In the book of Daniel, we read about some of Daniel's rivals who plotted against him by establishing a temporary edict banning prayer. but Daniel continued to pray openly, rather than praying in silence or in a place where he couldn't be observed. Why?
Well, Alastair Begg explores the answer to day. UnTruth for Life.
Well, let's turn to Daniel chapter 6, and we'll just read the briefest of sections. It's a long chapter. And we read it through in its entirety this morning. Let me just read from verse 19. Then at break of day, the king arose and went in haste to the den of lions.
As he came near to the den where Daniel was, he cried out in a tone of anguish, The king declared to Daniel, O Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you serve continually, been able to deliver you from the lions? Then Daniel said to the king, O king, live forever. My God sent his angel and children. Shut the lions' mouths, and they've not harmed me. because I was found blameless before him and Also before you, O king, I have done no harm.
Then the king was exceedingly glad, and commanded that Daniel be taken up out of the den.
So Daniel was taken up out of the den. and no kind of harm was found in him. because he had trusted in his God. And the king commanded, and those men who had maliciously accused Daniel were brought and cast into the den of lions, they, their children, and their wives. and before they reached the bottom of the den the lions overpowered them and broke all their bones in pieces.
Then King Darius wrote to all the peoples, nations, and languages that dwell in all the earth, Peace be multiplied to you. 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. 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.
So this Daniel prospered during the reign of Darius. And the reign of Cyrus. The Persian. Amen. Father, help us now as we look together to the Bible.
If we I want to understand it, we want to believe it, we want to live in the light of it. and we are entirely dependent upon you to achieve any of this.
So we look away from ourselves to you. Grant to us clarity of thought and receptiveness of spirit and focus in understanding. For Jesus' sake, we pray. Amen. Well We Have identified the fact that Daniel has been framed.
He's been framed by his colleagues, and there is no question that he understands that that has actually taken place. Daniel was. able to identify a setup of when he saw one. He was hated. And he was plotted against not because he was a bad chap, because as we've seen he wasn't, he was exemplary in the workplace and in the service of the king, but he was plotted against because he stood for truth.
And as we said this morning, we have here many, many years before Paul writes about this to the Thessalonians, an inkling of what he refers to there as the mystery of lawlessness. And when you read Daniel, you find yourself Again and again, with your thoughts being catapulted forward. And I would think that here you would find yourself immediately, almost inevitably, thinking about Jesus. For here we have in six centuries before the coming of Jesus the condemnation of an innocent man who is sentenced to death, and the reason for it is because of charges that are trumped up against him.
So in this instance, the presidents and the satraps bring these charges against Daniel. In the case of Jesus, it is the chief priests and the council looking for testimony against him, and without success, they tried to find reason for accusation. And eventually, both Daniel and Jesus were convicted by trickery. Daniel was found guilty of transgressing this arbitrary law of the Medes and the Persians. And Jesus, you remember, was condemned for transgressing the law of the Jews.
You perhaps remember in John chapter 19, the Jewish authorities come and say, We have a law. And according to that law, he ought to die. And so, if you do find yourself catapulting forward, then I think it's because you know your Bible and you should be encouraged.
So we've noticed that Daniel was distinguished, and also that he was despised. And now I want you to notice that he was, in his personal life, disciplined. Disciplined. When Daniel knew, verse 10, that the document had been signed, he went to his house and he continued what he'd been doing.
Now it's not hard to imagine him, as I think I said in one of the services this morning, beginning to rationalize the challenge that is represented in this edict. He could have said to himself, you know, what is 30 days out of an entire lifetime? I mean, I'm only being asked not to pray for thirty days, and I've prayed a lot in my life. And perhaps he might even have said, I build up quite a lot of credit when it comes to prayer time, and I'm sure the Lord would be quite happy if he gave me a little respite, you know, just a just a wee while off. Or he might have said, it doesn't really matter where you pray.
We can pray anywhere and at any time. Therefore, he might have said, so I'll just change my location and I'll change the time frame. And that way nobody will be able to entrap me. But in actual fact, he doesn't do any of that. It is entirely conjecture on my part to suggest that he might even have considered such a rationalization.
No, you see, Daniel's commitment, if it had been spasmodic, If it had been patchy. If his prayer life had been the effulgence simply of an emotional response to what was going on around him. then his colleagues could never have counted on catching him. It was the very regularity and faithfulness of Daniel. That made it possible for these fellows to catch him, if you like, in the act.
Now I don't know about you, but I find this very, very challenging. First of all, on a personal level, and then I have to say, honestly, on a corporate level. Here is the dreadful question. Let me pose it for us. We're not going to try and answer it, but we do want it to register in our hearts and minds.
Here's the question. Would it make any substantial difference? In our lives. individually or corporately. If prayer were to be banned for the next thirty days.
Would it make any substantial difference in my life? If prayer were to be banned for the next thirty days. And the punishment Death. What possibility is there? of the authorities coming and catching Parkside Church.
At prayer. What possibility is there of them coming to my home or to my study or to my place of business? and on the strength of my regularity and my faithfulness, being able to do to me what they were able to do. to Daniel. It's quite challenging, isn't it?
I find it so.
Well, they came, of course, and they caught him. Just as they expected. And he didn't disappoint them. And so, in verse 12, they go back, and having caught Daniel, they now need to go back and make sure that they catch the king. And they come to him and they get his verbal concurrence with the edict.
They came near and said before the king, verse 12, Didn't you sign an injunction that anyone who does this and so on? Will be cast into the den of lions. Oh, yes, said the king, that stands absolutely fast and certain, according to the law of the Medes and the Persians. And then, of course, they drop the boom on him. In verse 13, And then they said before the king, Daniel, is uh guilty of doing just what you said must not Happens.
In fact, they tell lies, don't they? They say that Daniel pays no attention to you, O king. That actually isn't true. It was Daniel's loyalty and his attentiveness to the duties of the state. That found him in line for the top job.
He had paid tremendous attention to the king. There's no reason for the king to have decided that out of the three fellas in the top position in the land, that Daniel was the obvious choice, apart from his loyalty to him. But as we saw this morning. There is a point beyond which he will not go. There is a line that is drawn in the sand.
And so we recognize that in doing what he did, going to his home and praying again and again three times a day, it is not a knee-jerk reaction on his part. This is not something that he's decided to do as a result of the 30-day edict. And the edict goes out and he goes, Well, I'll show you what I'm going to do with that. And so he decides: not only will I pray one time a day, but I will pray three times a day. That's not what he's doing.
It is simply, in his case, business as usual. You will see that in verse 10. And he prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he had done previously. And then in verse 13, they said to him, Daniel, one of the exiles pays no attention to you, but makes his petition three times a day. In fact, in the NIV, I think quite helpfully it translates it, and they go to the king and they say, And despite your petition, but your injunction, he still prays.
He still prays. The implication. Is that he regards his commitment to God? of such importance that obedience to this man-made edict. is totally unacceptable.
As loyal as he was to the duties of the empire, Nobody could be in any doubt in Daniel's case about his allegiance. to the kingdom of God. And we have described for us there his daily regimen. He turned with his gaze towards Jerusalem, as we said this morning. He wasn't simply saying in that, that he came from Jerusalem.
But he was recognizing the fact that in Jerusalem, the dwelling place of God within the geography of the time, was the embodiment of truth and was the embodiment of salvation. And if we've never studied this before, we might have the picture in mind of Daniel sitting in front of a great big picture window and being very ostentatious in his prayer life.
Now again, nothing could be further from the truth. Any kind of study makes it clear to us that the windows in the east at that time, and to a certain extent at this time, were mostly high up in the in the in the in the wall line.
so that they often, of course, would have nothing in them except slats, which would be set in certain ways to catch, as you find in places in Europe, the wind, depending on how it's blowing, so that it might be able to grant Uh The air into the house and to make it a livable place.
So the picture then is not of Daniel in a public display of devotion. but it is a picture of his colleagues in a personal intrusion into his life. They have to spy on him. They spy on him. And they are pretty sure that if they are able to look in, they will find him doing.
What he was always doing. I find it challenging as well that it wasn't that the time of crisis created his disciplined lifestyle. The time of crisis revealed his disciplined lifestyle. And when crisis comes to our lives, when challenge comes, as it inevitably will to our faith, then it will reveal what is there. Oh, it may become the impetus for us taking it up a notch, that's without saying.
But nonetheless, it will show what we have. When the wheels fall off, when the tide gets high. when the challenge is strong. Then it will reveal what is, if you like, Behind the walls of our home.
So, I want us to make sure that we don't think in terms of Daniel, both in posture and in every other way, as giving us some kind of framework. Every so often, you'll come across people expounding this passage and using it as an opportunity to explain that you should always pray three times a day, you should always pray with the windows open, and you should also make sure that you're kneeling when you're praying.
Well, of course we could make a good case for praying with the windows open so you don't fall asleep, I suppose, if it isn't raining and so on. But really, it's such a shame when passages like this become the fodder for things like that. As I was thinking about it, I went to my file because I thought that in the past, and this is long in the past, I had written down A few things about posture in prayer, because I wondered how many different ways do you find in the Bible that people are praying? And actually, this I just see here, it says on the top, it says Strathclyde Hospital.
So I was speaking to a nurse's Christian fellowship about prayer, apparently. And anyway, and so these are the ones that I had noted: standing in prayer. Hands spread out and lifted heavenward or not. Praying by bowing the head, prayer by lifting the eyes heavenward. Uh prayer in kneeling.
Prayer by falling down with your face upon the ground. And some other particularly expressive ones. Elijah praying with his face between his knees. And Elijah standing at a distance and beating his breast.
So there's all kinds of ways you can go at it, but the issue here is: are you praying? Night, how are you doing? which allows me to read my favorite poem on the posture in prayer. And I don't get many chances to do this, but I think this is legitimate. And it goes like this.
The proper way for man to pray, said Deacon Lemuel Keys. and the only proper attitude is down upon his knees.
Now, I should say the way to pray, said Reverend Dr. Wise. Is standing straight. with outstretched arms, with rapt, and upturned eyes. Oh, no, no, no, said Elder Snow, such posture is too proud.
A man should pray with eyes fast closed. and head contritely bound. It seems to me one's hand should be Austerely clasped in front, With both thumbs pointing toward the ground, said Reverend Drant. Last year I fell in Higgins well head first, said Pastor Brown. With both my heels are sticking up and my head are pointing down.
And I made a prayer. Right then and there. Best prayer I ever said. The prayingest prayer I ever prayed. was a stand-in On my head.
Isn't there something wrong with us as a church? I don't mean small C, big C in America. that we expended such effort About the absence of prayer in public schools. While being unprepared to acknowledge the absence of prayer. In our logo churches.
It's almost like a smokescreen. If I can make a fuss about that. Then maybe I can forget. about the vacuum in my own life. In my own church.
Now Daniel's challenge is an unavoidable challenge. He still prayed. He did. What he did.
Someone has observed, there were doubtless times when his prayer duty refreshed and inspired him. and others when the custom brought no immediate satisfaction, and he ended without feeling blessed.
However, it is clear that he had established this as a fixed point in his life. that irrespective of his feelings, Through it he maintained the reality and strength of his communion with God. There's a tremendous lesson in that as well. Especially for those of us who are tempted to look for immediate gratification. Immediate sense of blessing or fulfillment or affirmation or approbation.
If you do that, for example, when you come to sing, if when we gather for God's praise, if you come with that perspective, well, what am I going to get out of this? Or you may find yourself walking away. I may find myself walking away saying, Well, I got nothing out of that.
Well is that the issue? Or was it that God would be glorified? You see, the exercise of prayer. Maybe Provide for us a sense of his presence, but it may not. And then Daniel's life He was committed.
Whether Up. Or down. He was distinguished. He was despised. He was disciplined.
And he was dumped. And here we finally get him in so that we can spend a moment and get him back out again. The king had been trapped by his own piece of legislation. He is now victimized by the way in which he has been cajoled and maneuvered into issuing this edict. And in verse 14, we're told that he was distressed when he heard these things, and he set his mind to deliver Daniel.
That is another indication to us of the relationship that existed between Daniel and this king, and the affection that this king had for this Daniel. And he was spending the day, we're told, trying to create a context in which somehow or another Daniel could be saved from this eventuality. But we discover that he was unable to do so despite his determined efforts, presumably by means of changing the legal or constitutional structures of the nation. It just couldn't be done. And so, as a result, verse 16, he has to do what the edict says he must do, and he commanded, and Daniel was brought and cast into the den of lions.
Lions, if you have looked at old paintings and drawings and things from this era, were part and parcel of the sport of the wealthy and the royal in those days. And so it is, we are told, that he was thrown in, or he was cast in, as it says right here. The indication is, apparently, that there would have been a ramp. down which the animals would have gone to find their way into the pit. And then there would have been somehow or another another entryway that would have been the the place that they would have thrown down food for the animals.
And so the animals get the ram, and the people go down the hole for the food.
Well, it's it's it's quite horrendous this thought, isn't it? Here's a man who's been a faithful servant for all these years. He served in the Babylonian Empire. He has gone through a number of these kings. He's now pushing 80 years of age.
He's doing an outstanding job. His friends hate him. They despise him. They reject him. They come up with a trumped-up charge against him.
And now the king has to issue the command to throw him in here. Let's remind ourselves what we said again: that this is no harmless prank on the part of these men. In seeking to obliterate Daniel. They were attempting to do What the Evil One attempts to do at every point, namely, to destroy every trace of the kingdom of God. To destroy the kingdom of God.
You're listening to Alastair Begg on Truth for Life. We'll hear the conclusion to this message on Monday. Daniel was clearly not slowing down in his later years. And to day we want to recommend to you a book that can help you do the same if you're retired or moving closer to retirement. The book is called A Good Old Age.
An A to Z of loving and following the Lord Jesus in later years. Aging is, as many of us know, not easy. And here's a tremendously encouraging book written by Alistair's good friend and mentor, the late Derrick Prime. Derrick served God faithfully until his death at '89. He wrote this book, drawing from his own experience, to give us practical advice for how to press onward faithfully and be productive servants of Christ while navigating the challenges of growing older.
This is a book filled with wisdom and insight, and it includes many scripture references that you'll find helpful. For example, D is for discipleship, an activity that Derek encourages us to continue to make a priority in our later years. He reminds readers that Jesus' call to discipleship is as real and relevant in old age as in any age. and we may be people who are seeing and talking more to older folks than to younger people, but all are in need of a Saviour. Wherever we are, God has placed us to be a witness to His Son and His cross.
You'll also appreciate that the book comes in a large print edition. While many of us look forward to retiring from a long career, this is a book that reminds us that we never retire from serving the Lord or sharing the gospel. Ask for your copy of the book A Good Old Age when you donate to Truth for Life Today using the mobile app or online at truthforlife. org slash donate or you can call us at eight eight eight five eight eight seven eight eight four. Thanks for joining us this week.
On Monday, we'll hear the exciting conclusion to Daniel's crisis and learn why deliverance is often accompanied by destruction. The Bible teaching of Alastair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life. Where the Learning is for Living.
