The Babylonian conspiracy, he thought, you ripped me away from my home and all that is familiar to me, all that is near and dear to me, you took me away from that. You've plunked me down in this pagan culture, I've learned your language, I've studied your sciences, I've studied your arts and your philosophy and the ways of your government. I've applied myself to these things and frankly, I can out babble on the Babylonians, and I've used my knowledge and my skills and service to a pagan king. I've done all that and I've served faithfully in these administrations for all these many years, and now you want to tell me how to pray to whom? No, no, I have done my duty faithfully to the administration, to the authorities. I will not be told how to pray and who to worship. Think how easy it would have been to rationalize this, it's only for a month, it's just for a month. I'll just pray someplace beside that open window, God will understand what I think about the Flun, and realize, they haven't been starting doing something different just to flaunt and just to get in the face of the conspirators and the king, he's been undoing what he's been doing. Well, I think all the flimsy excuses I've used not to pray, I'm tired, I'm achy, I'm cranky, I'm out of sorts, it's too cold to pray, when I think about the excuses I've come up with not to pray, and now look at Daniel and what he risked in order to continue to pray to his God, Daniel decided his commitment to his God was a lot more important than his appointment by the king. In fact, Daniel decided his commitment to his God was a lot more important than anything else, including his own life, including his life. I admire people like that, I do not know that I would have the guts and the nerve and the tenacity and the faithfulness to look the firing squad in the eyes and say, both the sugar guys, I'm not going to submit, I'm not going to give in, I'm not going to compromise, I don't know that I could do that, I so admire people like Daniel. Four years ago, an Afghani man by name of Abdul Rahman was arrested in Afghanistan, the country we've been fighting to liberate and to put down the forces of terrorists for now ten years. Abdul Rahman was arrested for the crime of converting from Islam to Christianity and he was told that if he was tried and convicted, it was the death sentence, it's the death penalty in Islam to convert from Islam to Christianity or anything else. And this is what Abdul Rahman said, he said, I am not an infidel, I am a Christian, I believe in Jesus and at that point, he held up his Bible and he said, I am not afraid to die. Folks, that's guts, that's courage, that's tenacity, that's faithfulness. Now the story has a happy ear ending, a lot of international pressure was brought to bear and Abdul Rahman was repatriated, expatriated to Italy where he could be a Christian openly without fear of persecution. Daniel knew where to turn for strength, when he needed it, it wasn't in politics or position or prestige, it was in prayer. Verse 14, when the king heard this, he was greatly distressed, he was determined to rescue Daniel, made every effort until sundown to save him. Then the men went as a group to the king and said to him, remember, oh king, according to the laws and the needs and the versions, no decree or edict that the king issues can be changed. So the king gave the order, they brought Daniel and threw him into the lion's den, the king said the Daniel, may your God, whom you serve continually, rescue you, a stone was brought and placed over the mouth of the den, the king sealed it with its own signet ring, the rings of his nobles, so that Daniel's situation might not be changed, then the king returned to his palace and spent the night with that eating, with that any entertainment being brought to him and he could not sleep. At the outset, when you read this point, a king, Darious issuing this ill-advised edict and Daniel refuses to submit to it, and Daniel being thrown into the lion's den at sunset, at the outset, who do you think is going to have the ruff or knight? Daniel or Darious? Now if you're a gambling man, you get pretty good odds that Daniel is going to have a worse time of it than Darious. It turns out Darious had the ruff or knight, years ago I remember reading something the great American Theologian of Woody Allen once said, referring to the prophecy in Isaiah, he said the time may come, with the lion may indeed lie down with the lamb, the lamb won't get much sleep, Daniel's in the lion's den with these gargantuan carnivorous felines, I don't like he got much sleep that night either, can you imagine? I wasn't kidding with the kids, I mean got cats, I have cats, now my fault, they've all found us, we've adopted them, they know my wife is the cat woman of Miami, and they come to our house and say, is hiding here, and we take them in, we love them, we domesticate them, they're nice, but you've ever been bitten by a cat that meant it, they can do some damage, they can do some damage. We have a cat, I'm not making this up, we have a cat. Straight, we brought him home, I can hold him in my good hand, he's 27 pounds now, I can't hold him anymore, and he's bitten before an anger, now imagine him times about 200, let me read you a description of adult male lions, this comes from an encyclopedia, you young people and encyclopedia is a book, it looks like this, only probably a little bigger, before there was an internet, and Wikipedia, we put things up in books, this is from encyclopedia, a definition of a male lion, they're saying daddy, what's he talking about? Male lions weigh between 330 and 550 pounds, stand about 48 inches tall, the shoulder, they measure up to 98 inches in length, not including the tail, lions have massive shoulders and strong forelimbs, long sharp claws and short powerful jaws, as carnivores feeding entirely on the flesh of other mammals, lions have 30 teeth, including large piercing canines to grab and kill prey, scissor-like molars to slice into its flesh and small incisors to scrape meat from bones, now imagine if you are the bones from which those lions decide they're going to extract the meat, that was Daniel, I didn't mean that picture, but I'm not kidding, I got about as close to adult male lions from the safety of a Range Rover, I got about as a close to them adult male lions and maybe I am to Wayne and Diana over here lore lie, I was taking pictures of his cub and he decided that was close enough and he came over, I'm telling you folks, even inside that Range Rover, you could have heard my knees playing the cast and that's together, those are big, beautiful, powerful, scary animals, and here's Daniel in the lions' den, he's not by any means, the only one of God's faithful to face persecution, to face the lions, I think of Thomas Beckett murdered at the altar of his cathedral by King Henry's hitmen because he refused to say the way he thought the king was doing was all right, I think of Jan Huss, the great reformer before the Reformation in what is now the Czech Republic, Jan Huss, a hundred years before Luther, said, I'm reading the Bible, we're justified by the grace of God, the faith in Christ alone, it's not works, and they ordered him to recant and he said, I won't do it, and they burned him at the stake, what is now prog, you can still go there today and there's a little marker there, I understand, some of you have been there, I know, it's not a big deal, but there's a marker there, where Jan Huss was burned at the stake for refusing to recant the doctrines of justification by faith, and he died singing praises to his Lord Jesus for the honor of being put to death for him. William Tindale, that Bible you got, it's in your own language, the first guy to put it in the English, was a man by the name of William Tindale, and the church at that time was not happy about him giving a Bible to the people they could actually read for themselves, so they handed in, they had him, and he had to do a lot of his translation in hiding, and then he was betrayed, taken into custody, strangled, and burned at the stake. Someone got his faithful, going to the lions, then into the fire furnace, and there's no deliverance for them. You think of the great people of faith, the Scriptures give us, think about Joseph, Job, David, Elijah, and you get into the New Testament times, think of John the Baptist, Peter and John, before the Sanhedrin, the rest of the apostles, do you just kill themselves the rest of the apostles, including Paul, suffer horribly, and they're all martyred, put to death for their faith, for their sin for Christ, except John, John lived to be an old man, but he suffered horribly, you think of what our faithful forebars went through. Most many of them died, such was not going to be the case with Daniel, verse 19, at the first light of dawn, the king got up and hurried to the lion's den, when he came near to the den, he called the Daniel an anguished voice, Daniel, servant of the living God, as your God, and you serve continually, then it will rescue you from the lions. Daniel answered, oh king, live forever, man, just interject here, that probably would not have been my response, my response would have been something like, why don't you come in and see? Why don't you come in and check on me, your majesty? Daniel says, my God, sin is angel, he shut the mouths of the lions, they have not hurt me because I was found innocent, in his sight, no have I ever done anything wrong before you, oh king, the king was overjoyed, he orders to live Daniel out of the den, when Daniel was lived from the den, no wounds found on him because he had trusted in his God, and unjust law is no law at all, Daniel refused to submit to this unjust law, and he was vindicated. Daniel knew and refused to obey the unjust law of deris, and he lived to tell about it. I'll ask you a question, any of you here remember Pat Terry, you remember Pat Terry, the Pat Terry group, a few of us, a couple of us, okay, this will be named dropping out of a very small level then. Anyway, Pat Terry and the Pat Terry group were sort of the state of the art of Southern acoustic gospel rock back in the late 70s, early 80s, and you guys were saying, was there even, they even have guitars back then, they did. That's a friend of mine, that's why I say it's going to be named dropping on a very limited basis, he wrote a song about Daniel, let me just read you the bridge of that song, he says, early next morning for the sun came up, the king was feeling down, he went to the lions den, looked in the window, what do you think he found? Daniel was leading those lions into him, they were clapping their big brown paws, he said an angel of the Lord didn't arrive last night, he clamped those lions jaws, well that might be a little poetic license, but I like the picture there, what a choir that must have been. This is a microcosm by the way, for how it's supposed to be, you know, when God put man on earth and put him in that garden, he said, feel the urge to do it, and exercise dominion over the creation, you know, this is how it was supposed to be when when all those animals paraded before Adam and he gave them all names, they were all those animals, they were supposed to submit to man, we weren't supposed to live in fear of the beast and they're in fear of us, we were all supposed to be getting along, be a big doctor, do little thing, it was at the fall that there became enmity between us and the rest of creation. This is a microcosm what's going to be like when you have it in the new earth, when the lion will lie down with the lamb, we'll be able to go up and pet those big kitties and scrub their mains, my wife's looking forward to that one. You may know the story about the lion one morning, the male lion woke up, he's feeling insecure, a little need of reassurance, sure and so he called the council of all the beasts, they all came and circled up around him, he patted back and forth in his most regal manner, he went and looked very suddenly in the face of a little monkey, he said, who's the king of the jungle? Monkey said, you are a king, you're the king of beasts, teeth chattering, line backed up, walked away, patted back and forth, went to a zebra, got so close to that zebra, could feel his breath, he said, who's the king of the jungle? He said, you are, see if you're singing, I don't want to be lunch here, you're the king of the beasts, line walked away, he walked over the elephant, so who's the king of the jungle? Without a word, the elephant wrapped his trunk around the lion, picked him up and slammed him up against a tree, walked over, picked him up, slammed him against the tree a few more times and just for good measure he stepped on him, and he walked away out into the serengeti, the lion lit his head and said, look if you don't know the answer just say so, you don't have to be nasty about it, the king of beasts, the king of the jungle, they knew who was the king of kings, my god sent his angel, he said, he shut the mouths of the lions, he spoke to the same angel that appeared in day and chapter three, which had right me, she had to go there and missed the fiery furnace thing, I think it's the same one, I do, I do believe it's the same one, the text doesn't tell us that for sure, but I believe it was because I believe, and I'm not kidding about this, I think this was his turf, I think this was his precinct, I think angels have territories, a few chapters in, we're going to meet another angel who seems to have dominion or authority over this particular area, I think this is the same angel, you think when he got into the lion of Daniel, he said, Daniel, you Jewish boys are having a hard time staying out of trouble aren't you? Every time I turn around you guys are in kind of a scrape here, what's going on? And he shut the mouths of those big carnivorous beasts, Daniel knew where to turn for strength, when he needed it, he turned to his God, Daniel knew sin and error when he saw it, Daniel knew where to turn for strength when he needed it, and he knew who should get the glory when he got through it. Verse 24, at the King's command, the men who had falsely accused Daniel were brought in and thrown into the lion's den, along with their wives and children, folks this is one of those places where the Bible really bothers me. I'm not kidding, you read this story and it doesn't bother you, this part bothers me, but if you read through the Bible and never judge or never judge it, you're not paying attention. Through them in the lions den, along with their wives and their children, and before they reached the floor of the den, the lions overpowered them and crushed all their bones. Then King Darius wrote to all the peoples, nations and men of every language throughout the land, may you prosper greatly. I issue a decree that in every part of my kingdom, people must fear and reverence the God of Daniel, for he is the living God and he endures forever. His kingdom will not be destroyed, his dominion will never end. He rescues and he saves, he performs signs and wonders in the heavens and on the earth. He has rescued Daniel from the power of the lions, so Daniel prospered during the reign of Darius and the reign of Cyrus, the Persian. It's not if we'll face tough times, it's not even when it's how we'll face them. I think of what my old friend Bill Iverson likes to say, his motto, his credo is to outthink, outlive and out die this current generation. The tough times came, Daniel you've seen an arrow when you saw it, because you knew God's word. Folks, I don't know if we'll face actual persecution, not just ostracism, criticism, ridicule, so what? You know they're not going to like us? Daniel knew what it was because he knew his Bible. I urge you, I urge you to make 2011 the year you really get serious about reading your Bible. If you've never done it before and especially if you've never done it before, read it. So I could be wrong about this stuff. I don't think I am. I study really hard to make sure I tell you the truth, but I could be wrong. Read the Bible for yourself. Let God speak to you yourself. One reason we had a Reformation was to reestablish the priesthood of all believers. You can read and understand the Bible. You don't have to have myself, or anybody else teach it to you. We're here to help, but you could read the Bible. You could know the Scriptures like Daniel did. Daniel knew where to turn for strength when he needed it. Where do we turn to our bank accounts, our portfolios, our financial advisors, do we turn to Tallahassee or Washington? Daniel knew where to turn for strength when he needed it. When the tough times came, he didn't have to say, no, no, what do I do now? I better pray. He just went praying. Just the way he had before. And Daniel knew who should get the glory when he got through it. Temple Longman, his commentary on this is an excellent one. He does these parallels from Daniel and another Jew who would come 540 years after that. His name was Jesus or Yeshua. They're both framed on a false charge by the authorities. They're both arrested, while praying in private. They're both convicted over the misgivings of the man in the position of the highest power over them. And they both turn over to be executed to face the death penalty. And here's where the similarities end because Daniel was delivered from death. He was delivered from lions then. While Jesus was executed and then resurrected all for our sake. And that's the beauty of Daniel. That's the value of studying Daniel. He points us to Christ. He points us to Jesus. When we be like Daniel, that's great. But really you want to be like Daniel, be like Jesus. 500 years before he came. He looked forward to the coming of the Messiah who had delivered him. We look back at the salvation that arrived in Jesus' Nazareth. A pastor by the name of Rick Joyner wrote a book on the surpassing greatness of his power. And he's referring here a lot mostly at Daniel versus Nebuchadnezzar. But I'm going to contextualize it a bit and want you to listen to what he says. He says, when we have the true and holy fear of the Lord, we do not have to fear anything else on this earth. To have the true fear of the Lord is evidenced by our not fearing what the world fears. When the church becomes like Daniel, he will deal with the government like he did with Nebuchadnezzar, Dr. Shazardarius. When we like Daniel, refuse to defile ourselves with the food and drink of the heathen, we refuse to worship their idols, but we worship the Lord openly regardless of the consequences. He will give us wisdom and power that will confound the heathen and cause them to bow their knees to our God. May the Lord grant us the Spirit of Daniel and power us to, under courageous, complete obedience. And I would add, may he empower us with the Spirit of Jesus, the Lord who came and did indeed go into the lion's den. And he was crushed for ouriquities. He was wounded for our transgressions. The Lord laid upon him the iniquity of us all. It's by his stripes. We're healed. Let's pray together. Father, thank you again for this great example we have in your servant Daniel. We look forward to meeting him one day. We get to heaven. But Father, thank you more than that for the redemption that you sent us so that we can face our lions, Dan. We can face persecution. Knowing that Jesus has come and faced all before us and his triumph and his persevering has overcome. We will too. I pray in his name. Amen. Amen. Thanks for being with us again today. We're going to ask you to receive now the Lord's benediction. Go now in the love of God, the Father, the grace and mercy of God, the Son, the fellowship and companionship of God, the Holy Spirit, and live the life. Amen.