The God Who Sustains and Restrains

The God Who Sustains and Restrains
Daniel 6
Introduction:
I know this is Palm Sunday and you may be wondering why I’m not preaching from the Gospel on Jesus’ triumphal entry. And I have no good answer to that question.[1] Who knows, maybe we can find something of Palm Sunday in story of Daniel in the lion’s den.

Daniel 6 occurs during the reign of Darius the Persian, who had conquered Babylon and taken it from Belshazzar the son of Nebuchadnezzar. We are told that Darius had appointed three governors to preside over 120 noblemen who managed the Kingdom. One of the three governors was Daniel the Jew; he distinguished himself over all the others so that their jealousy consumed them and they decided to set a trap for him and have him killed.

With respect to the envy felt by [those] nobles, we see this vice rampant in all
ages, since the aspirants to any greatness can never bear the presence of
virtue. For, being guilty of evil themselves, they are necessarily bitter
against the virtue of others.[2] (John Calvin).

So they made an irreversible decree (like the mark of the Beast) that no one could worship any god but the King for 30 days. Let’s pick up the story in v.10- READ Daniel 6.10-17


Without giving away too much of how this story ends (if you don’t already know), I should point out that Daniel has already been preserved once in this chapter. Daniel was the third most powerful man in the kingdom but he was not killed along with Belshazzar- an act of divine providence, to be sure!

I. God’s Sovereignty in Missions:
Daniel is a book about missions. It’s about “God has an inexhaustible enthusiasm [His tireless fervent pursuit] for the supremacy of His Name among the nations.”[3] His burning passion is for Himself to be glorified by the nations. God’s command to Israel was that they be blessing to the nations by teaching them how to worship the true and living God. But more often not, rather then exporting the truth about Yahweh, Israel preferred to import the error and worship of idols so God exported Israel from the land and brought them into captivity in Babylon. Two things were accomplished by this captivity, Israel was purified and the Nations learned about the living God.[4]

a. Missionary Book
So Daniel is a missionary book and Daniel himself is the prototype of a missionary. The goal of missions is worship and that’s exactly what’s been accomplished in the ministry of Daniel so far. There’s a pattern in the book of Daniel- it goes something like this: there is a dream, a vision, an enigma or some perplexing thing; the climax in which someone must die, then Daniel or one of his companions provides a last minute revelation from God resulting in Gentiles worshipping the true God and commanding others to do the same and on more then one occasion, an epistle from the pen of a heathen king is sent to the known world decreeing the good news that all people should respect and even worship Yahweh. All of this was initiated, executed and accomplished according to the sovereign plan of God in order to realize His own purpose.

b. That the Nations Would Glorify Him
Look at how the heathen king worshipped Yahweh:
1. After Daniel interpreted his dream about the statue,
“Truly your God is the God of gods, the Lord of kings, and a revealer of secrets...” (2:47)

2. After Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were not destroyed in the flames,
“Blessed be [God] who sent His Angel and delivered His servants who trusted in Him, and they have frustrated the king’s word, and yielded their bodies, that they should not serve nor worship any god except their own God! 29 Therefore I make a decree that any people, nation, or language which speaks anything amiss against [God] shall be cut in pieces, and their houses shall be made an ash heap; because there is no other God who can deliver like this.” (3:28-29).

Let me paraphrase that so we don’t let the verbiage obstruct what Nebuchadnezzar is saying, “bless God who is even able to deliver believers”

3. And after his Kingdom was taken from him in a moment of insanity and then restored (4:2-3,35), “2 I thought it good to declare the signs and wonders that the Most High God has worked for me.

3How great are His signs, And how mighty His wonders!
His kingdom is an
everlasting kingdom,
And His dominion is from generation to
generation…
35All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as
nothing;
He does according to His will in the army of heaven
And among
the inhabitants of the earth.
No one can restrain His hand or say to Him,
“What have You done?”

In other words, “He rules everything and no one can prevent Him from doing whatever he wants to do!”

c. New King, Same Plan
So you know that since God’s done the same thing over and over again in the last five chapters with the Babylonian king, then He’s probably going to do it again with the Persian king. Don’t be fooled about the kings worthiness, Calvin notes that, “when the king forbade any one to pray to God; it was a gross and manifest denial of piety.”[5] The King, like all sinners, is dead in trespasses and sin.

II. Daniel’s Prayer Life
If this were a three point sermon about how to be a successful leader based on Daniel it would go like this: Point one- Daniel prayed; point two- Daniel prayed; and point three- Daniel prayed. When it was against the Law to do so, Daniel prayed and gave thank! It’s hard enough in our self absorbed age to get Christians… pastors to pray once a week and look at Daniel- he prayed three times a day. He was obsessed with prayer.

He couldn’t just pray in the quietness of his heart, his prayer was an exhibition of worship for all to see. But he wasn’t showing off; Daniel could no more not worship His God then a man could neglect to praise the hanging gardens of Babylon. How much more God should be praised? Even if it cost him his life, Daniel would not forsake the enjoyment of the exaltation of God.

It was that very piety that the wicked noblemen trusted would be his demise. Daniel was like Luther who refused to recant saying, “Here I stand, I can do no other.” Let’s look at the rest of the story (Read vv. 18-24).

III. Application
a. Not a Blanket Promise
How should I apply this? Should I preach that God’s preservation of Daniel in the lion’s den is a promise that He will also preserve you in the Lion’s dens of life? That you will never suffer? That if you were to be thrown to the Lions, God would always spare you? I cannot! First of all I don’t think that is the point of this text. But more importantly, if I were to preach it as such then how could I account for Stephen, the first martyr? I would need to apologize to the great cloud of martyrs, the millions who have been rejected, beaten and killed for Christ. They’re described in Hebrews 11 as,

…tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better
resurrection. 36 Still others had trial of mockings and scourgings, yes, and
of chains and imprisonment. 37…stoned… sawn in two.. tempted… slain with the
sword. (Heb 11:35-37).

b. A Prophesy
1. God’s preservation of Daniel in the Lion’s Den is a prophetic picture, like an enacted parable- it has many layers. First of all it is a picture of God’s preservation of the captive Jews among the cruel and hostile Persians and Babylonians. Like Daniel in the lion’s den, Israel was in captivity and surrounded by a fierce nation who would ravage them in the blink of an eye. But, for the sake of a remnant, God was preserving them.

2. Then there is the picture of God’s church in captivity to the world, longing for our heavenly Jerusalem and surrounded by a world who would at any second devour us if it were not for the restrainer. All that the church has suffered is nothing compared to what will come upon the church when the Spirit is withdrawn and all Hell breaks loose. Until that day, the church must continue like Daniel, faithful in prayer and thanksgiving proclaiming the praises of God before a hostile world.

3. Daniel is also a picture of Jesus, in his tomb (here’s Palm Sunday… or perhaps, more appropriately, Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday). Like Daniel, Jesus’ tomb was sealed with the seal of Pontius so that no one would dare break it and providentially so that no one could claim a hoax had occurred. Surrounded by Satan and his demons thinking… believing that they had won: “God is dead and his soul is ours,” they must have thought. Until the power of the God broke though the darkness and God forsakenness that Jesus took from us and raised Him in power and glory.

c. The Point
But I think that the point of this whole story is found in the closing verse, from the pen of yet another pagan king, “25Then King Darius wrote: To all peoples, nations, and languages that dwell in all the earth: Peace be multiplied to you. 26I make a decree that in every dominion of my kingdom men must tremble and fear before the God of Daniel.
For He is the living God,
And steadfast forever;
His kingdom is the one which shall not be destroyed,
And His dominion shall endure to the end.
27He delivers and rescues,
And He works signs and wonders
In heaven and on earth,
Who has delivered Daniel from the power of the lions.

In other words, “He rules everything and no one can prevent Him from doing whatever he wants to do!” The point is the sovereignty of God, his steadfastness, his unchanging desire which is to deliver people. There is great comfort in that because no matter how bad your situation may be this morning, no matter how hopeless you think things are, God is in control!

Why is that a comfort when I’ve just been diagnosed with cancer? Why that a comfort when the rent is due today? Why is that a comfort when I am facing uncertainty? Because God is loving and if you are in a lion’s den, it is for a purpose that is loving! Isn’t that better then luck which neither hates nor loves? Isn’t far better and more loving for God to determine our fate then for Him to leave us to our own weak and sinful desires? God sustains and restrains and no one can stop Him. He is in control and He is Good.

Wonderful, merciful Savior
Precious Redeemer and Friend
Who would have thought that a Lamb could
Rescue the souls of men
Oh You rescue the souls of men

Notes:
[1] Except that it is not commanded in scripture that I preach a Palm Sunday sermon and perhaps because I have preached the same thing every year for the previous four Palm Sundays and so I am afraid that we might stretch Jesus’ triumphal entry thin by overextending it’s meaning.
[2]John Calvin. Commentary on Daniel - Volume 1 (218).
[3] John Piper
[4] God’s name was glorified among Gentiles more in the seventy years of Israel’s captivity then in the previous 1400 odd years of Israel’s occupation of the Promise Land.
[5]John Calvin. Commentary on Daniel - Volume 1 (223).