Five Words on Daniel (Part 2 of 2)

Welcome to Truth for Life today. Alistair Begg continues to study about ordinary men and women found in the Bible people through whom God accomplished extraordinary things are subject today is a man whose commitment and integrity landed him in the dim full of liens. Alister Ben calls the message five words on Daniel were in Daniel chapter 6 and he was distinguished he was despised. He was disciplined. Actually, this characteristic of Daniel's life was the foundation of their plot.

They knew that they could count on one thing and Daniel and that is that he would be absolutely consistent some of our Christian lives are like human cannonballs.

You know a great surge of energy would come flying out the end of the thing and fall Internet and lie there for days on end while I wasn't Daniel he was like a like a Rolls-Royce engine on a 747.

Once they cranked him up. He just kept going and going and going and going and so his friend said getting on the basis of his consistency.

So they show up at his house Bible is open, you see it there in verse 11, they went as a group, these men went as a group and found Daniel praying and asking God for help. They were surprised. They knew they would. So they shoot off back to the king. They said you know we want to remind you of your royal decree which one the one you know that we thought out for you a few days ago where you learn to shut everything down for 30 days and eventually said oh yeah I'm with you. I've got that and having caught Daniel now to catch the king, they say, by the way, you know you said that anybody who wasn't doing this would be thrown in the Lions den. The king says yeah you're dead right.

The degree stands. You can imagine just kind of waking up to it in accordance with the laws of the Medes and the Persians, which cannot be revealed.

Then they said to the king. Hey Daniel. Daniel is one of the exiles from Judah pays no attention to you. Okay or to the decree.

In fact, he still prays three times a day is not paying attention to you that wasn't true. I wonder if any of us have the impression that Daniel's activity in prayer was some kind of reaction is him to the king's edict.

In other words, he became a sort of political insurrectionist. As a result of what had suddenly come down from the equivalent of Washington DC. Was it a display of defiance.

After all, it would be one thing for him to pray briefly to pray quietly but with the end windows open and three times a day is something special.

Don't you think what actually that perception is absolutely false.

In most of the little books that and that little Bible books with a picture of Daniel praying are completely bogus. If you pardon me, because most of them at least the ones that I had as a wee boy hiding praying in front of a big picture window in a like it was the end of the high street and everybody was going up and down and Daniel was like doing his thing.

For all the public is the price by the history and architecture of the time points to the fight that Daniel's house would have been his other houses and the windows were not at ground level, the windows, what up hi and not only were they applied, but they were small and the reason they were small enough hi was to protect from the heat and from the robbers there for the picture is not so much of Daniel posturing in public as it is of the evil hearts of these characters who invaded his legitimate privacy and trying reason I would have his routine activity. You notice very carefully that for Daniel when the crisis hit. It did not create his disciplined lifestyle. It revealed it when crisis hits a marriage. It reveals the strength of the marriage when Kerr RR otherwise when crisis hits her school. It reveals the character and caliber of the leadership of the school or the student body, whatever it might be. It reveals what is there. All yes it has an impact, yes it does create certain things, but the first thing it does is it shows up what's there and when the crisis hit. It showed up where Daniel wants he had made prayer. Such a habit in his life that probably the very momentum of the custom of praying itself would have been enough for them to stay faithful, with or without a sense of inspiration understand what I'm saying that he was so committed to praying, disciplined prayer in this way that he prayed.

Larry felt like it or whether he didn't feel like see most of ours begin our plans on the basis of a feeling in our Tommy you know what I really feel I out to do this when we do it as long as we feel we ought to do and then we don't feel we are to do it. We close it down for a while. That is nothing to do with this.

Why did you pray the prayer meeting but I didn't feel like praying the prayer meeting for goodness sake.

What is prayer a glandular condition or something. Jesus said man ought always to pray and not to faint. That's good enough for me to prayer meeting pray we can all come together, sit in silence for goodness sake we are done that and who unhooked our telephones and laid them down on our bedside tables laid on our beds in total silence, the discipline of his life.

Probably there were times when he felt like praying and other things really didn't feel like praying. There were times when he got a great surge out of it and there were other times and frankly got nothing out of it. There were times when he left feeling really blessed and there were other times when he left feeling really flat but he didn't care prayed because he prayed because he prayed as discipline.

In fact, in relationship to the edict that it come down. He could probably by this time have rationalized the fact that it stored up such a phenomenal credit on the strength of all the things that he done for God that God would let them offer 30 days during the you and I would have rationalized a little bit like that is not what you do when you go on vacation latterly ready to go to church this Sunday after 11 go to church low as 51 Sundays. Who cares wives since when was that a New Testament question or he could have said you know I get a sneaking suspicion that I'm soon going to be home out of here would be a very dreadful thing to get my head chopped off or eaten up by lions.

Just when I'm about to go and see some of my old friends and mild cousins in my own family.

He could've said to himself. You and I thing the Lord he will mind if I if I if I shut it down just for a little while after you know 30 days goes by very quickly, especially at my age. He said you know 75 or 80 years, not been putting up a storm for years. Lord, you know every mentor his head. Apparently Jesus straight at in the second way is ever Bambino bad. Pray meaning the company is somebody like that the kind of involuntary reaction of their life is prayer. I got a little Frankel Diaz money. I may have told you about them before living in heaven for the last little while. He was a bachelor. All of his days.

He taught the boys Bible class for 50 years of his life. He was a banker that the boys Bible class that he taught was in Londonderry, Northern Ireland. I asked him one day I said what's your plan and purpose with these boys answered instantaneously. My plan for the Bible class has always been to give every boy a Bible in his hand a Savior in his heart and a purpose in his life, straight out. Every boy that came to his class.

He prayed for always. By the time I met him he was in his 70s, and when I went to his apartment in Londonderry. It was like a rogues gallery, there were photographs all around the walls. There were judges from the High Ct. in London. There were famous surgeons. There were schoolteachers there were mechanics, there were plumbers there were all kinds of people all around, and who warily and what his voice. I counted it an amazing thing is that on as an apostle.

One untimely born to be added to the list and to get my face in the rogues gallery and use the right to me and say I remember you daily at the best place and I believed I met a young man the other day he said to me, I pray for you every Tuesday and I believed whose ministry is being held on the strength of our disciplined commitment to pray we can do more than pray after we've prayed, but we can do more than pray until we've pretty if our prayer is meager is because we regarded as something supplemental, rather than something fundamental and for this guy, Daniel was fundamental. It was like breathing is like putting on his sandals. It was like drinking diet cola. Whatever it was, you know, he was absolutely committed to incidentally TS.

Many died a few years ago, the housekeeper found him in the morning, fully dressed and kneeling over his bed. He had gone into the presence of Jesus on his knees. She called for two young men want to headmaster another another young manhood grown up through his Bible class and they came. They came to the house and they lifted Diaz Mooney's body off the floor and as they price them blank from the bed. They pulled up the little black book that he used to keep alongside his Bible that was wrapped in a rubber band and they look down to find their names amongst the list of many names.

It was morning. It was time to pray and he was praying love once the door is wide open for that kind of consistent commitment. If you are prepared as a young man order young woman tonight to say whatever he takes me.

Whatever I do whatever I'm going to become. I know I can be the sword was that Daniel displayed his discipline in his prayer. Now there's two words left you know that so let me just give you the two remaining words. The first words was he was distinguished by its quality and is integral.

The second word was that he was despised. The third word judges dealt with. I forgot.

And the fourth word. What was it discipline, and the fourth word was he was dumped. That's why you should never feel bad if you forgot, I fall asleep reading my notes on Saturday evenings and so I'm never surprised when people fall asleep listening to my notes on Sunday mornings.

The fourth word is he was dumped dumped okay verse 16 so the king gave the order they brought Daniel and he threw them in the lion's den. The king was trapped by his own poor piece of legislation. Verse 14 tells us he was greatly distressed that he was determined to rescue Daniel that he made every effort until sundown to save him.

He tried to introduce another bill you know he tried to put together enough people in the Congress who would vote to overturn his edict and the all held absolutely true. No way.

We've got old Daniel this time Daniels going down by by Daniel. We are going to dump him once and for all five of the matters that Daniel would not be here in chapter 6 where it not for the commitment that he declared in chapter 1 with his passion for purity, he would not be here at the age of 70 and 80 what it not for the persistence that he shown through his middle years Daniels life was in the phrase I use the other evening a long obedience in the same direction and so he was dumped.

Verse 16 actually says that they threw them into the lion's den. The architecture of the time of the little bit of historical and archaeological research reveals that in these kind of structures. There was on-ramp for the animals, and a whole for the victim causes me to say that every putrefying culture will take more concern of its animals than it will of its human beings and we are living in such a culture. The decision from a human perspective in dumping him was irreversible. Stone was brought placed over the mouth of the den. The king sealed it with his own signet ring and the rings of his nobles, so the Daniel situation might not be changed. In other words, it was a joint deal.

They want to make sure the king didn't bail out and he was stuck with the fact that they were determined not and the evening passes with nobody eating verse 18 the king returned to his palace and spend the night without eating and without entertainment being brought to him and he could not sleep.

He wasn't eating.

The Lions were meeting Daniel was meeting nobody was eating and as soon as Dawn came at the first light of dawn you can imagine just waiting pulling the blinds and go. I gotta get down there. The king got up and hurried to the lion's den, and when he came near the den.

He called the Daniel in an anguished voice. You know what he was modifying brings me to my last word. Daniel was delivered because of the strain deleted voice can imagine him shouting because even meet me. He doesn't expect he's getting any answer right so as nurse regulator enough.

I'm not going to mimic shouts into the darkness. Any imagine Daniel going yeah sly K chillout King from first 21 Daniel city a king live forever. My God sent his angel. He shut the mouths of the lines they haven't heard me. Reason I was found innocent in his sight, nor have I ever done any wrong before you okay see that's a passion for purity. That's consistency that's integrity. You can say that unless you have lived, neither cannot. The reason that the angels came and shut the lid of the mouse of the lions was because I was absolutely innocent.

It was a trumped up charge. I frankly have never done anything wrong before you okay and the king was overjoyed and he gave orders to lift Daniel out of the den. You see the difference now gets dumped in his lifted out and is very hard not to read these verses and have your mind shoot forward in biblical history, is it not to see a foreshadowing here of Calvary. Another one on trumped up charges. Another one despised and rejected by those to whom he had done no wrong. Another one who was left behind a seal den another one who had a storm rolled in front of the entrance way to prevent his exit and then in the first light of dawn. The discovery made. He is a lie. And here in Daniel six. That is a foreshadowing of that day when the lion will lie down with the land and will eat straw like an ox, and in breaking is and where of the kingdom that is yet to come in anticipation of the day when the king comes to arraign and suddenly Delius's eyes are opened as a result of this encounter, and he issues another decree he calls for the worship of Daniels God, then King Darius wrote to all the peoples, the nations and the men of every language throughout the land. He says listen Daniels, God lives. Daniels God reigns Daniels God rescues Daniels God performs signs and wonders.

Small wonder in verse 28 that we read the Daniel prosper during the reign of Darius and the reign of Cyrus the portion why because he was the embodiment of a man with a passion for purity empires come and go. King's rise and fall fashions and lifestyles change. But God's truth. Truth never changes. It was in an event like this many years ago at a different college, but a similar context that one young man on the strength of this kind of exhortation and encouragement went back to his room, took his Journal opened it wrote down the date of the day.

Tetralogy wrote down the date and penned.

He is no fool who gives up what he cannot keep to gain we cannot lose in Elliott said that is going to be my life city or so while I'm not Elliott he wants and Jim Elliott then you know what I mean. It was Jamal IME wasn't in a like Jim Elliott and Arlene uses Jim/name him to be Elliott and now we know him because in the privacy of his life. He made this kind of commitment I want to encourage you young folks tonight to make sure like in cross-country running, don't get with a crowd that hangs around the back and there will be a crowd like that there is in every school don't hang around with those people you run about 150 yards and they start to say things like, well, we don't really need to do this started say things like, well, you know, there's no need to be fanatical about this and eventually they just get farther and farther and farther behind. And then they criticize the people are running hard out and run will bid him little her who she thinks she is me tell you something run out and run hard or you say that I'm not much I'm just me.

No one knows listen. God knows cannon fire in an earlier generation wrote these words in his in his journal. I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something and what I can do. I ought to do and what I ought to do.

By the grace of God I will if this was Scotland we would finish with the course, but I've looked in your book and it's not there. This is how it goes. Dare to be a Daniel Dare to stand alone dare to have a purpose for an idea to make it known.

And for you ladies, let's just change it. Ever so slightly dear to be Danielle far. If truth were told the pages of 20th century missionary biography have more testimonies to this kind of caliber in the lives of young women than ever in the lives of young so although he was in Daniel, why don't you then the Danielle challenge message from Alastair Greg continues her study called jars of Clay.

This is Truth for Life will if you're familiar with the full story of Daniel. You know he was still a young man when he was taken from his homeland and brought to Babylon, but despite his youth he was committed to following God course, it's never too late to make that commitment.

But what a wonderful advantage when you begin your adult life with that foundation already in place.

With that in mind we want to recommend a book today, written to help parents and youth leaders addressed questions from teenagers about faith and other issues facing their generation. The book is simply titled ask. It's written by pastor and apologist David Robertson and he addresses a broad mix of topics questions posed by teenagers on things like suicide.

Understanding the mind of God. What's the purpose of life is even a question about tattoos. Robertson addresses 52 different questions and provides suggested books for further reading on every topic covered in the book Robertson's book. Ask helps students learn how to think through the lens of Scripture. Each chapter also features a key biblical text discussion on the topic along with the closing prayer. This is a go to reference book something you want to have on hand as you answer your teenagers questions to help guide them to think biblically during high school and college years will send you a copy along with our thanks when you donate today to support Truth for Life. Your gift helps bring Alistair's clear relevant Bible teaching to people all around the world without cost. Being a barrier and we are so grateful. Look for the book titled ask when you donate online at truthforlife.org/donate or call 888-588-7884. Again, that's 888-588-7884 if you prefer to mail your donation.

Our address is Truth for Life PO Box 39, 8000, Cleveland, OH 44139 Bob Lapine hoping you can join us tomorrow. Talk about trusting God in the dark valleys of life.

This daily program features the Bible teaching of Alastair Greg and it's furnished by Truth for Life where the learning is for