Daniel and the Lions 19th August 2007 Duncan Leake
Start. Slide 1 Blank
Slide 2 Daniel in the lions den
Slide3 Blank…
1. Tell story of parking in Shepton Mallet.
3a Parking ticket
Read from the letter... “I acknowledge receipt of your payment of £40... I appreciate the circumstances which you have described but your vehicle had been parked for at least 21 minutes before a ticket was purchased and I regret that I am unable to cancel the instant fine ticket.”
It’s the law, and even though I thought it was unfair... I had to do what the law said.
Slide4 Blank…
2. You may or may not like this idea… but it seems to me that for all of us, there are times when we simply have to be obedient.
Parents say… (Don’t touch that fire it’s hot. Don’t drink that bleach… it will harm you.) If a young child has no understanding of the idea that they ought to obey their parents, they cannot learn and grow in a normal way.
And when we grow up we still have to be obedient. If no one at work ever took any notice of what a manager or supervisor said… then it would be impossible for a company to function. That rule applies in every organisation… it applies in the church as well.
4a Obey your spiritual leaders
The Bible says “Obey your spiritual leaders and do what they say. Their work is to watch over your souls, and they know they are accountable to God. Give them reason to do this joyfully and not with sorrow. ( That’s important for every church member.) It’s important for me. If I am in a position of authority here, then I have to learn to be obedient too. When I was licensed to this church I made a promise to be obedient to the Bishop in all things lawful and honest.
4b Obedience matters
We have to learn to be obedient as children, and as adults, and in the family of the church we learn to be obedient to one another because we know that we are all commanded to be obedient to Jesus.
3. (Pick up lion.)
Now why Am I talking about obedience when I should be talking about Daniel in the lions den? You’ll see - I hope!
Slide5 Daniel in Lions Den…
This is an exciting part of the bible. A wonderful story about how Daniel was looked after when he was in a very scary situation. Here is a reminder of how scary it must have been.
Slide6 Lion’s mouth
How would you like to spend the night in an enclosure with several other lions for company? I know some people who are nervous about coming to feed our cat… how would you feel if you had to go and feed wild lions.. especially if you were intended to be the food!
We talk about Daniel in the Lions den… but really the lions don’t matter very much in this story. The lions… are not what this passage is all about. (put lion down on a seat at the front and let him listen!)
6a exit the lion
The story is about being obedient… not about facing up to lions. And the big question in this story is this…
Slide7 Who’s the boss?
4. You see Darius the King was the boss of everyone in his empire.
Slide8 Head of King Darius
He made the laws, other people had to keep them. If you parked your chariot in the car park in Babylon and didn’t get a pay and display ticket.. then you wouldn’t try and argue with King Darius and tell him it was unfair. A law that he had signed was the law… everyone had to obey it.
Darius... compared to the previous ruler in Babylon, wasn’t a bad King… but he was in charge and he knew it. And I suppose being the boss made him just a little bit big-headed.
8a King looking in a mirror
That can happen sometimes can’t it?
5. He must have been a bit big-headed because when his advisors suggested that he make a decree to say that for the next thirty days no one could pray to anyone other than HIM - DARIUS went for it! He didn’t say, “Oh no, I couldn’t possibly do that…! he agreed… (Cool! That will bring the people together.. they can all say their prayers to me.) You know… if you think that it’s a good idea to have people praying to you as their God then that is a sign that maybe you are getting just a little bit too self centred!
King Darius was not God. He could make bad decisions and he could use his power in the wrong way. And only when it was too late did Darius realise that by agreeing to this idea and making this new law, he had threatened the life of Daniel. And among all his advisors, Daniel was the one man whose wisdom and honesty he knew he could always depend on.
But Darius couldn’t change his mind. The Bible says that his officials said to him…
Slide9 Let your majesty…
“Let Your Majesty issue and sign this law so it cannot be changed, a law of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be revoked.”
Up until a couple of years ago I used to read this story and think why on earth didn’t Darius cancel his law, what a stupid idea to say that the law couldn’t be changed. Then, you may remember, that there was an application to build a new shopping centre in Burntwood. There was a public inquiry about it, (I attended it… along with other ministers, I spoke in support of the new development). At the end of the inquiry the Planning inspector recommended that the new shopping centre should be built. But that recommendation was vetoed by the officials in the office of the Deputy Prime Minister, who had the final authority over planning issues. They said it must not be built.
The people who made that final decision had some wrong information about the plans for the new development. Eventually I received a letter that said... “although the Deputy Prime Minister’s office recognised that they were wrong in what they had said, once a decision had been made there is no mechanism by which that that decision can be changed”.
What did the Bible say?“…according to the law of the Medes and Persians it cannot be revoked.”
Slide10 Houses of Parliament and Babylon advisers
Government departments in Babylon 2,500 years ago worked in much the same way as government departments in Westminster today!
So the law couldn’t be changed.
Slide11 Head of Daniel
6. Daniel had spent the last 30 odd years being obedient to the King of Babylon… whoever that might be as the Kings came and went. But now this was different… Daniel had a choice to make.
You might think that it was in the lion’s den that Daniel showed how brave he was.
The Bible tells the story a bit differently.
11a Daniel praying (and bible text)
“When Daniel heard that the law had been signed he went home, and knelt down as usual in his upstairs room with it’s window open towards Jerusalem. He prayed three times a day, just as he always had done, giving thanks to his God”(vs.10-11)
It wasn’t in the lion’s den that Daniel showed his courage.
It was in his bedroom when he answered for himself the question, “Who’s the boss?”, and he knelt down to pray.
7. I can’t know exactly how he prayed… but he probably prayed a prayer that began Shema Israel…
Slide12 shema…
Hear O Israel… those words would have been whispered into his ear when he was just eight days old, that was when he was circumcised as a sign that he belonged to the people of God. (Parents, you can explain that to your children when you get home). It’s a prayer that is based on Deuteronomy Chapter 6 verse 4.
12a Daniel praying (and bible text)
Shema Israel... Hear O Israel the Lord is our God, the Lord alone. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.
That is what Daniel had learned as a child. That is what he had always done. And he was not going to stop doing it now. Not for anyone, not even for the King of Babylon.
Daniel took that little word ALL, seriously.
He was going to keep on loving the Lord his God with all his heart, all his soul, all his strength.. even if it cost him all his life.
Daniel didn’t have to guess at what God wanted him to do. Did he? He didn’t have to struggle to work it out… because God’s will had already been perfectly plain… in the Bible. And Daniel knew it. He knew that God had said way back in the time of Moses…
13 Daniel praying (and bible text)
Do not worship any other gods beside me. Ex. 20.v4)
Daniel was willing to be obedient to his boss.
14 Who’s the boss?
And he knew who his real boss was. It wasn’t the King who passed the law.. it was his God who loved him and who had cared for him all through the years he had lived in Babylon.
14a correct!
We might not be threatened with a night in a lions den… but I think that we can be faced with the same kind of choice that Daniel had to make.
We have to decide, “Who is our boss?”
15 Who’s YOUR boss?
Who’s the real boss in your life?
Sometimes we let the ideas and beliefs of other people become our boss. Sometimes we make choices and decisions based on the values of the culture in which we live instead of basing our decisions and actions on what we know God has said to us in the Bible.
Sometimes do what others tell us to do without checking out to see if it fits with what God has told us to do.
When Daniel refused to pray to Darius as if he was God, he was saying to Darius
I will be obedient,
but I will be obedient to the one who holds my life in his hands… and that isn’t you Darius,
it is the God who made me and who loves me.
Can we do the same?
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