Let me ask you a question through your tour of home. Here have been on the wrong side of some sort of a plot or conspiracy against you where people said to put in biblical parents, said, all men are evil against you, false and accuse you of things you had never done before, maybe in your workplace and in a classroom. Have you ever been on the wrong side of an office power play? Most of us have, we know what it's like to be targeted, even though we weren't guilty of whatever it was we were accused of, and if you've ever been in that situation, this message this morning is for you. We pray with you. Father, we thank you again for the privilege we had to be together in your presence as your people gathered. And I thank you particularly now for the word of God. Now it speaks to us down to the ages, it is timeless, it is eternal. Father, anoint me now to preach your word to your people and to those who are not yet your people, those who are going strong and deep and they walk with you and those who are feeble and frail and needed every ounce of determination they had just to get here today. And Father, give me grace to speak the truth and love and to show forth the all sufficiency of Christ and whose name I pray. Amen. Well, if you've looked in your book and you've seen the entire chapter of Daniel chapter 6, this is a turning point. We're starting through the book of Daniel, for those of you who have not been in this for a while, for your first time with us, Daniel takes place in the years of 5th century BC. And it is said in Babylon, Daniel and some of the best and brightest of the Jews have been taken from Jerusalem in the Babylon and captivity. And these are stories about Daniel and his friends in this chapter 6, marked a transition point. The first six chapters of Daniel's book are stories about Daniel and in the next six chapters, the last six chapters are visions of Daniel. When you're in the Presbyterian Church in America going through ordination exam, you pray, you have to outline books of the Bible, you know, from your memory, you say, please, or give me Daniel. The first six chapters, stories about Daniel, the second six chapters are visions of Daniel. You want to get Daniel to outline. What we've seen throughout those first six chapters is a repeating pattern, a cycle where you get wrong headed or misguided or outright evil decisions or actions from on high. And you get a crisis for God's man or God's men. And then you get a vindication of God's man or God's man than the exaltation of God's glory. It's not if we'll face tough times, folks, it's not even when we'll face them, it's really the only question how, how will we face those tough times, those periods of conflict or opposition, maybe even outright persecution? Now we'll tell you, as you can see, it's a long text. We will not get through this all this morning. You can relax. I want to try to do all 28 verses, this is part one of two, or hey, it might even go three, you never know. Now, some of you know I've been doing a lot of reading in early American history, one because I love, I love it a lot, I love history and I love our country and so I've been reading a lot of the founding fathers and writings and so forth, and I'm getting a great education. One thing I did not expect, I mean, compared to the average American, I've got a decent vocabulary. Compared to these guys, I am a total enraimus. Let me just try it out before you, a few of the words I've picked up, I expect you to write these down, there will be a quiz. Here are a few of the words I've picked up, this is from Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville, this was written by a Frenchman published in 1835, you're ready, irrefregible. You know that word, something that cannot be refuted or impossible to break a cudgel, a short heavy club, obliquie, obliquie, condemnatory speech or words of denunciation, nougatory, trifling, trivial of no consequence, encomium, glowing, enthusiastic praise, you're getting all this, so be a quiz now. And then in the correspondence between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, they kind of liked out to do each other at the end of life, so you could use the biggest word John Adams said he was, he was a connectitude, I'll let you look that one up, has to do with the attitude of an old person, and the look-cubrations, I don't even know how to announce that one, or explain that one, why am I going through all this? Because inspired by our founding fathers and the new vocabulary I've gotten, I would title this message, Daniel, in the temporary abode of the gargantuan carnivorous felines, maybe better known as Daniel in the lion's den, okay, Daniel in the lion's den, this is, you know, pagans that people who don't know Christ, people who don't know anything about the Bible, this is a story they know, they know about Daniel in the lion's den, they don't really know how the story goes, but they've heard of it, Daniel in the lion's den, God's man facing extreme opposition in a difficult time. First thing this text teaches us, is that Daniel knew sin and error when he saw it, he knew sin and error when he saw it, read with me in verse 1. It pleased Darius to appoint 120 satraps to rule throughout the kingdom with three administrators over them, one of whom was Daniel. The satraps were made accountable to them so that the king might not suffer loss. Now Daniel so distinguished himself among the administrators and satraps by his exceptional qualities, the king planned to set him over the whole kingdom. At this, the administrators and the satraps tried to find grounds for charges against Daniel is conduct of government affairs, but they were unable to do so. They could find no corruption in him because he was trustworthy and he could corrupt nor negligent. I just stopped here and say, this may have been the last time this could have been set of a government official. Praise God for men like Daniel. Verse 5, finally these men said we will never find any basis for charges against this man. Daniel, unless it has something to do with the law of his God. So the administrators and the satraps went as a group to the king and said, oh king Darius live forever. The royal administrators prefixed satraps, advisers and governors have all agreed that the king should issue an edict and enforce the decree that anyone who prays to any God or man during the next 30 days, except to you, oh king, shall we throw it into the lion's den. Now, oh king, issue the decree and put it in writing so that it cannot be altered in accordance with the laws of the Meads and Persians, which cannot be repealed. So king Darius put the decree in writing. You have to understand this, Daniel is serving a pagan king in a pagan kingdom. This is at least the third of the pagan kings that Daniel served. We don't know exactly how many years this is after the opening of the book, but we know it's quite a few. Maybe we're looking at around 560 BC, we don't know for sure. Daniel's an older man now, and he served with Nebuchadnezzar, with Belta Shazzar, and now Darius to me. Those are the three we know. There could have been some in between. And he's had a lot of experience doing what they're seeing in the air. Nebuchadnezzar had his big golden idol. Belta Shazzar had his drunken feast and his banquet hall using the utensils that they had stolen from the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem. Those two episodes did not turn out well for those kings, did not end well for them. And now Darius, who otherwise will turn out to be a pretty good mark, but he's going to issue this ill-advised edict that the people in Babylon were to pray to him only for an entire month. And so here's Daniel, a God fearing Jew, faithfully following the laws of his God in a foreign land and a pagan empire, and faithfully serving his pagan king as well, not an easy balance to strike, faithfully serving God, faithfully serving your pagan boss. And one of the main reasons I wanted to preach Daniel to this church at this time is because I believe that Daniel is the best model in all scripture for a man who is God's faithful man in a hostile and pagan environment. Does that describe your workplace? Does that describe your classroom? Does he describe your home? We've got a lot to learn from this man, Daniel. So along come these sick offense, these suck ups, these yes men, these totes, and those are their good qualities. And they come to the king. You can just see their jealousy. Daniel's been made, he's been made an overseer of the entire kingdom, and they've just got their little parts of it, and he's a Jew and their Babylonians. So they say, we've got to get rid of this guy, Daniel. So they come to King Dearest, and they say, you're the man, Dearest, you're the greatest King Dearest, you're the only God we need, and the ancient Near East, the king did not need much to believe that. So they say, you need to issue this eagre, to have a friend who works in finance, who is telling me about another friend of his, who works with a big ape firm. If I told you the name, you'd know it, but I'm not going to. This is a firm that's been through an awful lot of moving and shaking, and just seismic, volcanic, upheaval of reshuffling reorganization, downsizing, and so forth. And my friend that survived all this and was still employed. So my friend, I'll call Joe, his son's name. My friend Joe asked his other friend, he said, how do you manage to keep your job through all this? And we use an expression here that, in view of our most recent cultural events, just to understand it's just an expression, he said, how do you keep your job through all this? And the man said, it's really pretty simple. When the shooting starts, I hit the ground, and I come up, licking the boots of whoever's left standing. That might be how you keep your job in corporate America today, and the world, and especially the corporate world, is replete with bootlegers, and yes, men. What Darius needed were some men around him, or at least one man around him, say, you know you're actually, this is not a good idea. This is not something you want to do. Listen, if you're the boss, everybody wants to give you the good news. They will rush to be the first time to give you the good news. Who do you have in your life will give you the bad news. Who do you have in your life will come to you and say, you know, this is not a good thing for you to do. Don't believe your own press clippings, you're not as good as they say you are. Who do you have around you who will give you the bad news, that's a true friend. That's the person who's loyalty you need to count on. Darius needed somebody to play Nathan to his David, if you know the story of Nathan and David and Nathan confronting King David with his sins. Darius needed somebody to say, you know, you're not God. You don't require people to treat you like you are God. That will not end well for you. Instead, he's got these Babylonian bootlookers around him telling me he's God and they can miss him to tell people to pray to nobody else but him for 30 days. I don't know how he was going to know who was praying and what it reminded me as I was studying the test again, time in high school and I promise you, it came over the last speaker into our classrooms and they said this. If the speaker in your classroom was not working, would you please report it to the office? A bunch of smart high school kids will say, the speaker is not working. How did we know it reported to the office? You weren't like that but I was. Fortunately, I've repented. Here is, how is Darius even going to know who's praying and how? I mean, how is it going to know? But he issues this ill-advised edict. I want you to notice now, this is not specifically a command to do something wrong.
Something a Daniel or any other Jew, faithful Jew, would find a warrant. Read verse 7 with me again, look what it says, the Royal Administrators prefects, sat traps, advisors and governors, a bunch of bootlookers, it should have said, have all agreed that the King should issue an edict and enforce the decree that anyone who prays to any God or man during the next 30 days, except to you, O King, shall be thrown into the lion's den. This is a command to stop doing something. This is a command to stop praying to anyone other than the King. Now Daniel could have just stopped praying. He could have said to God, listen, Lord, it's a little tense down here right now. I need to kind of lie low and maybe go undercover, but I'll get back to you in about a month. Daniel could have done that, but this he manifestly refused to do. There's a very important principle here I'm going to take and excurses if you allow it or a trip. I'm going to go into something that gives a very important principle that we need to get hold of. I'm not a prophet, I don't know this to be true, and I don't know that will be true, but I'm telling you that the time could come here in this country where our government could start to tell us how to worship and how not to worship. What we can do in our freedom of religious expression, what we cannot do, we've always seen signs of that, have we not? And if our government does begin to tell us how to worship and how to pray, what are we going to do? What are we going to do? I mentioned this to you some months ago, in the aftermath of the mass murder at Fort Hood, Texas, November 5th, 2009, when an Islamic terrorist who haven't also been an army officer, when an Islamic terrorist mowed down 12 military personnel, wounded a number of others, then in the aftermath of that, President Obama gave a speech in which he referred to freedom of worship, freedom of worship, and for a while after that, he and Secretary of State Clinton gave a number of addresses, a number of speeches here at home, and abroad with a use of expression, freedom of worship, and he said, well, so well, it's a big deal. Well, it's important, it may be important in this. We have a guarantee of freedom of religion in this country, but when they begin to suddenly use a different expression for freedom of worship, it may people, including me, ask the question, are you making a distinction between saying we are free to do what we want in a sanctuary? You do whatever you want to hear on St. Lawrence at 11, but don't take it outside. Don't take your religious expression out into the public square. I don't know. That's what they meant. I'm just saying that when you hear the President and Secretary of State begin to use an unusual expression suddenly in the aftermath of a tragedy like that, in the United States and abroad, your spider sense needs to be tingling. What's the difference between freedom of religion, freedom of worship, freedom of religion is guaranteeing the first amendment of the Constitution. Let me read it to you. It's brief. Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, in other words, Nogamy State Church, like a Church of England. That's what they're reacting against, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free expression thereof. And then it goes on to talk about abridging the freedom of speech, or the press, or the right of the people, peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress or grievances. They're all important. But I'm focusing this morning on the freedom of religious expression. Freedom of worship, the concern, was, and it could be code for you to do whatever you want in your place of worship, Sunday morning at 11, or whatever you mean, but you keep it in there. Don't you take it out to the public arena? It would be a way, if it was, if the fear was, it could be a way to marginalize religion to keep it out of sight, and therefore out of mind, may not mean any such thing. But it did set off alarm bells throughout the Christian community. Now, stay with me. This is important. Today, January 16th is freedom of religion day. Did you know this? No, that's why you pay me the big money. So I tell you things like this. Today, January 16th is freedom of religion day. President Bush, the 41st president, the older president Bush, signed a declaration declaring January 16th to be freedom of religion day in 1993, when the last thing he did was president. President Clinton reaffirmed it several times in his two terms in office, and President Bush the younger, the 43rd president, reaffirmed it several times in his time of office. Why on this day? Because, again, listen now. It was on January 16th, 1786 that the Virginia legislature authorized the Virginia, Virginia statute for religious freedom written by Thomas Jefferson. It said basically that, and this is crucial. The Virginia statute for religious freedom said that the government can't force you to embrace any religion, it can't force you to reject any religion, it can't force you to give money to any particular church or religion, again, reacting against the Church of England, which was doing that, it can't discriminate against you on the basis of religion, and it can't prohibit the free expression of religion. The Virginia statute states that God Himself gives us our freedom of religious expression, and He doesn't force people to believe or behave in a certain way, according to religion, therefore the government has no right to do it either. The statute also called for the citizens of the state of Virginia to find ways to celebrate their religious freedom. You must remember, this is 1786, and many, if not most of their forebears, had come to the New World, to America because they were fleeing religious persecution in the Old World, in England, in Germany, and so forth, and so they wanted to make sure as safeguard our freedoms of religious expression, and so they declared that January 16th of 1786 was the day for the beginning of the celebration of religious freedoms, and this statute became the basis for our First Amendment, which along with the rest of the Bill of Rights was ratified in 1791. It's interesting to me that the inscription on Thomas Jefferson's tombstone, which he himself dictated, if you go to Monticello, you will see this on Thomas Jefferson's tombstone. Here was Barry Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia. That's what it says on his tombstone. Do you notice something missing there? Secretary of State and President Washington, Vice President John Adams, and oh yeah, the third President of the United States serving due terms, he had mentioned that on his tombstone. What he wanted on his tombstone was that he was the author of the Declaration of Independence. He was a Father of the University of Virginia, and he was the author of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. That was very important to him, to do his legacy. Now let me give you some more good news. Thomas Jefferson was very proud of his accomplishments and justly so. Let me give you some more good news. I mentioned to you a concern because of something that President Obama had said. But Friday, President Obama signed a resolution reaffirming the continuation of Religious Freedom Day. I want you teachers and students to know it gives you tremendous safeguards in your freedom of religious expression in school. In fact, I'm not the most technologically savvy person on the planet, but I want to try to put a link on our church's website, which you should be checking regularly, and you know who you are. I want to link on our church's website, the links to this freedom of religion day. It's an important thing and it's fascinating, and if I can, I'll post Thomas Jefferson's original wording. There's a modern paraphrase of it, the light most saying, this pretty wimpy. I'm going to try to post Thomas Jefferson's original wording of that Declaration on our website if I can do it later today or when Cindy gets an office on Tuesday. Stay with me, folks. I'm doing excursions on this because it's important, and it does lead back to Daniel 6. I promise. Tomorrow is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Most of you will be getting the day off. When we come into this place, it's not about nations, it's not about human personalities. It's about the worship of our sovereign God that cuts far beyond, way beyond, any nation and personality. But how fascinating to me that today, January 16, as I'm preaching to Daniel 6 to you, this is freedom of religion day tomorrow's Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. And every year at this time, I urge you to please read Martin Luther King, Jr.'s letter from the Birmingham Jail. It is a remarkable document. You can Google it. You can get it online. It's about 12 pages, but please read it. It is an astonishing thing for that man to have written out, basically in long hand on scraps of paper and then on a legal pad as he was imprisoned in Birmingham for protesting against segregation loss. In part, Martin Luther King wrote this, eight clergymen, seven pastors and one rabbi had published a letter in the Birmingham News criticizing Martin Luther King for objecting to these laws. His letter was an answer to them and said, very brief, a couple of paragraphs. He said to them, you express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954, outlawing segregation of the public schools, at first glance, it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask, how can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others? The answer lies in the fact there are two types of laws, just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws, conversely. One has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with the saying to Guston that an unjust law is no law at all. Now what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. You put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas, an unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. And we may thank God that Martin Luther King Jr., Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., did what he did as a matter of conscience before God that if all men are indeed created equal, then all men ought to be treated equally into the laws. And that is what he marched for, and that is what he fought for, and that is what he died for. And that is the loot my fellow pastor, Martin Luther King Jr., for what he did. And it is just God's sense of humor to have me preaching Daniel 6 on the day, January 16th, religious freedom day, and the day before Martin Luther King Jr., and over 2,000 years before Martin Luther King Jr., or Thomas Jefferson put their pen to the page, Daniel knew all this to be true. And unjust law is any law that does not square it with the law of God, and it should be disobeyed and so Daniel, in disobedience to the edict of deris to me, King Deris, said, I will not bow my knee to any earthly king or any earthly government, and no king and no government has any right to tell me how to pray or how to worship only God has that authority. Now apparently nobody else in Babylon had this problem at the time. We don't know where Shadrach, Meshach, and Embednego were, we can assume they were well out of the picture, because if they were willing to be thrown into a fiery furnace, they were not going to knuckle under to deris over this either. Apparently nobody else in Babylon has this problem of having to pray to deris except Daniel. So Daniel, who was the target of the conspiracy in the first place, Daniel has a problem with it, because he knew sin, and he knew error when he saw it, and he knew sin and error because he knew the word of God. He's a faithful Jew, a God-fear, and pagan, godless or false God, idolatous Babylon. But he knew, even far from home, far from the temple, far from all this from here to him, he knew God's word. He knew his Torah, his law, his scripture, and he knew by heart passage like this when Exodus, chapter 20, verses 2 and 3, I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt out of the land of slavery, you shall have no other gods before me, and that would include King Darius of Babylon. Daniel, New Deuteronomy 6, 4 and 5, 12 and 14. In hero Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord you go with all your heart and all your soul and all your strength. Be careful that you do not forget the Lord who brought you out of Egypt out of the land of slavery, fear the Lord your God, serve him only and take your oath in his name, do not follow other gods, the gods, the people around you. Daniel knew sin and error when he saw it because he knew God, he knew the word of God. You'll probably know this, but if you don't, you know how they teach treasury officials and treasury agents and law enforcement agents, you know how they teach them to recognize counterfeit money, they don't put a lot of counterfeit money in front of them, they just haven't handled the real stuff, they have them handle lots and lots and lots of real currency, the real stuff. And then when it comes to counterfeit, they recognize it because they know the real thing. Thursday morning I had the privilege of addressing our Kendall Christian school kids in chapel. These kids get such a marvelous education, they get to hear the word of God and they get to have chapel once a week where somebody, myself or some else, goes in and tries to teach them God's word in a way they can get hold of. And I urge them Thursday morning and I won't get into the whole thing about building their lives on a solid foundation that in our culture, you can distract yourself endlessly with trivialities with nougatory things, thank you. You can distract yourself endlessly, the trifling and the trivial in the nougatory because you got television and cable and satellite and direct TV and you got an internet that will fill your brain full of fluff or worse, 24 or 7365 but I urge them and I urge you, if you're gonna build your life, a life that's big and bold and worthy of our God, you're gonna have to build it on a solid foundation. We did it with an object lesson, I won't do it here with you this morning but I told them young people, there's only one foundation solid enough for you to build a life on this worthy of God and you got to know the word of God. My friends, my brothers and sisters in Christ, let me urge you, read God's word, study God's word, read the New Testament with us, get involved in Christian education Sunday mornings and nights three, Sunday afternoons, evenings and six, Wednesday nights and seven. Throughout the week we have different Bible studies going on, I urge you to get involved in Bible studies where you know God's word, you know how firm a foundation you say to the Lord is laid for your faith and it's excellent word, I urge you to know the Bible and begin this year, I mean what are we waiting for folks, for them to declare that we can't really read or preach this because it's hate speech? It's already happening a year of it in Canada, we're waiting for it to trickle over here, are you waiting for them to tell us how to pray and when to pray and to keep our religious expression to ourselves, I mean what are we waiting for folks for them to tell us to stop doing this or off to the lions, then you'll know me, I don't talk alarmist, I don't come here with prophecies of doom all the time and it may be none of us will ever happen, but folks when you're in the lions, then facing those gargantuan carnivorous felines, that's not the time to say, what was it that the Bible said, gosh I wish I'd written my Bible in one, that's the time when it needs to be a part of who we are and what we are, the times get tough, let me read you a quote from Dietrich Bonhoff, for a Lutheran pastor in Nazi Germany talking about a man who knew what tough times were, he was part of a plot to assassinate Hitler because he saw what was going on in this country, he saw what the man was doing, he said he wanted to risk his life to see if he could put it into this and he was caught, he was discovered, he was captured, he was eventually martyred for what he'd done, he was hung toward the waning days of the third Reich and then World War II, this is what Dietrich Bonhoff said, who stands fast, only the man whose final standard is not his reason, his principles, his conscience, his freedom or his virtue, but who's ready to sacrifice all this when he's called to obedient and responsible action in faith and an exclusive allegiance to God, the responsible man who tries to make his whole life an answer to the question and the call of God, amen, let's pray together, Father, I pray for everyone else in this room and for especially this pastor, Lord that you would make us to be men and women of principle, of standing on the Word of God, who when the tough times come, tough times come and they always come, somehow, some way through some vehicle, some channel, some avenue, the tough times come and we face the trial, what we will believe and where we'll stand and what we'll do, that you would make us, I'm going to say a lot more like Daniel, yeah, but more than that, you will make us a lot more like Jesus, talk about a man who looked at tough times in the eyes and stayed faithful, refused to back down under enormous pressure, but we will be more like Jesus today by break, amen. Amen, we thank you for being with us this morning and receiving out of the Lord's benediction, go now in the love of God the Father, the grace and mercy of God the Son, the fellowship and the manorship of God the Holy Spirit, and live the life, amen.