“Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house; and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime.”
If you have been sheltered from Sunday School and church, you are not familiar with the story of “Daniel and the Lion’s Den,” otherwise you know it well. The “administrators and satraps” decided that anyone who prayed to any god except King Darius would be thrown into a lion’s den. Of course, Darius signed the awful decree and it was set as law according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which could not be changed. They did this to get rid of Daniel. The decree, or the “writing” was signed and it became the law of the land. But Daniel 6:10 tells us that Daniel continued to pray to the God to Whom he had always prayed. He was thrown to the lions, but God kept him safe. What we need to think about today is why did Daniel continue to pray, knowing the consequences? Daniel continued to pray because he knew that it would be wrong to pray to anyone but God. The first two commandments are about not worshiping any God but Jehovah. Daniel knew that Darius was a powerful man who held his life in his hands, but Darius could not take the place of God in Daniel’s life. We need to ask if God/Jesus is more important to us than anything or anyone else. Is He more important to us than our lives? That is the question that Daniel had to answer, as did many other great men and women of God in the Bible. In the future, we might have to answer that question with our lives. Daniel continued to pray because pleasing God meant more to him than pleasing people. Daniel was faced with the same choice that we face today, i.e., was God’s opinion of him more important than people’s opinion of him. One of the greatest desires of people today is to be popular and to fit in with the crowd. Because the “administrators and satraps” were out to get rid of Daniel shows that he was not a people pleaser. I’m sure that, otherwise, Daniel was an easy person to get to know and that he was easy to love, but not to the detriment of his commitment to God. This was a choice faced by great people of God throughout the Bible. The early disciples in Acts had to face the question of who they would please. Here is what Peter and John told the Jewish leaders when they were confronted with pleasing people or God: “But Peter and John answered and said unto them, Whether it be right in the sight of God to listen to you more than unto God, judge ye. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.” (Acts 4:19-20) The nature of the world has not changed and we have to decide who it is that we want to please - God or people. Daniel continued to pray because he needed to pray more than he needed to obey Darius. In those days, Jews had regular times of prayer, and devout Jews faithfully committed themselves to prayer at those times. We are told that Daniel “kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed and gave thanks before God, as he did aforetime.” We would say that he “knelt and prayed as he had always done.” We need to get this down good in our own lives: Prayer is our connection with the Lord and is not just good that we pray, but that we must pray. Daniel needed to communicate with God, but he also needed to express his thanks to God. It is interesting that Daniel expressed thanks to God, though doing so would land him in a den of lions. Though the consequences are not as dire in our lives, we still need to heed the lesson of Daniel and continue to pray and serve God, though the rest of the world seems content to go their own way. The fact of our faith commitment to God sets us apart and makes us different. This does not make us prideful, but it makes us humble. Let’s heed the lesson that Daniel taught us in this text. Bro. Joe
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
All
Archives
September 2021
|