.

It was after these things that Darius made a decree that was directed towards, as our reading says, “all the peoples, nations, and languages that dwell in all the earth”. This is a classic example of hyperbole.

Hyperbole is an exaggerated statement that is not meant to be taken literally. For example, after eating a big meal, I may pat my belly and say, “Wow! I just ate a ton of food!”, but I don’t mean that I ate a literal ton 2,000 pounds of food, it just means that I ate more food than I needed to and now I’m feeling it.

And when it is said that this decree went out to all the peoples, nations, and languages that dwell in all the earth, what the author is communicating is that this decree goes out to all peoples and in all of the nations within the bounds of the empire.

Furthermore, we read that this decree begins with the words, “peace be multiplied to you”, which signifies that this decree that the king is going to issue is for the continued peace and welfare of his subjects. And indeed, if the decree that follows is legitimately carried out by those whom the king addresses with genuine repentance and worship towards God, it will certainly result in peace being multiplied to them.

And we read the chief part of the king’s decree in the first part of verse twenty-six where we read the words of the king, which say:

Daniel 6:26a

26a I make a decree, that in all my royal dominion people are to tremble and fear before the God of Daniel,

This is definitely a major change from his previous decree when he commanded his subjects to pray only to him!

The king commands that every last person in his realm trembles and fears before the God of Daniel. To tremble and fear before God is to stand in awe of God. It means recognizing Who God is, comparing ourselves to Him, recognizing the infinite difference between we and He, and reacting in humble adoration of His glorious Being.

Essentially, the command to tremble and fear before God means to come to know the attributes of God and recognize that He deservesour worship, and then to actively worship Him.

Now, I could be wrong, but with Darius being a pagan king and his kingdom being a kingdom mostly made up of pagan subjects I don’t think that this decree included Darius and his subjects giving up the worship of their false gods, but instead it was probably a decree for he and his subjects to worship the God of Israel along with the false gods that they already worshipped, thus it isn’t true worship to the God of Israel, Who commands people to worship Him alone.

But then as we continue to read the decree of Darius, we begin to read of the reasons why he gives this particular decree by first naming the chief attribute of God, when Darius says that he makes this decree,

Daniel 6:26b ESV

26b for he is the living God, enduring forever;

To say that God is the living God is to attribute the eternal nature to Him. It signifies that God has ever existed and has thus, ever been God. There has never been a time when God was not, and indeed, there never will be a time when God is not. He is before all things and by Him are all things made and through Him all things exist. He is the living God and therefore, there has never been a time when He was not living. There is none like Him.

Indeed, what Darius confesses here is that there is no “god” like the God of Israel, that even the false “gods”, those evil spirits which masquerade as the one true God were created by and are also sustained by the God of Israel.

And yes, it is right for the king to confess this, but where Darius errs is that he worships these false “gods” along with the God of Israel, and as I already said, worshipping God along with anything else is not truly worshipping God.

But because Darius recognizes the God of Daniel as ever living and enduring forever, he also recognizes in the last part of this verse that concerning the kingdom and sovereignty of God:

Daniel 6:26c ESV

26c his kingdom shall never be destroyed, and his dominion shall be to the end.

Kingdoms come and kingdoms go, kings rise, and kings fall. This is something that Darius himself recognized and experienced. He was not always a king and indeed, the kingdom that he then ruled over was previously the kingdom under the jurisdiction of a different king and a different kingdom.

And so, what Darius confesses here is that the kingdoms of the world, even his own kingdom, is under the jurisdiction of an even greater kingdom, and that kingdom is not of this world. That kingdom is an everlastingkingdom and is ruled by the everlasting King.

Furthermore, he confesses that God’s dominion, that His control and active governance over all things shall never cease, for as the kingdom of God is everlasting, so is the King, God Himself, everlasting.

Then, as we move on to verse twenty-seven, the king continues to elaborate on why his subjects were to tremble and fear before Daniel’s God when he says, concerning God:

Daniel 6:27 ESV

27 He delivers and rescues; he works signs and wonders in heaven and on earth, he who has saved Daniel from the power of the lions.”

Here, the king speaks of some of the specific acts of the God of Daniel. And what is so remarkable is that the king is made aware of the specific acts of God which are mentioned in this verse due to that which had occurred with Daniel and his deliverance from the den of lions.

When the king speaks of the God of Daniel “delivering, rescuing, and saving” he speaks specifically of him discovering these mighty workings of God through God delivering Daniel from the deadly den of lions. Indeed, Daniel trusted in God and unlike the king, God was able and indeed did deliver, rescue, save Daniel from the danger that lurked around him.

Furthermore, when the king speaks of God working signs and wonders in heaven and on earth, He speaks of God decreeing and ordaining Daniel’s deliverance from heaven and then fully accomplishing this deliverance visibly on earth.

The great powers on earth, may have decreed that Daniel face his demise, but the God and King over heaven and earth overcame the powers of the world and worked the opposite of what the king decreed, and shut the mouths of the ravenous lions.

And because God was clearly with Daniel and because He inclined Darius to do so, the last verse of our reading, verse twenty-eight tells us that,

Daniel 6:28 ESV

28 …this Daniel prospered during the reign of Darius and the reign of Cyrus the Persian.

Daniel was on the brink of being eaten alive! Though he may not have done so willingly, still, King Darius, the most powerful man in the realms of his kingdom was working against Daniel. This is the state that Daniel had found himself in…

But now, our reading says that after God had powerfully delivered Daniel, Daniel no longer had the royal powers opposed to him, but instead, he found himself prospering, even receiving the favor of the king.

What an awesome transformation this is! This has to be the work of God! There is no other explanation! This is indeed a God worthy of worship!

And indeed, He continues to ever be a God worthy of every last person’s worship.

He is a mighty God, a God Who rescues, delivers, and saves. And when it comes to those whom God has chosen to this salvation, the salvation that He performs is a salvation from something much, much greater, infinitely more dire than salvation from a den of hungry, vicious lions. Indeed, the salvation which God imparts to His elect is a salvation from sin and the eternal consequences attached to our sins.

Indeed, the consequences of leaving this world in an unconverted state are infinitely more dire than the consequences of being cast into a den of lions.

And while God delivering Daniel from the hungry lions is most certainly a miraculous, powerful thing to do, the deliverance that He gives to sinners from a state of death to life, from a state of being dead in our sins to being made alive in Christ is so much greater, so much more awe-inspiring.

And at the recognition of this salvation, we, as the recipients of this great, great salvation should, like King Darius decreed, tremble and fear before our mighty God.

Indeed, brethren, may we reflect on the fact that a pagan king trembled and feared before the Lord because someone other than himself was temporally delivered. Since this be the case, what excuse do we, born-again Christians have for not trembling and fearing before this same great God Who eternally delivered us from something infinitely worse?!

May we reverently worship Him, humbly tremble in His holy presence!

Amen?