Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Monday, January 20th. If you've been unfairly criticized, you share something with the prophet Daniel. Let's discover how to build unshakable faith that stands firm against life's injustices.
I'm Charles Stanley. Welcome to the In Touch Podcast. Disappointed about some plan that you'd had that you just knew was going to work out the way you wanted it to work out? Persecution, prolonged suffering.
I mean, it just goes on for weeks and months and years and you don't see any way out and no hope of any change. Does that shake your faith and rattle your faith between you and God? Are you able to see those things and interpret them in the light of what God says about Himself and His Word?
Well, that's what I want to talk about in this message. And the title of this message is Unshakable Faith. And I want you to turn, if you will, to the book of Daniel. And I want us to look at the sixth chapter of this book.
So let me give you a little background of what's happening here. And you recall that Daniel was one of those Hebrews who had been taken to Babylon when Nebuchadnezzar, the Babylonian king, invaded Jerusalem, destroyed the city, burnt the wall, the gates. And on three occasions, 605, 597, and then again in 586, he deported the top quality people over to Babylon to use them and to grow them up in the culture, for example, as he said, and to teach them ways of the Babylonians, teach them their literature, their language, and to make Babylonians out of them. Well, some of those who were taken were young men, and Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were the four that you and I are the most familiar with and the ones who are named. In this sixth chapter, we come to an incident later on in the life of Daniel where his faith is tested.
And I believe in the life of this man, there are those principles that give us an idea of what unshakable faith is about. And you'll recall that Daniel is in a foreign country all through this book. He is captive but mightily used of God in the lives of four kings. Among the Babylonians, Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar, Darius the Mede, and then Cyrus the Persian king. So he's lived into the fourth reign of these kings, and it is in Cyrus' kingship that the nation is allowed to go back to rebuild the city. And so if you recall in the 30th verse of the fifth chapter, this is the end of the reign of Belshazzar, the coming of Darius.
The Bible says that night, Belshazzar the Chaldean king was slain, so Darius the Mede received the kingdom at about the age of 62. It seemed good to Darius to appoint 120 satraps over the kingdom and they should be in charge of the whole kingdom. And over them, three commissioners of whom Daniel was one, that these satraps might be accountable to them and that the king might not suffer loss, that is financial loss and control over his kingdom. Then this Daniel began distinguishing himself among the commissioners and satraps because he possessed an extraordinary spirit, and the king planned to appoint him over the entire kingdom.
And then instead of reading all the rest, I want to give you an idea of what's going on. So the rest of these men who had responsibilities became jealous of Daniel because they saw that he was a man of distinguishing qualities and above and beyond all the rest and they couldn't find any way in the world to accuse him of anything that would cause Darius to judge him in any fashion. So they set a trap and they went to the king and they said, we think that you ought to pass a law and it should be under the laws of the Medes and the Persians. And the law of the Medes and the Persians said that once that law is agreed to, it cannot be changed under any condition.
Even if a man is found guilty and then they find that he is not guilty, the law cannot change. It is the irreversible law of the Medes and the Persians. And so they said, we think you should establish a statute that anyone who prays to anybody anywhere under any condition except to you, that that person should be thrown in the lines then and this should last for at least 30 days. Now, they knew that Daniel was a praying man and that he prayed to his God. Well, the scripture says in verse 10 and we'll read this verse several times. Verse 10 says, now when Daniel knew that the document was signed, he entered his house, now in his roof chamber, he had windows open toward Jerusalem. And he continued kneeling on his knees three times a day, praying and giving thanks before his God as he'd been doing previously.
Now, this is very important. Then these men came by agreement and found Daniel making petition and supplication before his God. So what did they do? They went to King Darius and said, guess what? And first of all, they had said in the seventh verse that all the commissioners of the kingdom, the prefects, the satraps, the high officials and the governors have consulted together that the king should establish a statute. Well, they hadn't said anything to Daniel about it.
So he heard about it, but he was not in on the deal, of course. And so they go to the king and say, well, you know, Daniel, Daniel, we caught him praying to his God. Verse 14 of Chapter six says, Then as soon as the king heard this statement, he was deeply distressed, set his mind on delivering Daniel.
And even until sunset, he kept exerting himself to rescue him. That is, the king did not want to kill Daniel because he loved Daniel. He understood him to be a man of extreme high quality. And his past had proven that he was indeed an advantage to the king to have him in places of responsibility.
And so finally, of course, they said, well, you know, now the law of the means in the Persian says you can't change it. Verse 16 says, Then the king gave orders. Daniel was brought from the lion's den. But he said to him, Your God, whom you constantly serve, will himself deliver you. Verse 18 says, So the king went to bed that night, but he couldn't sleep. And he had no entertainment brought to him, and he was fasting. And verse 19 says, Then the king arose with the dawn at the break of day, and he went in haste to the lion's den. And so you can imagine what he was thinking. Then the king spoke and said to Daniel, Daniel, Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you constantly serve, been able to deliver you from the lions?
Now think about this. Every reference is always a reference to this man who serves his God constantly. That is, there was a consistency about Daniel. And I believe probably the sweetest words that old King Darius ever heard in his whole life were these.
Old King lived forever. He knew that wasn't a lion speaking. That was Daniel. Daniel had survived the night and survived the lions. He says, My God sent his angel and shut the lion's mouths that they have not harmed me in as much as I was found innocent before him.
And also to you, O king, I have committed no crime. Now, the Bible says that all of those who plotted against Daniel and their wives and their children were fed to the lions. So the lions that night, because they deprive themselves of one man, got a whole bunch of families. And so they ate no doubt for days. What a horrible mess when you think about lions devouring people. But you see, the judgment of God again comes in time at the time in Daniel's life.
That is exactly what we see happening now. What does all that have to do with unshakable faith? We're talking about a quality of faith that is not intimidated by difficulty, hardship and threats. Not intimidated by it. It is not ruffled by it. It is not moved by it. It is firm, fixed. It is steadfast. It is indomitable.
And it does not change because adverse winds blow one way or the other. And this is the quality of faith that Daniel had. Unruffled by the circumstances that surrounded him. Unwavering, steadfast. Let me tell you what it does not mean when we talk about unshakable faith. We're not talking about a faith that will preserve me and protect me from all types of difficulty. Unshakable faith does not guarantee me that I will not go through difficulty, hardship and trial and persecution, because the life of Daniel is one difficulty and one trial after the other.
And as we've discussed in the whole series, these men that have demonstrated such beautiful faith for us, their demonstration has been in the midst of difficulty, hardship and trial. Prolonged suffering, prolonged difficulty does not mean that our faith is unshakable. Nor does it mean that unshakable faith will deliver me out of it and deliver me from it and make it possible for me not to go through these things.
Let me go one step further. Unshakable faith does not mean that my hardship and my difficulty in my trial will even preserve my life. That is, unshakable faith does not mean that I won't lose my life living in obedience to God. So these folks who want to say to you, well, if you just had enough faith, everything is going to be good.
There's not a single verse in the scripture that says everything is going to be good according to my evaluation of good if I have enough faith. Because where is faith born? Where is it strengthened?
Where is it tested? How do we know that you and I have unshakable faith? Listen, I only know that my faith is unshakable when God allows and sins against me enough storms and enough heartaches and enough burdens and enough persecutions and enough beatings that no matter what, I am unshaken in my relationship to Him. So when we talk about unshakable faith, we're talking about faith that is tried and tested.
Let me go one step further. When we think about unshakable faith and the quality of it that is certainly true here in the life of Daniel, that does not mean that I won't have moments of doubt. If there is a God, where is it now? If your God loves you, why doesn't He do something about your mess? If God loves you, why doesn't He change this? If God loves you, why did He let that happen?
If God really loves you, how do you explain this? And those thoughts do come through our mind and we do think those things, but here's what unshakable faith does. Unshakable faith hears it and sees it and lets it go. Unshakable faith does not grasp the doubt, does not hold to the doubt, does not tolerate the doubt, but just lets it go right on by. Unshakable faith knows better than to grasp a fiery dart of doubt from Satan, but rather focuses attention and sets its focus upon Almighty God, who is the one who makes it possible for us to survive in the midst of those difficulties. So I want to be sure we understand that unshakable faith doesn't mean that everything is going to be good, everything is going to be easy, everything is going to be just the way I want it, and if I just trust God enough, everything is going to turn out my way. No, unshakable faith does not guarantee that everything is going to go my way. Now, let's talk for just a moment about how that kind of faith is developed, and I want to separate the development of this faith from the key to unshakable faith for the simple reason that there is a distinction here that I don't want us to miss. Well, how is this unshakable faith established and how is it developed, the kind that no matter what goes on and what happens, our devotion, our loyalty, our obedience to God does not change?
How does this kind of faith develop? Well, let's take Daniel and illustrate it for just a moment. Remember that Daniel was a young lad over in Jerusalem when Nebuchadnezzar, the pagan king, attacked and took him away. I want to say two or three things about Daniel here. The Daniel's unshakable faith began to be developed at his father and mother's knee when they taught him about God.
Now, in every one of these messages on faith, I have said to you, parents, listen carefully for the simple reason the time to begin to build faith in your children is not when they get to be teenagers and 25 or 30 years of age, but when they are very, very small and you read them the stories of Scripture and you interpret what God is doing in the lives of these men because, though the circumstances and others are the same, the principles are always the same. Daniel began to learn and to trust God at the knee of his father and his mother. Secondly, he learned to trust God listening to the prophecies of Jeremiah the prophet. Jeremiah, who is called the weeping prophet, prophesied for about 40 years beginning at about the age of 20.
And Daniel grew up under the prophecies of Jeremiah, all of which were threatening prophecies. And what he would do, he would warn the nation of Judah of the judgment of God that was coming because of their disobedience to God. Well, once in a while they'd get so sick and tired of hearing, they'd throw him in jail, then they'd finally let him out. They'd throw him back in jail, they'd finally let him out.
They'd throw him in jail again, finally let him out. They didn't like to hear the prophecies of God's judgment. He said to them, you might as well give up. The Babylonians are coming.
And they'd probably put him in jail to keep him from opening the gate and letting them in because he knew and he said, there is no way for you to defend yourself. The Babylonians are coming. The judgment of God has come upon Judah.
And sure enough, they did come. And sure enough, the judgment of God did come upon Judah. And the city was destroyed and the gates burned, the walls torn down. And so they carried all of these people back to Babylon. Well, Nebuchadnezzar heard about these prophecies of Jeremiah.
So you know what he decided? He decided to say to Jeremiah, well, Jeremiah, you can either go to Babylon, you can stay. And so Jeremiah remained in Jerusalem to encourage the people who were there. And also Jeremiah would write to the people in Babylon, encouraging them because you see, in his prophecy, here's what he said. He said, you will remain there for 70 years.
At the end of 70 years, God's going to release you to send you back to rebuild the city. Well, of course, those prophecies, first of all, they didn't like to hear them. They didn't want to hear them. And they paid little heed to them. But Daniel, as a young man, heard these prophecies. And he watched how God fulfilled the prophecies of Jeremiah. So he was beginning to learn to trust God and to trust the Word of God. Well, there came a time when he got to Babylon that he had to trust the Lord and he also was tested and God began to develop his faith not only by the teaching of his parents, not only by the prophecies of Jeremiah, but also in his own life.
There is a facet to this development that I want to mention here because I don't want you to miss a very, very, very important part of it. Because there are many people who say, well, you know, I'm trusting God but my faith certainly is not unshakable and I find myself wavering here and wavering there. And here is a key element in the life of Daniel that I believe oftentimes somehow we never relate.
There is a link here that sometimes we miss. And here it is. You cannot have unshakable faith without having consistent obedience. Faith and obedience are linked together. You cannot separate the two.
They just go together. Because what you'll see is this, that Daniel trusts God, then he obeys God. He trusts God, then he obeys God. He trusts God, then he obeys God. And each time, it matters not what the outcome, his commitment is to be obedient to God. Chapter 1, the Bible says that Daniel made up his mind to be obedient to God no matter what the circumstances. Listen, if you wonder why your faith wavers and why it rattles and why it shakes and why you're on and off and in and out and wondering in question and doubting God, then look at the pattern of obedience in your life.
Look at the pattern of obedience. Is your life a life of faith? Are you walking by faith? You see, one who walks by faith is consistently obeying God.
Does that mean in every single solitary thing? No, but their bent is toward obedience and their lifestyle is obedience and there are moments of disobedience, but there are moments they're going to correct it quickly and they move on to be obedient to God. And that's why when we think in terms of faith, you cannot think in terms of faith without thinking in terms of obedience. Because what is the acid test of my faith? The acid test of my faith is if God says, do this, I don't have to know why.
If it is your pattern to be obedient to God, your faith is going to grow and it's going to get stronger and stronger and stronger. But if you want to trust God in trouble and somehow he gets you through that, then you go do your own thing until you face another crisis in your life. Then we want to trust God again. Then we wonder why doesn't God work these things out and why does it take him so long? Oftentimes it is because, listen, our faith stops in its growth until I obey the last command God gave me. You know, that's why many people go to church for years and years and years and years and sit and listen to sermon after sermon after sermon and do not grow in their spiritual life. Oh, they want to trust God and they want to learn about God, but they do not want to be obedient to God. Because sometimes to obey God cost us and could cost us our life.
If I really trust him, I will do what he says no matter what. There is an inseparable link between obedience and strong unshakable faith. Thank you for listening to today's podcast titled Unshakable Faith. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or InTouch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of InTouch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.
