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Good morning my ‘Walking with Jesus’ friends,
I wonder how often you receive a special looking envelope in the mail with words like “extremely urgent” or “official document” stamped on the envelope? And how often when you open the envelope do you find it is simply a marketing ploy attempting to coerce you into purchasing something you really don’t need? As frustrating as that is, occasionally we do receive a very important document which perhaps you put in a safe place with your other legal, important documents.
Yesterday I left you in the palace in Babylon with King Darius the Mede in the year 539bc. He had just witnessed the most remarkable miracle he’d ever seen in his 62 years of life.
Daniel, one of his trusted officials, inherited from the Babylonian kingdom he had conquered, had survived an entire night in a den of ferocious, ravenous lions and yet the record reads: “…when Daniel was raised up out of that lion’s den no wound was found on him because he had trusted in his God.” (Daniel 6:23) For king Darius, it was beyond unbelievable, unimaginable, yet there Daniel stood in front of the king, alive and well.
We don’t know how long it took for king Darius to receive answers from Daniel for all his questions, but eventually the king called the royal scribes for he had a serious proclamation to make.
The king wanted this proclamation sent everywhere, to all peoples, and Daniel gives us the record of what King Darius instructed the scribes to write: “I issue a decree that in every part of my kingdom people must fear and revere the God of Daniel. For He is the living God and He endures forever, His kingdom will never be destroyed, His dominion will never end.” (Daniel 6:25,26)
Oh, there’s more to this remarkable proclamation but let’s ponder what this King has just declared. Please remember the northern kingdom Israel fell to the Assyrians in 722bc, that would be 183 years before this proclamation and Jerusalem fell to Nebuchadnezzar in 586bc, so that would be 47 years ago. For King Darius he would have little reason to have any interest in the God of the two defeated kingdoms of Israel.
But what Darius experienced both with Daniel’s faithful service as a high ranking official of great integrity, and now this miracle of surviving the lions’ den without a scratch, has left Darius convinced there is no god, worshiped anywhere in the world, who is superior to Daniel’s God!
I presume that from the time Daniel was lifted up out of the lions’ den till King Darius issued this decree, the hours and days were filled with long conversations between Daniel and Darius the king had so many questions. We should presume Daniel knew the history of Israel and the long story of the God of Israel very well, for in his early years, before being taken captive during Nebuchadnezzar’s first invasion of Jerusalem in 605bc, Daniel had been one of the young men being schooled for future Jewish leadership in Jerusalem. (Daniel 1:3)
During his more than 60 years in Babylon Daniel’s great faith in God had grown and his prayerful relationship with God had matured significantly. We should also assume as a high-ranking official Daniel could have purchased his own copies of the sacred Jewish scrolls.
It would have been a great privilege for Daniel, fresh out of the lions’ den, to spend several hours or days teaching King Darius all about the Almighty God of Abraham and Moses and Samuel and David and Daniel. Maybe those conversations are why King Darius proclaimed the eternal and supreme nature of God and God’s kingdom.
Perhaps Daniel and Darius even looked closely at Daniel’s record of what God had done with both Babylonian kings Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar. Perhaps King Darius found himself very much in the same place that King Nebuchadnezzar had been after his miracles with Daniel’s God. (Daniel 2:47; 4:34-37)
King Darius continued his proclamation with these words: “God rescues and He saves; He performs signs and wonders in the heavens and on earth. He has rescued Daniel from the power of the lions.” (Daniel 6:27) The facts were undeniable. Daniel, like his three friends who survived Nebuchadnezzar’s furnace, was alive and well despite the efforts to kill him. And with those words King Darius completed his proclamation and ordered his scribes to then translate this proclamation into every language spoken across the empire, and his couriers to carry this scroll to every major city, every leader in the kingdom.
Daniel then records this remarkable autobiographical statement in concluding Daniel 6: “So Daniel prospered during the reign of Darius the Mede and the reign of Cyrus the Persian.” That statement leaves me almost speechless! This Cyrus is Cyrus the Great, His Majesty over the entire Persian empire of which the Babylonian kingdom was the most recent addition, with King Darius reigning over Babylonia. How the strategic sovereignty of God is evident in the life and leadership roles of Daniel, from the time of his capture as a teenager in Jerusalem, during his forced re-education in Babylon, through his many years of faithful service to the Babylonian kings and now into the reigns of Cyrus and Darius in the Medo-Persian empire!
For nearly 70 years the most powerful men in the world trusted the God given wisdom, advice and miraculous dream interpreting abilities of Daniel. World history was profoundly impacted by God’s work through His faithful servant Daniel.
We have no record of exactly when or how Daniel finally died, but Daniel was probably well into his 90’s. What we do know is that God gave to Daniel, during these years in Babylon, several prophetic visions for the future of Israel and the world which Daniel recorded for us in Daniel 7- 12.
Also, please note what Daniel wrote in Daniel 9:2 “…in the first year of King Darius’ reign, I, Daniel, understood from the Scriptures, according to the word of the LORD given to Jeremiah the prophet, that the desolation of Jerusalem would last 70 years. So, I turned to the LORD God and pleaded with Him in prayer and petition, in fasting and in sackcloth and ashes…” That my “Walking with Jesus” friends is one of the most exciting verses in all of Scripture and tomorrow I’ll show you why!
For today, may I invite you to consider writing your own proclamation about God, like King Darius did. What are the great attributes, the character, the uniqueness of God that you celebrate and would like to proclaim to the world in your document?
And tomorrow I’ll meet you here again as we consider one final great moment in Daniel’s life which again shaped history. Let’s rejoice in how God powerfully worked His sovereign purposes through the life of faithful, obedient, trustworthy Daniel over a period of more than 70 years, as he was God’s ambassador to the most powerful men in the world.
And let’s consider what God has done, through your life and mine, in the places in the world where you and I have lived as followers of Jesus! And here’s a song to help us celebrate that.
Today’s Scripture: Daniel 6:25-28.
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
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Pastor Doug Anderson
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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