Daniel 6 - Integrity Over Intrigue

Tom Shrader examines Daniel 6, where the aging prophet faces a new king and jealous administrators who trap him with a law forbidding prayer to anyone but the king for 30 days. Daniel continues his regular prayer life despite knowing the consequences, demonstrating that Christian character is an asset rather than liability. Though God miraculously delivers Daniel from the lions, Tom warns against assuming God will always deliver us from earthly trials, while affirming His certain deliverance from sin through Christ.

“Your Christian faith is not a liability, it's your greatest asset in every area of your life.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: Integrity Under Fire (2005)

Recorded: March 17, 2005

Duration: 45 min

Themes: integrity, prayer, persecution, faithfulness, courage, character, devotion, deliverance, facing workplace pressure, standing against culture, dealing with jealous colleagues, maintaining daily devotions, experiencing persecution, government worker, aging believer, christian in secular environment

Scripture: Daniel 6, Daniel 3:18, Daniel 5, 1 Corinthians 15, Exodus 1, Acts 4

Theological Themes: providence, divine sovereignty, persecution theology, spiritual disciplines, sanctification, biblical worldview, counterculture christianity, miraculous intervention

Full Transcript

I hate to see today come for this reason. This is the last of the six sessions in Daniel. And I love this study. This is just a great study. So, if you've got Bibles with you, you can open them to Daniel chapter 6. That's where we're going to camp.

By the way, next week we'll start a new study. I don't know what it will be. I went back and looked through our archives. It's been five years since we've done some incredible stuff. So, I'm thinking next week, maybe a series called Living to Win. So, winning over guilt, winning over weakness, winning over stress, winning over lots of that stuff. Six, eight weeks on that. We'll take a look at it next week.

The Challenge of Living Counterculture

Daniel chapter 6. The series is called Integrity Under Fire. Integrity, we're talking about those convictions. What do you do in your life when you have those convictions and they come against the culture? And that's exactly what's going to happen. We're swimming upstream.

How counterculture is biblical Christianity? First book, first verse. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. That puts you counterculture right there. So, we didn't get very far into the process before we hit counterculture. But we're talking about behavior. You and I as Christians have a code, an ethic, a belief, a way that we're to behave. We find that source not in tradition, but in the scripture. God tells us how to behave and it puts us in conflict, oftentimes with the culture. How do you handle that? And Daniel's been a great story of this.

A New King Takes Charge

Our focus today is really on a new king. Let me remind you, when Daniel was brought, along with his buddies in exile from Judah, the king was Nebuchadnezzar. We saw Nebuchadnezzar and we saw God literally change his heart and mind. Then he dies. There's a new king. And we saw that last week. Daniel chapter 5. Belshazzar's the king. It's been about 23 years and we saw a magnificent story last week with Belshazzar.

Today, there is a new king. Look at Daniel chapter 6, verse 1. It pleased Darius. Darius is the new king. The Medes and the Persians have conquered Babylon. Darius is the new king in this process.

And as the new king, he's probably suffering a little bit. I'm in speculation here. Probably a little insecure. He's a conquering king, so he's probably a little bit insecure, a little paranoid maybe. By the same token, probably doesn't have a lot of preconceived notion. If you will, there's a new guy coming in from the home office. There's a new CEO. There's a new boss. It's this guy. Now he comes in and he doesn't have his team in place, but he has this team that he's inherited, so he's a little nervous about it.

Establishing the Organizational Structure

He looks around and that's what Darius does. He looks around and he says, listen, we've got to get an organizational structure here. Look at it. Here it is. It pleased Darius to appoint 120 satraps. Now, every time I see that, I think sand trap. I'm going to play tomorrow. 120 satraps to rule throughout the kingdom with three administrators over them, one of whom was Daniel. And the satraps were made accountable to them so that the king might not suffer any loss.

So I got two things here. We got a new org chart and the org chart goes like this. There are these satraps, 120. They're organized in three groups of 40 over them as an administrator. So there's three of these administrators. Of those administrators, one of them is Daniel. And the reason for this structure is very simple. The king doesn't want to suffer a loss. What's he talking about? Tax revenue. Keep the dollars flowing. I need to be able to have the money flowing from the people and up. So that's his concern. That's the chart.

Daniel's Exceptional Qualities Shine

Daniel distinguishes himself, verse 3, among the administrators and the satraps by his exceptional qualities that the king planned to set Him over the whole kingdom. All of a sudden, there's a guy that's a new guy in town and he looks around and he says, there's this one star over here that shines brighter than everyone else and his name's Daniel. So I'm contemplating a new org chart that goes me, the king, then Daniel, then the administrators, then the satraps.

Now, I got to hit the pause button here and I want to make a point to you that we make all the time. The king looks around and says, I need a good group of guys. I need a quality group. I need to find the best and the brightest. And as Darius looks around, his eyes land on Daniel. What caught his eye? My suspicion would be Daniel was loyal, reliable, steadfast, honest. His yes was a yes. His no was a no.

The same things and character traits that made Daniel appealing to Darius are the same character traits that make you a valuable commodity in the marketplace today. Your Christian faith is not a liability. It's your greatest asset in every area of your life. Whether it's the workplace, whether it's the family, it doesn't matter. Whatever it is, that's what you're looking for. Honest, reliable, steadfast, quality, competent people. And when the world sees it, they're going to respond to it.

A Personal Example of Trust

A couple of years ago, I had a car, and it had 150,000 miles on it. And they came to me, and they said I needed a CV boot. Which doesn't mean anything to me. A boot is something you wear. And I don't know anything about cars. I don't care. We've got a guy in our church who comes to your house and fixes your car. Perfect.

So I call Him and I say, you've got to come to the house and fix the car. He looks at it, and he's the guy that says you need the CV boot. Perfect. Put it on. Take it off. Whatever it is you do with it. And he said, I don't do CV boots. I said, where do I go? And he said, listen, here's a guy. He's a quality guy. He's a guy that I recommend.

I went to the guy, and I said to the guy, never met Him before. These are words you typically would never say to a mechanic.

I said, I don't know anything about cars. I don't know anything about this car. I don't want to know anything about this car. You get in there, and whatever's broken, fix it.

So about three days later, I get a call, and it says your car's ready. I said, whoa. Nobody called me to get any authorization. And he said, well, you told me to fix the CV boot. And I said, yeah. I said, what else? He said, no, we got in there. We saw some little things, and we tightened some things, and oiled some things, and moved around. No charge. Don't worry about that. But the car's ready. The CV boot's done.

That's what you're looking for, isn't it? You want to know who He is, don't you? Yeah. No, no, no. He's too busy fixing my stuff. He doesn't have time. That's what you're looking for. And that's why so often we go running to the marketplace and thinking our faith is a liability. It's not. It's an asset. Darius, just like every CEO and boss here today and now, is looking for a guy like Daniel. Are you that person?

The Search for Daniel's Weakness

There's the hook. Verse four. 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. Now, they're motivated by professional and ethnic jealousy. They don't want Daniel over them. So they say, listen, we've got to find something that He's doing wrong and bring a charge against Him.

They weren't able to do so. They could find no corruption in Him because He was trustworthy. Look at this. And He was neither corrupt nor negligent. We're going down two roads here because they were looking at sins of omission and commission. They said He is not corrupt. He's not doing anything that He shouldn't be doing. And He's not negligent. He's doing everything He should be doing.

They said, listen, we want this guy out of there. How are we going to get Him out of there? The way we're going to get Him out of there is we're going to expose His flaw, His weakness, His sin to the king. That's what we're going to do.

So they hire Rockford. They get Woodward and Bernstein. They tap His phones. They got cameras in His bedroom. They got everything going on. And at the end of this search, they can't find anything. There's nothing that He's doing. There's no sin of corruption. There's no sin of neglect.

The Power of Living Above Reproach

We had a presidential candidate a couple of decades ago now who was accused of some things. And He said to the press, listen, if you don't believe me, follow me. Just follow me. Eight hours later, I'm not making this up. Eight hours later, they catch Him with a woman on a boat who's not His wife. Eight hours. Remember the name of the boat? Monkey business. That's exactly right.

So here's Gary Hart with Donna Rice. Donna Rice now. You'll see Donna Rice quite often on Christian television. She's really... God saved her, and she's been campaigning against a lot, especially the internet pornography stuff. But this presidential candidate says, follow me. He lasted a third of the day.

Thereafter, Daniel, with all the resources they have, and they can't find anything. They said, there's nothing here. No corruption. No neglect. He does have one flaw. There it is, verse 5. Finally, they said, we'll never find any basis for charges against this man Daniel unless it has something to do with the law of God.

The only way we're ever going to get Daniel is that we know that He's absolutely predictable. He will do what God says to do. He will avoid what God says to avoid. Can you imagine a few years from now where at your memorial service, they're gathered, and they say, does anybody want to say anything about Him? Anybody want to say anything about her? And they say, yep, there's one thing you could always count on. They always did what God said to do. That's not a bad goal. That's not a bad epitaph. That's not a bad chant that you hear going up at the memorial service.

The Conspiracy Against Daniel

You understand this, right? These guys want to get a piece of Daniel's action. They don't want Daniel as the boss. They want to get Him out of there. They follow Him. There's no flaw, no corruption, no neglect. So they said, well, listen, we're going to have to devise some sort of plan. What do we know? Well, here's what we know. We know Daniel does what God says to do.

So the administrators and the satraps, we're in verse 6 here of Daniel 6, went as a group. Now, if you're one of those who love to circle and mark in your Bible, it's kind of interesting to mark that little phrase as a group, because I think you'll see it now three times. There's a mob mentality now. They go to the king. Remember the king? Got a little insecurity here. He's the new man in town. Probably uncertain about everybody.

And they say, oh, King Darius, live forever. The royal administrators and the prefects and the satraps and the advisors and the governors have all agreed that the king should issue an edict and enforce the decree that anyone who prays to any god or man during the next 30 days except you, oh, king, should be thrown into the lion's den. Now, oh, king, issue the decree. Put it in writing so it cannot be altered in accordance with the laws of the Medes and the Persians, which cannot be repealed. So King Darius put the decree in writing.

The Trap is Set

Here's the scene. They come and they said, listen, king, here's what we think you ought to do. We think that you ought to have everybody in the land, whenever they pray, for the next month, for the next 30 days, they should pray to you. Now, the reason they're doing this is what? They know full well there's no way Daniel's going to do this. This is not about honoring the king. They appeal to the king's insecurity. They appeal to His pride.

I mean, this is pretty heavy stuff. If the guys in your office, let's say you're the manager, you're the owner of the business. If the staff came in today and said, we've got an idea. We all want to pray to you and only you for the next 30 days. That's pretty heavy

The Ultimate Sin: Pride

That appeals to the ultimate vice that each one of us has, the ultimate sin. Your greatest weakness, your greatest sin, I guarantee you, is pride. Every once in a while, when I say that, somebody wants to argue with me. They'll say, "Absolutely not me. If anything, I don't have that pride. If anything, I'm insecure." My point would be, that's how proud you are. You're so proud of who you think you are and you haven't lived up to your own expectation that you're angry at yourself—you're so proud.

There was a guy by the name of Harry Ironside who used to teach in Chicago. Great teacher. One day, one of his congregation came to him and said, "I think you're carried away with yourself. I think you're filled with pride." So Ironside said, "What should I do about it?" He said, "I think you ought to prove that you're humble. You ought to show some humility." And he said, "What do you want me to do?" He said, "I think you should go down to the busiest street intersection here in the city of Chicago all day during a business day. I think you should get a sandwich board that says 'repent.' I think you should stand there and preach the entire day."

Ironside said, "All right." So at the appointed day, he goes down, gets the sandwich board, he's down there the entire day, preaches the whole day: hell, damnation, repentance, come to Jesus, no other way. That night he's at home. There's a knock at the door. The guy who was his accuser came to him and said, "Well, did you do it?" He said, "I did." He said, "How was it?" He said, "It was tough. I did it. I got the sandwich board, got the sign, did the repent thing." He said, "Well, how'd it go?" The story goes that Ironside smiled and said, "I doubt there's another man in all of Chicago who could have done that." So we defeated our pride just a bit.

The Irrevocable Decree

Now, here's what he says. When they come to him, they say to the king, "Put it in writing." Here was the deal. You see the reference there in the passage. If it's the law of the Medes and the Persians, it can't be altered. Once there was a law that was issued, it couldn't be repealed, repealed, or amended. So they're nailing this down. These guys are pretty clever.

What they're going to do is they want to trap Daniel. They know there's no way Daniel is going to follow this. "Can I have that in writing, O king?" And he says, "Absolutely. I'll give it to you in writing." There it is.

Daniel's Unwavering Response

Now, Daniel, verse 10, "learned that the decree had been published and he went home to his upstairs room where the windows were open toward Jerusalem. And three times a day, he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to God." Key phrase. Next phrase is a key phrase to me: "just as he'd done before."

Along comes this law. Daniel doesn't like the law. It's anti all of what he believes and what God's taught him. So Daniel has some options. Daniel could have said, "You know what? Especially when he understands the consequence." Because the consequence is you're going to die. Daniel could have said, "You know what? I'm 85 years old. I've been praying for 85 years. I need a sabbatical for about 30 days. About a 30-day sabbatical from prayer. That's what I need." Doesn't do that.

He doesn't call the television stations and the radio stations and the newspaper and hold a press conference down in the center of the city in defiance of the order of the king. Doesn't do that either. He just does—there's the phrase—what he's always done before. Daniel's just being Daniel.

Civil Disobedience and the Christian

Now, there's a little side issue. We'll give it about 60, 120 seconds here. This raises the question about civil disobedience in the Christian. Obviously, it's a somewhat complicated issue, but we can simplify it a bit. We really get this issue raised right about now, next few weeks. "I don't believe that the government is honest, straightforward. They support some things I don't. Should I pay taxes to my government?" My suggestion, unless you want to understand and meet Chuck Colson up front and personal, I'd pay them. I'd pay the taxes.

"But don't they waste money?" Sure. "Don't they fund things we're opposed to?" Absolutely. But see, God has put in place four structures in our lives. You're going to make me so proud right now. This is going to make me so proud. This is going to be a great moment for me, because you're going to remember what those four structures are. We gave you one. One's government. What are the other three? Church, family, and business. How good are you? That's exactly right.

So, let's take you in that role in any of those four structures. If I'm a citizen that rebels against my government, the structure says I'm rebelling against God. If I don't pay my taxes, I'm rebelling against God. Now, if I'm a wife and I don't submit to my husband, I'm rebelling against God. If I'm a husband and I don't love my wife, I'm rebelling against God. If I'm a child and don't obey my parents, I'm rebelling against God.

The Exceptions to Submission

Are there exceptions? Let's deal with the government. Yeah. If the government commands you to do something God forbids, or forbids you to do something God commands. We see three examples in Scripture. One of them here in Daniel 6. The others in Exodus 1, where the Jewish midwives are told to abort the Jewish babies. And the others in Acts 4, where Peter's told not to preach.

I think camping out in this civil disobedience is a pretty scary area. I would say that it can come in your life about .0000001% of the time. We're to be model citizens, model families, model employees or employers. Model in the way we conduct the church. But Daniel has no option because God's commanded him to pray, so he needs to pray. He doesn't make a big thing about it. He just does what he's always done.

The Trap is Set

Verse 12, "So they"—that would be all of the co-conspirators here—"went to the king and spoke to him." And they said, "Let's make sure we got this right. Did you not publish a decree that during the next 30 days..."

anyone who prays to any God or man except you, O king, would be thrown in the lion's den? Is that what you said?" His answer? "The decree stands in accordance with the laws of the Medes and the Persians, which cannot be repealed." No repeal, appeal, amendment. There's nothing we can do here.

Then they said to the king, "Daniel, who is one of the exiles from Judah..." There's that little ethnic jealousy. Here's those little Jewish boys that you imported in here. "He pays no attention to you, O king. He pays no attention to you or to the decree you put in writing. He still prays three times a day."

Now, you're a king. There are certain character traits that we associate with a king, especially with a king who says, "It's okay to go ahead and pray to me." You've got to assume at this point, you're going to be pretty upset. You can see the king say, "Get Daniel in here. Who do you think you are? I've raised you to a point where you're the second most powerful man in the whole land. And this is the thanks I get from you? I've trusted all sorts of resources to you, Daniel, and you've really let me down."

The King's Surprising Response

Remember, the king doesn't worship Daniel's God. He doesn't share Daniel's faith. If anything, the king is contrary to all Daniel thinks and believes. So you would anticipate at this moment, if we said, "You draw the next scene," you would anticipate that when we see the king again, he's going to join with these guys and say, "I want Daniel."

Look what happens. Verse 14: "When the king heard this, he was greatly distressed, and he was determined to rescue Daniel and made every effort until sundown to save him." He says, "No. If anything, I want to see Daniel delivered. Get the attorney general on the phone. Every law we write has a loophole. Find the loophole. Get him out. I don't want him thrown in there." Why? Well, he's a valuable resource for one, but Daniel's faith, Daniel's loyalty, Daniel's reliability, honesty has won over the king.

And the king is stuck. Then the men went to the king. They went as a group. There it is again. And they said, "Remember, king, that according to the law of the Medes and the Persians, no decree or edict that the king issues can be changed." No repeal, appeal, amendment.

So the king gave the order, and they brought Daniel, and they threw him into the lion's den. And the king said to Daniel... I want you to see three words. We're in verse 16 here. I want you to see three things.

Three Remarkable Words

Here's the first thing: "Your God." It's not my God. I don't buy Him. I don't believe in Him. He's not my God. "Daniel, may your God whom you serve..." Look at the next word: "Continually." Daniel, you never take a break. You never stop. You are relentless in your service of your God. What an extraordinary thing to have said about you by somebody who, if anything, is antagonistic to your faith. What a reputation.

I find myself falling in love with Daniel as a role model. Can you imagine sitting at the end of your life at age 85, and here is your antagonist, and here's what he says: "You serve your God continually." Doesn't it make you smile to hear it? May your God, who you serve continually, and here's the last word: "Rescue you." Deliver you. Save you.

Daniel's in the lion's den. Verse 17: "A stone is brought, and the king sealed it with his own signet ring, and the rings of the nobles, so that Daniel's situation might not be changed." He's in the lion's den. There's an opening to this den. He rolls the stone in front of it. There's hot wax that's placed on it. He seals it with his signet ring.

A Familiar Scene

This ought to make you think of something. What's it make you think of? Jesus in the tomb. Exactly the same scenario. Jesus is in the tomb. The signet ring goes on, and it says, "Listen, you break the seal of this tomb, and all of the wrath of Rome falls on you."

That's why when you stop and you look at the resurrection... maybe you're here today, and you're antagonistic toward what we believe, or this scripture. I'll give you a head start. I'll tell you where we're vulnerable. I'll tell you where you can strike a deadly blow. Disprove the resurrection. Because if you disprove the resurrection, all of Christianity falls apart. That's 1 Corinthians 15. If Jesus didn't rise from the dead, our preaching is in vain. Our faith is in vain. This is a giant waste of time.

So if you want to bring down Christianity, it's really simple in terms of strategy. Disprove the resurrection. Here's the problem. When you get into the scripture, and you get into historical documents, the evidence for the resurrection is overwhelming. I'll warn you, if you start this study with the intent of bringing down Christianity, many, many, many men and women have started that task and have ended up some of the giant proponents of the faith. Because there is data all over that makes the resurrection of Jesus Christ the only possible explanation for an empty tomb.

Our Need for Rescue

But if we were going to apply it in our life, you and I are a little bit like Daniel in that we are hopeless and helpless on our own in our sin. I'm talking about the way we come into this world, the way we live, that we're sinners and our sin has separated us from God. And on our own, we have absolutely no chance, no hope. We can't remedy the situation.

God's standard is perfection. All of us have sinned. Every person in here... I cannot fathom that there's a person in here who would say they've never sinned one time. And what the Bible tells us, and we wouldn't necessarily figure it out on our own, but what the Bible tells us is that sin has separated us from God. As I said before, His standard is perfection. How many sins does it take to make us a sinner? Technically, none, because we come into the world that way. But we validate that pretty quickly and we begin

to sin and one sin will make us a sinner. All of sin will fall short of the glory of God and I'm separated from God and there's no difference here in terms of God's eyes. There's no difference as He looks at this sin and all of us are lost. Some of us wear that lostness in places that are a little more visible than others. Some of us have learned to mask it pretty well.

And we're like Daniel in this sense. There's only one hope for us and that is that God might rescue us or deliver us. Here's a term we use, or save us. That's Daniel's situation. That's your situation. That's my situation.

The King's Sleepless Night

The king is greatly distressed. Verse 18, "Then the king returned to his palace, and he spent the whole night without eating, without any entertainment being brought to him." No Leno, no Letterman, no dancing girls, no cable TV, no nothing. He's there all night. He can't eat. His whole mind is preoccupied with Daniel in the lion's den. He couldn't sleep. He's awake all night.

And you want to see faith? Look at verse 19. "At the first light of the dawn, the king got up and hurried to the lion's den. And when he came to the lion's den, he called out to Daniel in an anguished voice." New American Standard says, "a lamenting voice." "Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you serve continually, been able to rescue you from the lions?"

Now there'd be absolutely no reason to make that sprint to the lion's den. There'd be no empirical data that would motivate that reaction. They've never dropped somebody into the lion's den where the lions didn't eat them. There'd be no reason for the king to assume that at morning's light, when he raced to the den, that somehow Daniel would be there.

To me, it demonstrates a strong, indirect faith, or at least anticipation in Daniel's God. He had heard about what Daniel's God had done in the past. He heard what happened with Belshazzar and Nebuchadnezzar. He had probably heard these stories. He had certainly seen the faithfulness of Daniel and understood the power of His God and wondered, perhaps, maybe, maybe His God would deliver him. So he says, "Daniel, are you in there? Did the God who you serve continually? Did He rescue you?"

Daniel's Response

And Daniel answers in verse 21. And look at Daniel. If I'm still there and I'm still alive, my response would have been something like this: "Get me out of here." Something along that line.

Daniel says, "O king, live forever." This is the guy now that threw him in there. "My God sent His angel as He shut the mouth of the lions, and they have not hurt me because I was found innocent in His sight, nor have I ever done any wrong before you, O king." I've never abandoned you. I've never abandoned my God. If they come in conflict, my God trumps you, but I've been faithful to you.

And the king was overjoyed and he gave orders to lift Daniel out of the den. And when Daniel was lifted from the den, no wound was found on him. Why? Because he had trusted in His God.

The Problem with This Story

We stop right there. I don't like this story. I don't like this ending. And I've shared this with you before. Because you read this, and all of a sudden in your little brain, you're thinking, well, if I trust in God, He's going to get me out of whatever my lion's den is. If I trust in God, I'm not going to have to go through this stuff. If I trust in God, whenever the medical report comes back, it'll be clean. And if it does have a spot on it, if there is something there, my God is able, my God is powerful, and my God can deliver me.

That's absolutely true. But I take you back to chapter 3, verse 18 of this story. And my favorite verse, one of my favorite verses in all of Scripture, "but even if He doesn't." This is really important. Because our tendency is to try to understand and explain and rationalize this away.

I don't care what the event is. It happened last week with the shootings in Atlanta. It happens in 9-11. It happens at Columbine. The minute there's an event, here's what we want to do. Why did it happen? Who's to blame? How do we fix it? We go through this every time.

An Extraordinary Example of Faith

What's been really... And I like Michael Jackson. I don't follow Michael Jackson case. But Robert Blake, no interest. OJ, none of these things. I'm just not a big one. But this Brian Nichols guy, he's got me intrigued. The guy that shot the guys in Atlanta and the way the story ended. And the girl must be extraordinary. She must have been extraordinary.

And the power... And I don't know how much you know about her. Four years ago, she has a daughter. And we're in a culture that the minute you read this, here's a single mom. You're assuming, well, there's a divorce and something nasty. No, four years ago, her husband was stabbed to death and died in her arms. She must be an incredible woman to be able to sit down with this guy and say, "Listen, think about it. God brought you here. How else did you get through that? You walked through all this. God brought you here for a reason." Incredible.

When We Ask Why

In the midst of all of this, what I want you to see is when we start asking the whys, it would get pretty lean on answers. Because He's God and we aren't. I will say to you, I think I can read this story and I can look at the human condition I'm in and I can draw great satisfaction from this because God certainly is able to deliver you from whatever it is, a financial problem or a physical problem or a relational problem. He's certainly able.

But I don't want you running out and claiming some sort of, "You promised." No, He didn't. He didn't promise to make you healthy, wealthy, or wise. He didn't promise to deliver you from the fire or the lion's den. He didn't. And the evidence of that is at some point, you die. He isn't going to heal you every time.

So at this point, you've got to play the word game and say, "Well, death is the ultimate healing." And my point is, death is the ultimate healing. Why didn't you accept it a long time ago? Now, there is one area where He's absolutely predictable and He

will respond. That's not in the human condition. That's in my spiritual condition. If I come in repentance and faith, if I confess that Jesus is my Savior, if I confess that Jesus is Lord, if I believe that God raised Him from the dead, I will be saved, rescued, delivered. That's the great truth.

There'll be lots of instances in your life where God's going to move in some extraordinary way and He's going to get you out of the fire, He's going to get you out of the lion's den. But not always. And He doesn't promise to. In fact, just the opposite. Here's what He says. When you go into those battles, the Word of God says this: count it all joy when you encounter various trials. The word "various" in the Greek there literally means multi-colored. In other words, these trials come in all sorts of different shapes and sizes and intensity. What's a trial for you may not be a trial for someone else. What's a trial for him may not be a trial for me.

The Test of Prosperity

I'll tell you one of the great tests that almost everybody in this room has and we fail generally is the test of prosperity. And we don't even perceive that as a test at all. About the time of the Civil War to 1900s, average lifespan for us in this country was 50, 51, 52, 53, something like that. Now it's 74, 75, 76. If you are a woman under 40, if you're a woman under 40 and you don't get cancer, your life expectancy is 92.

God's come along and said, "Here's a blessing. I'm going to give you a whole second adulthood." I'm going to give you what you typically have from age 20 to 50—30 years. I'm going to come along and give you another 30 years. And I'm going to give you a wealth beyond anything you imagine.

I honestly don't care. I am so sick of hearing this whining about the standard of living and all this. You've got so much stuff and life is so much easier than it's ever been in terms of the grind. I always say to Susan, "What are you going to do tomorrow?" She's like, "I got to do laundry." I'm saying, "How hard can that be? Boom, boom, bang." It's not like we're taking the clothes to the river and banging them out on the rocks.

You want nachos? You get chips, cheese, microwave, 47 seconds—you got nachos. The standard of living is beyond anything you ever imagined. When I was a little boy, we had one television with two television channels and then ABC came to town. Now the other day, literally, I run from channel 3 to channel 305 and here's my conclusion: There's nothing to watch. There's nothing to watch and I got 150 channels. I got channels everywhere, and if that's not enough, I can buy any movie I want. I'm so sick of hearing about standard of living. We got more than we ever dreamed.

Here's the problem. What are we doing with it? How are you handling it? Because I love Daniel here and I look at him as an 85-year-old. I say, "I hope when I'm 85, I'm like that." Here's what I know. As a Christian now—if you're not a Christian, I understand things change. As a Christian, if I'm not living as a Christian at age 35 as God would have me live, I doubt I'm going to live at age 85. If you're in here now and you're going, "I'm going to be like Daniel when..." "I'm going to be like Daniel if..." "I'm going to be like Daniel but..." Whatever the end—the when, if, but, whatever follows that—that's stopping you from ever being like Daniel. That's the deal.

The End of the Conspirators

So how's it end? Well, the king indeed says, "Let's try this lion's den again." At the king's command, the men who falsely accused Daniel were brought and thrown into the lion's den, along with their wives and children. Can we at least pull out of this one obvious point? That you don't sin in a vacuum. That when you sin, it affects the people around you. When somebody likes to sit with me and say, "Yeah, I'm sleeping with my secretary, but it's just two consenting adults"—no, it's not. It affects all sorts of family and ultimately affects me and the society.

If you look around—this isn't even hard to figure out—if you look around and you say, "What's wrong with this country?" If we could fix one thing in this country, I guess if we said it that way, I'd be torn because abortion would be on the list. But if we could fix one relational thing in this country, eliminate one thing, it'd be divorce. And all of a sudden, pain and suffering just radically drops.

The Breakdown of Family Structure

Haley the other night was in—Tyler was out of town. So she was at her house, wasn't quite ready to go to bed. She's in the bedroom and they don't have any cable in there. So she just has the major networks. And so she watches, and I've seen ads for the show, but the ads just make me crazy. So I could never watch the show. She watches about 20 minutes of this super nanny thing. So what it is, is here's a family, kids out of control—you bring in the super nanny.

It's a mom and a dad. And we're starting to see a lot of this. They married later in life and they had kids at an age where both of them had established careers. So they're not going to give up their career, God forbid, to raise these kids. Just thrust them onto society. So they get daycare. And let me give you a little heads up: Daycare doesn't care. So you get daycare, they don't care. They're not the mom. They're not the dad. You're paying them. You're trying to pay a guy minimum wage to love your kid. It ain't going to happen. Just the way it is.

They got this—now they got the camera in the house and these kids are out of control. These are wealthy, rich, white, suburban people. Haley called her mom and said—because Haley and Sarah are both right now thinking about having babies. We're right at that stage. Names. We're talking a lot about names. And these kids, they don't like the names I like. I think a great name for a little boy, really a little girl is Chili. I think Chili's a great name.

They're going, Chili? We're not naming a kid Chili. So we were sitting the other day because we were working through cities like Boston. We have a girl in our church and her name is Boston, which I think is a great name. So we're doing Waco and Memphis. And so I said, let's name them after the Ivy League schools. And Sarah called the next day and said, Dad, I just did a heart test on a guy named Harvard. And I said, oh, see, I wasn't...

So Haley calls and she says, Hey, I don't know if I want to have kids after watching that. And Susan said, Haley, look at your life and look at the way you're raised and look at who you are and look at your sister and look at your husband. See, when you sin, your sin affects all those around you.

The Reality of Daniel's Deliverance

There is, as you study this and you get into it, you find all sorts of people. You have a whole group of people say, Oh, Daniel never went in the lion's den. That's fictitious. That's a story. Aesop's fable. There's another group of people that know what happened, but we can explain it away. And this is the answer. There's a group of people that believe this. Here's how Daniel survived because the lions weren't hungry. There'd been a timing problem and they'd been fed and so they weren't hungry.

Well, they got their appetites back. Look at this. Before they reached the floor, the lions overpowered Him and crushed them all.

King Darius's Decree

And the king wrote, and you know how this ends. He writes this decree. May you prosper greatly. I issue a decree that in every part of the kingdom, people must fear and reverence the God of Daniel, for He is the living God and endures forever. His kingdom will not be destroyed. His dominion will never end.

Here's the truth about the God who created the universe. He rescues and He saves. He performs signs of wonders. He rescued Daniel from the power of the lion's den. So Daniel prospered during the reign of Darius and the reign of Cyrus the Persian.

The Greater Story of Deliverance

There's stories. I love this story of Daniel. I get a little nervous that He gets out of all of these scrapes and we kind of assume God's going to deliver us because He may or He may not. But the truth is this, that I'm a sinner. If I come to God through Christ in repentance and faith, I will be saved and He will rescue me. And that's a promise. And He will not break that promise.

See, that's what we're getting ready for. We've got Good Friday and Easter. I want you to understand, you can talk to just about anybody, even the greatest secular pagan in the world now, and they'll say Jesus exists. No question Jesus exists. And most will say He died. And most will say He died on a cross. What the Bible tells us is why He died. He died so you and I might have eternal life.

Living in God's Power

And even if He doesn't get us out of whatever lions' den and fires we're in, even if He doesn't, that's not a reflection on Him. Because He's a great God who rescued us and saved us and delivered us from our own sin. And it really sets us up for how are we going to live. And that spins us right into what I think we'll look at next week, which is living to win. Living through the power that He gives us to deal with all that life throws at us.

So, my intention, at least at this moment, is to start that study next week. Let's pray together. Father, thank You for Jesus. Thank You for His life, His death, His resurrection. Thank You for the grace and mercy that's extended to us each and every day. And we pray as we head into this time of Easter and Good Friday, that You would allow us to let our good deeds shine before men and they'd say, Who is your God? And we would have the privilege of telling them. And You, may You touch hearts. God, we pray that to You. In Christ's name, Amen.

Have a great week. We'll see you next week.