Daniel and a Den of Hungry Lions
When Darius becomes king in place of Belshazzar, he establishes a hierarchy to help him rule, with Daniel as one of three administrators overseeing 120 province governors.
Daniel conducts himself so well that the king plans to set him over the entire kingdom.
The other two administrators and the province governors, however, don’t want this. But they cannot find any way to discredit Daniel, for his work is beyond fault.
Instead, they seek to attack him through his beliefs and practices. They maneuver Darius into issuing a decree that, for one month, the people can only pray to him and no other. The king foolishly agrees.
Daniel disregards this new law and continues to pray to God as usual. His detractors catch him and insist the king throw Daniel into a den of hungry lions.
Darius doesn’t want to, but he has no choice. He cannot change the law. He gives the order, hoping God will rescue Daniel.
In the morning, he finds that this is exactly what happened, with God shutting the lions’ mouths and Daniel being unharmed. He has Daniel removed from the den and his detractors thrown in instead. The lions quickly kill them.
Then this pagan ruler does something surprising. He issues another decree, that the people must fear and reverence the God of Daniel. The king praises God and exalts him.
This would have never happened had Daniel not risked his life to do what was right.
How can we protect ourselves from being maneuvered into doing something we shouldn’t do?
How much are we willing to risk to worship God?
[Read about Darius in Daniel 6. Discover more in Daniel 9:1 and Daniel 11:1.]
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Peter DeHaan writes about biblical Christianity to confront a status quo faith and live a life that matters. He seeks a fresh approach to following Jesus through the lens of Scripture, without the baggage of made-up traditions and meaningless practices.
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