Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

For years and years, Turkey was led by a dominant Muslim leader who made conversion to Christianity punishable by death… In 1856, though, religious liberty was achieved and hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people converted to Christianity!

Toward the end of the 19th century, however, this religious liberty was long gone and suddenly Christians were a persecuted people yet again.

Between 1895 and 1896 the Turkish government killed over 100,000 Christians and on April 24th they were given an order to kill nearly 600,000 additional people!

There was an 18 year old girl who had escaped the persecution and made her way to an American camp on the other side of the border and was asked if she was in pain.

She replied that she was not in pain but that she had learned the meaning of the cross - the nurse thought the girl was confused and mentally not in her right mind.

She pressed further and saw a figure of a cross that had been burnt into her shoulder.

The 18 year old said that she had been captured by the Turkish soldiers and was asked for 7 days: Muhammad or Christ?

Each day she said, “Christ” and each day she was burnt with a cross.

Finally after the 7th day the soldiers told her, “Tomorrow if you say Muhammad, you will live but if you say Christ again, you will die.”

That was the same day that the Americans set up a camp nearby and in the confusion, she and several others were able to escape.

This young woman learned the meaning of the cross as she was left with a simple choice each day that week: Muhammad or Christ.

If she said Muhammad, she would be left alone and possibly allowed to leave the camp… Yet, she choose Christ even though it means continued torture and suffering.

Why would this woman make this choice day after day?

Because she couldn’t deny her Savior!

She learned that following Jesus carries with it a cost.

Today there are millions of Christians living in a similar situation as they are experiencing economic, physical, and spiritual persecution.

There are people who have lost their job simply because they have been baptized.

There are Christians who have lost relationships with family members simply because they follow Jesus and not Muhammad.

There are millions of people today who will risk their life to worship Jesus and if they are found by others, they will not only be killed by they will be tortured.

We look around our world and we see things changing and we see threats on the horizon - even to our north there are pastors and churches in Canada being told that if they preach what the Bible says on certain topics such as homosexuality they will be fined and possibly imprisoned!

We see concerning things in our country as well.

What must we remind ourselves of?

This isn’t anything new - and it’s certainly not a surprise to our God.

The world might be changing, but our God doesn’t change.

His Word stays the same and, therefore, we must choose this day whom we will serve.

Will we serve well and stand firm or will we sit down and stop serving?

The contemporary notion in the United States that Christianity is all about me and my prosperity and comfort but this flies out the window whenever we read the book of Daniel.

In Daniel we read that there is a cost associated with trusting in God.

That cost remains true today.

As we conclude our study on Biblical Faith in Daniel 1-6, I pray that this has been a beneficial study for you as a Christian but maybe you’re here today and you’re not a follower of Jesus Christ - if that is you ask yourself this: Is there something in this world that I would die for?

Perhaps a family member or a good friend, but maybe you have to really think about it.

Today we’re going to read about how this wasn’t even a thought for a man named Daniel.

His faith was in God and if that cost him his life, he was completely ok with that.

He chose to die - let’s see what God does in Daniel 6

Honor God in All You Do (1-9)

Between the events of Daniel 3 and Daniel 6 we have several events transpire.

Nebuchadnezzar goes crazy, a new king takes his place and now in Daniel 6 a new people are in power: the Persians!

This transpired around 539-537 BC, some 60-70 years after Jerusalem was captured by Babylon and Daniel and his friends were taken into exile.

What does all of this mean?

Daniel is an old man - likely around 80 years old by this point and what do we see in these verses?

Daniel is still hard at work!

Even with a new person and nation in charge, Daniel is not only an advisor but he is promoted to be an administrator in the new government.

Daniel’s role would have been to oversee the satraps or officials appointed by the king over the empire.

Daniel, therefore, was a pretty powerful government official.

He would have been in charge of making sure the other officials were doing their job at collecting taxes, keeping the peace, and maintaining order throughout the empire.

Seeing as Persia was the main world power at this point in time, Daniel was one of the most powerful people in the world and working yet again for a pagan nation and with a pagan king.

Daniel, though once again didn’t worship these false gods.

He was the same person he was back in chapter 1.

He worshiped God and he worked hard at his job - he distinguished himself from the other administrators because he was gifted by God and simply stood out… This, just like in chapter 3, makes his coworkers jealous and they come up with a scheme to get him in trouble.

They can’t get Daniel in trouble with the current laws because he’s a good worker and a genuinely good person.

Daniel was someone who took his job seriously.

Even though he was in a foreign land with another pagan king, Daniel was a faithful worker.

Alistair Begg shares this, “If Daniel could find a way to serve well in exile - to seek the common good, to obey the state wherever he could, to give his time and talents to seeing Babylon flourish - then we can serve well too.”

This doesn’t mean that we should compromise our faith to fit in with the culture, but it also doesn’t mean that we run for the hills and live a secluded life in a log cabin and never talk with people again.

That might be your ideal situation, but God commands us to be salt and light and to make disciples of all nations - that requires us to engage the nations and part of engaging the nations is talking with other people!

We must serve and we must serve well - in your job, at your school, with your friends, when you travel, serve well and honor God as you do so!

This is what Paul encourages the Corinthians to do

How can you and I live such a life that glorifies God?

We start with our motivation for doing things.

Daniel was a powerful person - some people desire to be powerful and their motivation for serving God is associated with getting something from God.

They think this: If I obey God then I will become a CEO or be blessed financially from God. Friend, if you come to Jesus for money, He’s not your God, money is.

If you come to Jesus for a promotion, He’s not your God, the promotion is.

We come to God to glorify Him because He is worthy and He demands our worship.

We don’t come to the Giver for what He can give us, we come to Him because of who He is.

What does that look like?

It looks like helping someone in need.

It looks like praying for someone whenever they are hurting.

It looks like being honest whenever you could cover something up.

It means being kind whenever someone else is mean.

It means not stooping to a lower level but staying true to the Word.

Think of this, Daniel was a government official who was considered untouchable by these other leaders and the reason why was because he was faithful to God and blessed by God in these different capacities.

The only way that they could touch him was by getting the king to do something - command everyone to worship a false god.

Sadly, the king goes along with this and issues a decree that no one can take back, not even he as king!

These men knew that they couldn’t get Daniel to make a mistake with his character/actions - instead they could only get him to err with his faith.

May this be true of us!

Obey God in All You Do (10-18)

Daniel heard the news and what does he do?

He does what any Christian prays they would do - he remains faithful to the Lord.

Whenever his moment came where he had to make a choice he once again chose to be faithful to God.

He chose to obey.

He had served well but now he would simply stand firm.

Church, think of the situation here.

For 30 days you’re not able to pray to God or else you’re going to get in trouble with the law.

What would you do?

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were forced to either worship a golden statue or face the furnace.

Daniel is forced to either not pray or face the lions den.

What would you pick?

Think of the pro’s and con’s that might rush through your head… It’s just 30 days of no prayer - I have my life ahead of me and can make up those prayers later!

God would understand, He wouldn’t want me to die because I’m a good Christian and I’ll continue to serve Him after this month is over!

Maybe instead of praying in the same room I can just pray in my brain and no one will know!

If the government outlawed Christianity and asked your neighbor if you were a Christian, would they give the government enough evidence for you to be thrown in jail?

In Daniel’s case the answer is simply: yes.

That should be our prayer as well, friends!

That our lives would be so marked by prayer and dependance on God’s strength that people would simply know, not because of our clothing or bumperstickers, but through our lives that we belong to God!

Look at the text, when things got hard, Daniel simply did what he had always done: he obeyed God He didn’t change something to stand out - he just kept praying like he always had.

Why?

Because he had determined from a young age, as Daniel 1:8 shares

He determined that there were things that he would do and things that he wouldn’t do and he wouldn’t cross the line.

He would obey God!