Daniel 6
Jesus In the Lions’ Den
(Daniel 6)
Jason Procopio
Our text today is Daniel chapter 6. In Daniel 6, we find one of the most famous stories in the entire Bible, and certainly the most famous story in this book: the story of Daniel in the lions’ den. This story is very similar to the one we saw in chapter 3, with Daniel’s friends in the fiery furnace. (Loanne told me to preach the same sermon and see if anyone notices. Obviously, I’m not going to do that, but it’s worth noting that when you read the Bible, and the author goes out of his way to repeat something, or bring up a common theme or a common situation within the same book, that’s his way of telling you to pay attention.)
If you remember, when Daniel and his friends arrived in Babylon as exiled slaves in chapter 1, they were very young—probably around fifteen years old. We saw them rise into places of prominence and responsibility; we saw Daniel serve at least two kings faithfully, through the power of God.
By the time we meet Daniel here, in chapter 6, a lot of time has gone by. Daniel is probably somewhere in his eighties now, and he is serving a different king.
Last week we saw that the Nebuchadnezzar’s grandson, Beltshazzar, had died, and the Medo-Persian empire had entered and taken control of Babylon. Now, Darius the Mede was reigning.
Faithfulness Honored (v. 1-3)
So now that we remember the context, let’s start reading at v. 1:
It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom 120 satraps, to be throughout the whole kingdom; 2 and over them three high officials, of whom Daniel was one, to whom these satraps should give account, so that the king might suffer no loss. 3 Then this Daniel became distinguished above all the other high officials and satraps, because an excellent spirit was in him. And the king planned to set him over the whole kingdom.
So the Medo-Persian empire comes in and assumes control of Babylon. Darius the Mede receives the throne. And once he’s there, he starts moving in. He brings in 120 “satraps” (or administrators) to govern local issues in the kingdom. These satraps have to report to someone, so he sets up three high officials to be in charge of them. And here we have the first incredible detail of this story: Darius sets up Daniel as one of these three high officials.
That’s amazing.
Daniel is a slave—he’s not even from Babylon. He’s an exile from Jerusalem who has been living in captivity for decades. Not only that, he served the previous Babylonian kings. Usually when you’re putting your staff in place, you bring in your own people for the high-level jobs—people you know and trust. But Darius actually promotes Daniel from his post as chief magician to being one of the three highest officials in the country. And on top of all that, the king had plans (v. 3) to set Daniel up to manage the affairs of the entire kingdom.
Why did the king decide to give Daniel this kind of authority? Because (v. 4) he was faithful, and no error or fault was found in him.
This too is remarkable. Daniel was ripped from his home, brought into exile in a foreign land, and forced to serve the king who had devastated his country and pillaged the temple of his God. But rather than resist and try to thwart the king, Daniel served him faithfully, and his son, and his grandson, because he knew that God is the one who had brought him there. As one person put it, “He did a bad job really well,” because he knew God was in control.
Faithfulness Threatened (v. 4-9)
Now, this would have driven the local officials—the satraps and the other two governors working with Daniel—crazy. We already saw local officials conspire against Daniel’s friends in chapter 3. Now the new officials are trying the same thing with Daniel. Their jealousy that a slave would be put in charge of them, or on the same level as them, was stoked.
So they try to find a way to get rid of him…and they can’t do it.
V. 4:
4 Then the high officials and the satraps sought to find a ground for complaint against Daniel with regard to the kingdom, but they could find no ground for complaint or any fault, because he was faithful, and no error or fault was found in him. 5 Then these men said, “We shall not find any ground for complaint against this Daniel unless we find it in connection with the law of his God.”
Imagine this happening to a politician today! A man is vetted for high office…and not a single person can find any reason to complain about him.
But Daniel had been around for a long time now; people knew him. And they knew the stories; they’d have heard what Nebuchadnezzar had told the people about Daniel’s God. They knew that Daniel’s first allegiance wasn’t to Babylon, but to his God. So they knew that if they were going to trap him, it had to be there—that was the only area in which Daniel’s goals and the king’s goals might not align. V. 6:
6 Then these high officials and satraps came by agreement to the king and said to him, “O King Darius, live forever! 7 All the high officials of the kingdom, the prefects and the satraps, the counselors and the governors are agreed that the king should establish an ordinance and enforce an injunction, that whoever makes petition to any god or man for thirty days, except to you, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions. 8 Now, O king, establish the injunction and sign the document, so that it cannot be changed, according to the law of the Medes and the Persians, which cannot be revoked.” 9 Therefore King Darius signed the document and injunction.
So they come up with a plan: make Darius god for the month. For one month, no one can worship any god but him.
Now, Darius is a better king than the other kings we’ve seen so far in this book (as we’ll see). But he’s still waylaid by pride. The idea of being god for a month is still appealing to him. We saw the same thing in Nebuchadnezzar, and we see the same thing in every single secular culture. This is our natural impulse: to try to take the place of God.
So Darius signs on the dotted line. No one is allowed to worship any god but Darius for an entire month, and if they do, they will be cast into the den of lions. Literally. A huge pit in which lions were kept hungry, to devour anyone who was thrown in.
The officials did this because they knew Daniel. They knew his habits, and they knew just how persistent and faithful he was. They’d use his faithfulness against him. And Daniel, it seems at first, falls right into their trap.
Faithfulness Maintained (v. 10)
10 When Daniel knew that the document had been signed, he went to his house where he had windows in his upper chamber open toward Jerusalem. He got down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he had done previously.
A couple of things are worth noting here. First of all, what Daniel does here can strike modern readers as a practice that sounds more Muslim than Christian—kneeling three times a day, in the direction of the holy city, to pray. But this is not mere rite for Daniel; this is not a religious obligation. It’s a sign of his hope.
For decades now, Daniel has been in exile in Babylon. He was clear as to what was going on—that God’s people were suffering judgment for being unfaithful to his covenant with them. He already made this clear in chapter 1.
From all outward appearances, God’s presence has left his people—the temple has been destroyed. God’s reign has seemingly left as well—his people are exiled and scattered.
But at the same time, Daniel remembered God’s promises; he remembered the covenant of God’s faithfulness to his people. So Daniel kept his eyes fixed firmly on that future hope that one day, God’s presence and God’s reign would return to his people.
For Daniel, that hope was geographically located—in Jerusalem, because that is where the temple had stood before. And so for decades now, three times a day, he opened a window in his house which looked toward Jerusalem, and he worshiped and prayed to his God, with faith that God had not abandoned his people, and that even now God was working for the good of his people.
The second thing worth noting here should strike us in a particular way in our immediate context. Daniel has been separated from his people for years. He has not been to the temple to worship for years. He has not sung the psalms together with his people for years. He has not heard the Holy Scriptures read aloud in the temple for years.
Does this sound familiar to anyone else? After—what?—two months of not being able to meet, is anyone else feeling almost an ache to get back together as a people to worship our God together?
That’s what we should be feeling, and we can be absolutely sure that’s what Daniel felt. I think that’s part of the reason why he prayed looking toward Jerusalem: because he misses doing this with his people, in his country. But at the same time, Daniel remembers that despite not being able to worship with his people, his God has not left, his land has not moved, and his people are still his people.
So he continues to worship. He develops a routine of worship and prayer, and he sticks by that routine religiously (you’ll forgive the pun). It is this routine, this faithful act of memory, which anchors him, which helps him remember where he’s come from, and where he is, and where he is going.
As much as we tend to underestimate the value of coming together as a body to worship, we underestimate the value of coming before the Lord every day, to worship and pray to him, just as much. We so often forget that we too are exiles living in a place in which our home kingdom—the kingdom of God—is not yet fully realized. It’s coming, we’re moving toward it, but we’re not there yet. In a context like that, in a context in which we live as exiles, strangers and sojourners in this world, we need an anchor. We need not a monthly, or a weekly, but a daily reminder of who we are, and of who God is; of where we are, and where we’re going.
Our time spent alone with God every day—and more often than that if possible—serves as one of these anchors. The habit of regularly placing ourselves in prayer and worship, the Word of God open before our eyes, reminds us day after day that we are not our own; we belong to a different world, to a different God, who is better than all the counterfeit gods our society dangles in front of us.
Daniel has this anchor. And when we realize what these times of prayer are for him, what he does in v. 10 is obvious.
He doesn’t hesitate. He doesn’t think, Thirty days isn’t really THAT bad; I could give up my habit of praying OPENLY to God for thirty days. No—as soon as he finds out about the document that Darius has signed, what does he do? He goes to his house; he opens the window which looks toward Jerusalem; he gets down on his knees; and he prays and gives thanks to God.
Why? Because he knows his hope is not found in escaping a den of lions. His hope is found in God’s returning his presence and reign to his people.
Faithfulness Punished (v. 11-18)
So he bows down to worship despite the threat, and as a result, King Darius finds himself blocked by his own law. The men conspiring against Daniel come to the king (v. 11):
11 Then these men came by agreement and found Daniel making petition and plea before his God. 12 Then they came near and said before the king, concerning the injunction, “O king! Did you not sign an injunction, that anyone who makes petition to any god or man within thirty days except to you, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions?” The king answered and said, “The thing stands fast, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be revoked.” 13 Then they answered and said before the king, “Daniel, who is one of the exiles from Judah, pays no attention to you, O king, or the injunction you have signed, but makes his petition three times a day.”
Now rather than be angry about this news, like Nebuchadnezzar was, Darius is saddened. V. 14:
14 Then the king, when he heard these words, was much distressed and set his mind to deliver Daniel. And he labored till the sun went down to rescue him. 15 Then these men came by agreement to the king and said to the king, “Know, O king, that it is a law of the Medes and Persians that no injunction or ordinance that the king establishes can be changed.”
We’ve already seen why Darius is so determined to save Daniel: because he recognizes Daniel’s “excellent spirit” (v. 3)—he sees that Daniel is faithful, and he sees that Daniel is wise. Like any good leader, Darius is able to distinguish between an asset and a liability; he knows the value of integrity in leadership. He wants men like Daniel at his side, and there are no other men like Daniel in the kingdom.
But as the administrators remind him in v. 15, it is a law of the Medes and Persians that no injunction or ordinance that the king establishes can be changed. Darius already knew this, which is why he was working so tirelessly: he was looking for a loophole, and unable to find it.
So finally, at the end of the day (v. 16):
16 Then the king commanded, and Daniel was brought and cast into the den of lions. The king declared to Daniel, “May your God, whom you serve continually, deliver you!” 17 And a stone was brought and laid on the mouth of the den, and the king sealed it with his own signet and with the signet of his lords, that nothing might be changed concerning Daniel. 18 Then the king went to his palace and spent the night fasting; no diversions were brought to him, and sleep fled from him.
Why does Daniel tell the story from the point of view of the king? He’s the author; he was in the lions’ den. He could have given us details about what happened in there.
He may have had several reasons for giving us the king’s point of view; I think he’s doing it mostly because he is a good writer. He’s showing us two contrasting responses to the same bad situation. When the king knows Daniel is doomed, he hopes Daniel will be delivered by God; but clearly he doesn’t really believe it. That night, he didn’t eat; he didn’t sleep; he couldn’t be entertained. He was worried sick.
This is the way most people respond to desperate situations. Different situations will affect people differently, but when something which means something to us is at risk, we naturally go into panic mode—we scramble madly to try and solve the problem. And if we can’t find a solution, we just worry.
This is not how Daniel reacted, as we’ve seen. He sees the situation; he knows what’s going on. And he calmly goes about doing what he knows he must do—the very thing that will put him in harm’s way. The king’s worry over Daniel stands in stark contrast to Daniel’s calm courage. The one going into the den of lions knows the God to whom he belongs; he knows he is going into that pit because of his faithfulness to God; and so he knows he has nothing to fear…even if the lions devour him.
But of course you probably know the rest of the story.
Faithfulness Rewarded (v. 19-28)
19 Then, at break of day, the king arose and went in haste to the den of lions. 20 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?” 21 Then Daniel said to the king, “O king, live forever! 22 My God sent his angel and shut the lions’ mouths, and they have not harmed me, because I was found blameless before him; and also before you, O king, I have done no harm.” 23 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 on him, because he had trusted in his God. 24 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.
25 Then King Darius wrote to all the peoples, nations, and languages that dwell in all the earth: “Peace be multiplied to you. 26 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.
27 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.”
28 So this Daniel prospered during the reign of Darius and the reign of Cyrus the Persian.
Daniel Isn’t the Best Daniel
This story is a favorite story for Sunday school teachers all over the world. It has an easy-to-understand theme (stay faithful to God in the face of danger) a scary, memorable image (a dark pit with ravenous beasts inside) and fuzzy animals (the lions turn out to be no threat at all, and every kid dreams of snuggling up to a friendly lion).
But it wasn’t until I was an adult that I began realizing that there’s a greater resonance to this story.
And that deeper resonance is quite simple: as admirable and faithful as Daniel is in this story, the story’s not about him. In fact, as admirable and faithful as are many saints in the Old Testament—Abraham and Moses and David and Elijah—their stories aren’t about them either. For two main reasons: 1) None of them were perfectly faithful; and 2) None of them are Jesus Christ.
It’s always dangerous to try to read too much into the similarities between Old Testament stories and the story of Jesus. (The classic example is Rahab and her red rope—the red is the blood of Christ, shed for our sins… Sorry, that doesn’t hold up.) But it would be a mistake to go to the other extreme and to imagine that they had nothing to do with Jesus.
Remember that God is sovereign over the events we read in these books—he’s sovereign over the entire world he created. (That’s the main theme of the book of Daniel.) God knew exactly what he was doing, and he knew exactly what he was going to do. So very often, in sovereignly guiding these events, he is intentionally giving his people signposts. He was making it so that, for those people who knew their Holy Scriptures, they would look at the life of Christ and say, This seems awfully familiar.
And in this story, there are pointers all over the place, showing us that as admirable and faithful as Daniel is, he’s not the best Daniel. Jesus is the better Daniel.
Like Daniel, Jesus was falsely accused, framed by the religious and political leaders of his society, accused of being unfaithful when in fact he was faithful.
Like Daniel, when Jesus’s life was threatened and he was on the brink of death, what did Jesus do? He didn’t strategize or run away; he prayed in the garden, turning to the one source of comfort and strength he had in that moment.
Like Daniel, when Jesus was threatened, and all it would have taken was a simple word—a simple lie like Peter’s—he remained faithful. He didn’t recant.
Like Daniel, Jesus went into the pit of death, and came back out again, alive and well.
But that’s the point where the similarities end, and for a good reason.
When Daniel went into the pit, the lions never touched him. He didn’t die. He came out alive because he was spared death. Because he was faithful, he escaped death (for a time).
Things didn’t go that way for Jesus. Although he was faithful, he didn’t escape death. He wasn’t spared. He died a real, human death on the cross for our sins.
And that’s where we often misread things, because we look at death, and we see defeat. How disappointed would we have been if Daniel had been devoured by the lions? If Darius had come back to the den and called out, “Daniel, are you okay? Did your God save you?”…and heard nothing but silence in return? That would have been a profoundly disappointing ending…and that’s exactly what happened with Jesus. He didn’t escape the cross. He didn’t leave that hill alive and well. He died, and when they rolled the stone over the front of that tomb, he was still very much dead.
We are trained to see death as defeat, because it usually is.
But in the gospel, God reverses everything. Death isn’t a sad ending, and it isn’t defeat. It is the means by which Christ won his victory. Because when he died, he took our sin with him in death. He took our sin upon himself, and held it there on the cross while the nails were driven in, and as he slowly died, our sin died with him.
For Christ’s faithfulness, he died a real, human death…and then passed through that death, and was raised from the dead, victorious over death and sin, for us. Christ came out of the pit, alive and well…but only after killing death by dying himself.
For his faithfulness, he died, and was raised, and seated on the throne.
It’s really important that we see this fundamental difference between Daniel’s story and Christ’s story.
The author of the letter to the Hebrews, in chapter 11, gives us this beautiful list of men and women through whose faith God worked wonders. After spending more than thirty verses reminding us of story after story of saints of the Old Testament, he goes on—Hebrews 11.32:
32 And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets— 33 who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, 34 quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. 35 Women received back their dead by resurrection.
Did you see it? [Those] who through faith…stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire… So there’s Daniel. There’s Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. Their faith was real, and they are squarely in the side of those whom we’d consider “victorious.”
But what does the author say just after? In the second half of v. 35, we read:
Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. 36 Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. 37 They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated— 38 of whom the world was not worthy—wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.
Now if we had to guess (from an ordinary, human perspective), which side would Jesus be on? The side of those who achieved great victories for God through their faithfulness, or on the side of those who didn’t achieve victory, but who were martyred instead?
Of course he’d be on the second side, because he died. He is the very definition of the suffering servant—that’s how the prophet Isaiah describes the coming Messiah.
But his suffering wasn’t a defeat for him; his suffering was the means by which his victory was secured.
Just two verses later, in Hebrews 12.1-2, we read:
12 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, 2 looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
Here’s the point. God always honors the faith he gives to his children—always. Faithfulness is always rewarded with victory. Always.
Sometimes, that victory comes through an escape from suffering, and sometimes it comes through suffering itself. But either way, faithfulness is rewarded.
Daniel gives us no indication that he knew what was going to happen in the den of lions. He didn’t know whether God would spare him like his friends, or let him be devoured by the lions. But he knew the joy that was set before him. He knew where his hope lie—that’s why he prayed three times a day looking toward Jerusalem. He knew that God would bring his presence and reign back to his people, and that was all he needed.
Friends, God is sovereign, and Christ has won…so we can be faithful.
We talked about this a couple of weeks ago when we looked at Daniel’s friends in the fiery furnace. They—and Daniel in this chapter—were faced with an excruciating decision: stop worshipping your God, or die a horrible death. Displace your loyalty to another master, or be burned alive. Keep standing when you should be kneeling, or be torn apart.
The decisions set before us might be less dramatic, but they are no less real. They might be: stop speaking about Christ, or lose your family. Stop living faithfully, or lose your friends. Reject God, or face ridicule.
And who knows where we’ll be in five, or ten, or twenty years? We may well be faced with decisions with much more severe consequences, as many Christians are in other parts of the world. Keep silent about Christ, or go to prison. Reject Christ, or be beheaded. Renounce your faith, or be tortured. Stop worshiping in secret, or watch your family be killed in front of you. These things happen in many parts of the world.
But wecan face the fear head on. We can remain faithful, no matter the threat, because we know that God is sovereign over the threat. He is able to take the worst danger leveled at us, and neutralize it completely. Flames are nothing to God; he just brings down the temperature. Lions are nothing to God; he just shuts their mouths.
We will all be faced with a situation, and surely more than once, when we think, If I remain faithful, ________ will happen. And whatever fills in that blank is going to scare us to death.
But whatever it is that scares us, God is stronger, and he is sovereign over it. Christ has won, so no danger can take from us what truly matters. So we can be faithful in the face of that fear.
Whatever our faithfulness costs us, it will give us infinitely more. If God gave us nothing else but Christ for the rest of our life, that would still be infinitely more than anything we stand to lose for him.
So what more are we waiting for? If we know that God is sovereign; if we know we’ll never regret a single instance of obedience to God; if we know that what we have in Christ is infinitely better than whatever we stand to lose for him… What are we waiting for? We can be faithful, because our God is sovereign, and because we know that whatever our faithfulness costs us, it will give us so much more.
