The Lion's Den

Introduction

If you have your Bibles, you can take them and open them to Daniel chapter 6. This morning, we continue in the book of Daniel, picking up where J.T. left off from last week. In Daniel 5, we saw the infamous story of the handwriting on the wall, a story of judgement that would result in the kingdom being torn away from Belshazzar and his death. This sets us up for our context this morning, with a new kingdom, the Medo-Persian kingdom, which we discussed back in chapter 2, led by Darius the Mede. Summarize verses 1-15. So if you will, stand with me as we read Daniel 6:16-28

Body

(1) Ordinary Stewardship (v. 1-9)

a. New King, Same Excellence

b. New Leaders, Same Faithfulness

Application: The importance of living an honest and faithful lifestyle is not just limited to how you handle spiritual business. This also extends to how you are stewarding worldly business. If you are dishonest, harsh, deceptive, and so on in the workplace, people will notice that, and do not expect to be a faithful witness in the workplace.

(2) Ordinary Discipline (v.10-15)

*Ordinary Discipline brings Extraordinary Boldness

- Boldness if the culmination of Belief, Behavior, and Burden

We tend to get it backwards and think that drawing near to God during times of desperation and/or desolation will result in extraordinary faith, but it is God working in us extraordinarily through ordinary disciplines that produce extraordinary faith and boldness.

The ordinary discipline of prayer is what leads to God doing extraordinary things in our lives. Many people want to see God do what only he can do, to accomplish big things in and through them and see the extraordinary happen. Yet, they are unwilling to take all their prayers and supplications to God, for God to have control over the ordinary. If you cannot trust God with your finances, family, friendships, witnessing, what makes you believe that you will trust him in times of persecution and trial.

This is why in East DeSoto services, we pray before fellowship, after fellowship, after singing, and before preaching, we give a time of response for prayer, and we conclude with prayer. If we want God to display his extraordinary power through East DeSoto services, we must saturate all our ordinary services with prayer. If you want to see God do great things at East DeSoto, we must commit to one another that on Sunday through Saturday, we will take times out of our days to take East DeSoto Baptist Church to the Lord.

(3) Extraordinary Deliverance (v.16-28)

a. The Picture of Redemption

b. The Picture of Justification

c. The Picture of Judgement

d. The Proclamation of the Kingdom

Conclusion