Daniel 6 - The Lion's Den

Have you ever gotten in trouble for doing something right? It’s a weird feeling, isn’t it? You’ve cleaned your room, you’ve obeyed the rules, you’ve treated people nicely, but then you somehow still get sent to your room or get stuck in detention at school. When that happens, how do you react? Angry? Sad? Annoyed?

If you’ve ever had something like this happen to you, just know that you aren’t the only one. Daniel, that guy we’ve been talking about for the last three weeks, also got in trouble when he was doing things right. So stick around as we finish off Daniel’s story today.

But first, a little history. We’ve been talking about this guy named Nebuchadnezzar, king of the Babylonians, for the last few weeks. In one of those stories, we talked about how Nebuchadnezzar dreamed his kingdom would be defeated one day. Well, that happened pretty quickly actually. Shortly after King Nebuchadnezzar died and a new king took over, armies from Persia arrived and conquered Babylon. And when that happened, all of the Babylonians became citizens of the Persian Empire. That included Daniel and his friends.

As for our story today, it takes place during the reign of King Darius of Persia. We don’t know where Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were at this point, but we do know that Daniel was still serving in the king’s court. In fact, Darius liked Daniel so much that he made Daniel 1 of 3 main leaders over the entire Persian Empire!

And just like when Daniel served under King Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel continued to do great work for King Darius. Daniel was one of the wisest and best workers Darius had ever seen, and the king praised Daniel for his hard work!

But not everyone thought Daniel was so great, including the two other leaders that Daniel worked with. “What a know-it-all,” they’d say to each other.

“Daniel thinks he’s so great!” the first one would say.

“Well, he is the king’s favourite…” the other replied.

“…but what if he wasn’t? The first said back. “What if we found something that Daniel did wrong. Then King Darius would have to get rid of Daniel!”

“Yeah, but what?” the second guy said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen Daniel make a mistake! He never cheats, he never steals money. He does exactly what King Darius orders!”

“True, but I bet there’s one way we could get Daniel to break the rules…”

“What do you mean?”

“You know that God of his…” the first guy said, with an evil smile coming to his face. “Daniel prays to his God three times a day, every day. And Daniel would never do anything that made him disobey God. But what would happen if Darius made a law where Daniel would have to choose between God and the king?”

“But why would the king do that?” the second guy asked.

The first guy’s smile got even darker. “Because we’re going to ask him to…”

________________________

Daniel returned home after a long day at the palace and immediately went up to his room. He was an older man now, and the palace work was starting to tire him out. But he wasn’t tired today… No, today Daniel was pretty riled up. He sighed to himself and started to pace. And as he walked back and forth across his floor, he started talking to himself.

“I don’t know what to do! I just don’t understand it. Why is it that every time things start to go well around here, every time my friends and I serve the king well, something happens that threatens our lives!

“Something just doesn’t feel right about this new law. No praying to any god or any man except King Darius! And if you do, you’ll be thrown into a lions’ den. I know Darius. Yes, he’s a king and thinks pretty highly of himself, but I never would have thought he’d make a law like this. Not on his own anyways…

“It must have been some of the other servants. But I just don’t get that… I’ve never done anything to hurt the other servants or make them angry. I’ve just been following orders. The king likes me for that. Maybe some of them are jealous?

“I can’t worry about that right now though. The king has commanded that I don’t pray to anyone but him. But as much as I love the king and want to serve him, I love and serve God first. I always have. I won’t change that now.

“Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego taught me that. They stood up to King Nebuchadnezzar and refused to bow down to that statue, that false god! I wasn’t there for that, but I guess it’s my turn now. I guess that God wants me to prove that I will trust Him too, no matter what.

“It’s scary, but I know what I must do. I cannot obey this law.” And with that, Daniel turned towards his window, just like he did everyday around that time, and started praying to God.

At that exact moment, a figure moved away from a window on the other side of an alley. “Got him,” the figure said, smiling.

________________________

 “Oh, King Darius!!!!” the first of the two other leaders called out in a sing-song voice. The second followed behind him.

“What? What is it?” the king said, distracted.

“Oh king, may you live forever,” the second leader said. “I’m so glad we came to you yesterday with that new law.”

The king looked suspicious. “Why?”

“Because, oh king,” the first leader chimed in, “we’ve found someone here in this very palace who doesn’t listen to your decrees!”

King Darius’ face grew angry. “What? Who!?!”

“Why, it’s that third leader you appointed who’s mysteriously missing right now… Daniel! He has absolutely no respect for you, Your Majesty! We saw him praying to his God not even one hour after your new law was issued! And you remember what that law said, don’t you?”

As these two leaders were talking, King Darius grew sadder and sadder. He’d been tricked. He knew that these two men didn’t like Daniel much, but he never thought that they would stoop so low and set Daniel up to be killed! Everything in Darius wanted to say, Forget it! Daniel’s a good man and a good servant! He doesn’t deserve to be punished this way!

But he knew the law. No law in the Persian Empire could be changed once it had been written down. And King Darius had written up this law himself.

The king sighed and looked at the other two leaders angrily. “The law must be obeyed. Guards, bring Daniel here immediately!”

The guards dragged him in a short time later. Daniel looked at the king. But instead of seeing anger on the king’s face, all Daniel saw was sadness.

“Daniel,” the king said, “you have broken the laws of the Persians, laws that cannot be overturned, by praying to someone other than me. For this, your punishment is to be thrown into the lions’ den.” He paused, swallowed, and then looked directly at Daniel. “You always serve your God faithfully. So may he save you” (Daniel 6:16, NIrV)

________________________

With that, the guards dragged Daniel to the lions’ den and threw him in. A giant stone was placed before the entrance of the lion’s den. The den grew dark as the stone cut off any extra light.

Now I don’t know exactly what things looked like in the lions’ den, but let me try to paint a picture for you. We tend to think of the lions’ den as this big, open, almost spotless cave where the lions are proudly and majestically walking around.

I’m not sure if that’s what it would have looked like, though. First of all, the Persians tended not to feed their lions much. That way, when the guards threw prisoners in, the lions would be very hungry. Meaning the chances of a prisoner surviving became that much less.

And because the lions were so hungry, you can bet that this den wasn’t so spotless either. There were probably bones and things scattered all across the den from the lions’ previous meals. So you can imagine how scared Daniel would have been entering into the lions’ den, knowing what was waiting for him.

The other two leaders knew this too. They didn’t expect Daniel to last more than five minutes down there. So I imagine they went to bed that night feeling pretty proud of themselves, excited to go to work tomorrow and now have to worry about measuring up to Daniel.

________________________

King Darius didn’t sleep too well that night, however. In fact, he didn’t sleep at all, or even eat! He was so sad and so nervous about Daniel. He spent that entire night thinking about his servant and his friend. And for all we know, maybe Darius even said a small prayer in his heart that God would save Daniel.

I guess this because the next morning, King Darius hurried over to the lion’s den as soon as the sun started to rise. The Bible tells us that when he got near to the entrance, he called out, “Daniel! You serve the living God. You always serve him faithfully. So has he been able to save you from the lions?” (Daniel 6:20).

To Darius’ relief, Daniel called back right away. “Yes, oh king. My God sent his angel to shut the mouths of the lions. They have not hurt me at all! And it’s all because I haven’t done anything wrong in God’s sight or in yours, Your Majesty.”

Darius was overjoyed. He immediately told his servants to lift Daniel out of the lions’ den. As Daniel’s head came over the top, the king was amazed. There wasn’t a scratch on him! God had truly saved Daniel from the lions, and it’s all because Daniel had trusted in God!

I believe that God made Daniel go through this for a reason. He probably wanted to teach Daniel to trust Him in all things. But even more than that, God wanted to teach King Darius, the other guards, and even us a lesson. And that lesson is this: Though bad things may happen to those who serve God, God will still make those things turn out for good.*

We see this all throughout the Bible. There are lots of people who go through really tough times – Joseph, Ruth, Peter, and even Jesus – but God brings about good from even the hardest of circumstances. In each of these cases, God protected His people because they had a relationship with God where they trusted Him even when things got dangerous.

And no, God might not save everyone from dying every time like He saved Daniel. But even if the worst happens, we can trust that we are safe and protected by God because Jesus died on the cross and rose again to save us. If we believe this, even when we die, we will get to live forever with God in heaven!

As for the other two leaders who tricked King Darius, things didn’t turn out so well for them. Darius was so mad, that he gave a new order. He threw the two leaders into the lions’ den because of how they had treated Daniel and tricked the king.

Finally, King Darius issued a proclamation to the entire Persian Empire. He ordered the people to worship and respect Daniel’s God – the same God we serve! Darius called Him “the living God” whose “kingdom will not be destroyed” (Daniel 6:26). Daniel trusted God to protect Him and to turn things out for good, and now Darius wanted everyone else in his empire to do the same. And I only hope that all of these stories about Daniel – about the tough times he and his friends faced, and how they constantly trusted God throughout all of them – will make you want to want to trust God more too!

~Brentagious

*This week’s takeaway is partially inspired by Bob Stone’s post here.