{"id":18394,"date":"2017-04-09T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-04-09T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sugar-land-bible-church.local\/sermon\/daniel-019-balance-in-the-christian-life\/"},"modified":"2017-04-09T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2017-04-09T05:00:00","slug":"daniel-019-balance-in-the-christian-life","status":"publish","type":"sermon","link":"https:\/\/slbc.org\/es\/sermon\/daniel-019-balance-in-the-christian-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Daniel 019: Balance in the Christian Life"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","book":[72],"series_event":[467],"sermon_service_type":[472],"speaker":[6],"class_list":["post-18394","sermon","type-sermon","status-publish","hentry","book-daniel","series_event-daniel","sermon_service_type-main-service","speaker-dr-andy-woods","no-post-thumbnail"],"acf":{"sermon_title":"Daniel 019: Balance in the Christian Life","sermon_date":"20170409","sermon_month":"4","sermon_year":"2017","sermon_notes":4543,"sermon_slides":4544,"sermon_mp3":4547,"sermon_id":"4917136543","series_or_event":467,"service_type":[472],"speaker":6,"books_of_the_bible":72,"chapter_and_verse":"6:12-17","sermon_transcript":"Andy Woods\n\nBalance in the Christian Life\n\n4-9-17\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Daniel<\/a> 6:12-20 \u00a0\u00a0Lesson 19\n\nLet\u2019s take our Bibles, if we could, and open them to the book of Daniel, Daniel chapter 6, beginning at verse 12, as God allows it perhaps making it through verse 20 this morning.\u00a0 The title of our message this morning is Balance in the Christian Life<\/em>.\u00a0 No, that\u2019s not my own title, I stole that from Charles Ryrie. \u00a0He wrote a book a few years ago called Balance in the Christian Life<\/em> and I shame\u00adfully took his title.\u00a0 You know this really is an enjoyable time of the year, would you not agree?\u00a0 We\u2019re celebrating today Palm Sunday.\u00a0 Did you all bring your palms, I brought two, right here.\n\nEssentially we\u2019re celebrating the journey that Jesus made (Bruce spoke of it, Veronica sung about it) that He made to Jerusalem coming to His own people only to be rejected.\u00a0 John\u2019s Gospel said \u201cHe came to His own yet His own did not receive Him.\u201d\u00a0 [John 1:11]\u00a0 Isn\u2019t that a painful thing to come to people that are yours and yet they turn you down.\u00a0 [John 1:11, \u201cHe came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him.\u201d]\u00a0 And yet God turned lemons into lemonade; He used the events of that rejection, which we begin to think about this week, Passion Week, particularly on Friday where we typically reflect upon the death of our Lord Jesus Christ, God took that rejection and the Jewish relinquishment of\u00a0 Christ to the Romans for execution to pay the sin debt for the whole world and so that people, by simple trust in what Christ has done, can be saved.\n\nAnd of course next Sunday we begin to learn, and even in our passage this morning we begin to learn that He is not a dead Savior but He is a living Savior, because out of that grave He came Sunday morning, one week from today.\u00a0\u00a0 And so it\u2019s a wonderful time as we think about the things of God and what Jesus accomplished in our place.\n\nDaniel chapter 6, which as we\u2019re going to see, interestingly expresses many of these same themes, is found in a book called The Book of Daniel. \u00a0Daniel is being raised up by God to sort of portray, depict, what the nation would experience.\u00a0 The nation of Israel during a very difficult time that they were in, in Babylon as captives, inaugurating a time period when the nation would have no king reigning on David\u2019s throne and the nation would be trampled down by various pagan powers.\u00a0 Daniel is raised up to identify that time period and explain it prophetically.\n\nAnd how do you live for God, exactly, when you\u2019re not on Israeli soil?\u00a0 That\u2019s a relevant question for us too, isn\u2019t it, because we\u2019re Christians trying to live in what today is still the devil\u2019s world.\u00a0 The devil will still be the prince and power of this age until the personal return of Christ one day.\u00a0 So how do we live as God\u2019s people on hostile territory?\u00a0 Daniel is a model for us; his priorities become our priorities; his stances become our stances.\u00a0 If you are a pictorial learner, as I mentioned last time, you might try to associate every chapter we cover with a picture.\u00a0 And this is my mother that taught me how to do this and that\u2019s how I was able to get so far in school because I had this memory device that she taught me.\u00a0 And of course I want to make a shout out to my mother today, it is her birthday so I\u2019m thankful for my mom.\n\nChapter 2 is a statue; chapter 3 is a fire, that\u2019s where the fiery furnace happened.\u00a0 Chapter 4 is a cutting down of a tree; that was the humiliation of Nebuchadnezzar.\u00a0 Chapter 5 you can remember was handwriting on the wall, which was the final judgment on Babylon as Babylon was giving way to Persia.\u00a0 Chapter 6\u00a0 you might think of Daniel there in front of those lions, and that\u2019s the story that we\u2019re looking at this Sunday.\u00a0 Chapter 1 really lays the foundation for us and then we move into chapters 2-7 which is organized like what we would call in Hebrew or Greek a chiasm.\u00a0 The whole section is not in Hebrew but it\u2019s in Aramaic and so it stands out as a literary unit.\u00a0 And in a chiasm the things started at the beginning are repeated at the end.\u00a0 So we\u2019ll read chapter 2 and then we\u2019ll read chapter 7 and we\u2019ll say wait a minute, didn\u2019t the stuff in chapter 7 already get stated in chapter 2.\u00a0 And the answer is yes, there\u2019s just a little different spin on it.\u00a0 The same with the information in chapter 3, Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego had to make a stand and they were thrown into the fiery furnace as a result.\u00a0 The same exact thing is happening in Daniel 6, Daniel makes a stand.\u00a0 He is thrown, not into a fiery furnace but he is thrown into the lion\u2019s den.\u00a0 The information in chapter 4, God\u2019s revelation to a Gentile king, Nebuchadnezzar, that theme follows into chapter 5 as God reveals Himself to a man named Belshazzar, the last reigning king of the Babylonian Empire.\n\nAnd so we move into chapter 6 and we start to discover that many of the things in chapter 6, the same themes anyway, are recapitulated and that is an awareness that we have when we understand this literary pattern called a chiastic structure or a chiasm.\u00a0 By the time we get into chapter 6 Babylon has already fallen.\u00a0 Babylon fell in chapter 5; we are no longer dealing with Belshazzar as Darius of Medo-Persia, the conqueror, the entity that conquered Babylon now rises to the forefront.\n\nAnd in essence what has happened is the head of gold that Daniel saw as a teenager has now shifted to the chest and arms of silver.\u00a0 Nebuchadnezzar \u00a0is no longer on the scene, Belshazzar is no longer on the scene but right into front stage moves this man, Darius of Medo-Persia.\u00a0 And God is busy agitating this man, Darius, just like He agitated Belshazzar, just like He agitated Nebuchadnezzar.\n\nWhy does God bother people?\u00a0 Why does God agitate people?\u00a0 Because He loves people, He wants people, men and women, to enter into a right relationship with Him.\u00a0 And if a person is not in a right relationship with Him He sics what we would call the hounds of heaven on that person and just keeps annoying them over and over and over again until they reach a point where they trust in what Jesus has done for them and they become saved at that point.\u00a0 Aren\u2019t you glad that God loves us enough to bother us?\u00a0 I\u2019m sure glad God bothered me as a sixteen year old, which was the point in time in which I trusted in Christ for salvation.\u00a0 And I\u2019m sure if\u00a0 you\u2019re a saved person you\u2019re grateful for the agitation and the bothering of God that God does to our lives.\n\nThe date of these events would be about 539 B.C.\u00a0 Daniel is about 83 years old when these events happen.\u00a0 Now that in and of itself is going to wreck a lot of Christian artistry because all of the pictures I see of Daniel in the lion\u2019s den make it look like he\u2019s Arnold Schwarzenegger with muscles popping out all over the place, ready to take on these lions. And the reality is nothing could be further from the truth; Daniel was not at his prime of life.\u00a0 When this happened he was in a state of vulnerability physically as an aged person.\u00a0 And isn\u2019t it wonderful that the promises of God that sustained us in our youth continue to sustain us into old age, because God\u2019s promises never change as we progress through the various stages of life.\n\nDavid, in Psalm 37:25 said, \u201cI have been young and now I am old, Yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken nor their seed begging for bread.\u201d\u00a0 He said I\u2019ve gone through the whole spectrum of life, I\u2019ve gone through the prime of my youth to the vulnerability of old age and yet God keeps coming through for me over and over again.\u00a0 Daniel is experiencing that faithfulness of God to him.\u00a0 He experienced it as a\u00a0 youth in Babylon and now the whole political environment has changed, the Persian Empire is in power, Daniel is in an advanced age and yet the promises of God, the faithful-ness of God, the God who does not change, the God who does not lie, keeps being faithful to Daniel throughout the rest of his life.\u00a0 And so that\u2019s a glorious thing as we recognize that the circumstances of our life are really not dictated by the circumstances of our life; they\u2019re dictated by God Himself who looks after His own and cannot lie.\u00a0 Aren\u2019t you glad about that this morning?\u00a0 I\u2019m glad about it.\n\nHere is an outline of chapter 6, we saw, number I, these all begin with the letter P, the position of Daniel, this is where Daniel begins to rise through the ranks in the Persian system, just like he rose through the ranks in the Babylonian system.\u00a0 Isn\u2019t it interesting that cream always rises to the top?\u00a0 Isn\u2019t it interesting that if a person is in a relationship with God through Jesus Christ that no matter what circumstance you put them into, a different job, a different career, a different church, a different state, a different territory, that God continues to use that person, He continues to promote that person.\u00a0 And this is what Daniel is experiencing as an older man.\n\nYou know, a lot of people in the body of Christ, and it\u2019s sad to watch, they have a retirement mindset, and what they mean by that is well, you know, in my youth I did this for God and did that for God, now I\u2019m just going to kind of rest, relax on my laurels, rest on my laurels.\u00a0 And the fact of the matter is there\u2019s not a shred of evidence in the Bible to support that mindset.\u00a0 As long as there is breath in your lungs and your heart is beating, it doesn\u2019t matter what your age is, God has something He wants to do in and through your life.\u00a0 You never disqualify yourself from usability by God simply because of age.\u00a0 You might retire from a job but all that does is free your time and resources up to be used elsewhere.\u00a0 So there is no such thing as retirement in God, I like to call it refirement, as in refiring up, not retiring.\n\nAnd what happens to people when they are blessed by the Lord is onlookers don\u2019t like it and the reason they don\u2019t like it is because you\u2019re creating a standard;\u00a0 your life is being held out as an example and that is a standard that makes them look bad (in many cases) and so they to tear down the person that\u2019s being promoted and used by God.\u00a0 And we should expect this in our Christian walk.\n\nThe Apostle Peter, in 1 Peter 4:12 says, \u201cDo not be surprised as by the fiery ordeal that you are experiencing as though it were some strange thing.\u201d Many times when family members turn against us, when church members turn against us, when even our brothers and sisters in Christ turn against us, when the unsaved world turns against us we think it\u2019s some odd thing, or strange thing, it\u2019s something that only we are experiencing but nobody else.\u00a0 And yet what we discover in the Scripture is this is the norm.\u00a0 Daniel is being used by God, he is being promoted by God and immediately what happens is a plot is hatched to catch Daniel in a snare.\u00a0 And that plot is described in verses 4-9.\n\n[Daniel 6:4, \u201cThen the commissioners and satraps began trying to find a ground of accusation against Daniel in regard to government affairs; but they could find no ground of accusation or evidence of<\/em> corruption, inasmuch as he was faithful, and no negligence or corruption was to be<\/em> found in him. [5] Then these men said, \u2018We will not find any ground of accusation against this Daniel unless we find it<\/em> against him with regard to the law of his God.\u2019\u00a0 [6] Then these commissioners and satraps came by agreement to the king and spoke to him as follows: \u2018King Darius, live forever! [7] All the commissioners of the kingdom, the prefects and the satraps, the high officials and the governors have consulted together that the king should establish a statute and enforce an injunction that anyone who makes a petition to any god or man besides you, O king, for thirty days, shall be cast into the lions\u2019 den. [8] Now, O king, establish the injunction and sign the document so that it may not be changed, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which may not be revoked.\u2019\u00a0 [9] Therefore King Darius signed the document, that is, the injunction.\u201d]\n\nA law is passed.\u00a0 The law simply says you can\u2019t pray to anybody other than Darius.\u00a0 And his enemies understood if they couldn\u2019t find any flaw in his work ethic, his career, and so they realized that the only way to bring Daniel down was to find something that would put him on a collision course between his relationship with God and the Persian legal system.\u00a0 And so this law against prayer is passed.\n\nI think of things going on in our own country where if a teacher puts out their Bible on the public school desk then all of a sudden they are forbidden from doing that.\u00a0 There is a federal lawsuit that begins to take place.\u00a0 And it is interesting that even our own culture is moving in a direction where more and more laws are being passed, more and more restrictions are being given and articulated to restrict the Christian\u2019s freedom of thought, the Christian\u2019s freedom of speech, and the Christian\u2019s right in their own work place.\u00a0 It\u2019s almost as if the Book of Daniel is written for our times.\n\nWe move into Roman numeral III where Daniel immediately goes to prayer and it\u2019s an astounding thing how dominant prayer was in the life of this man.\u00a0 When a crisis hits and he\u2019s aware now of this Persian law he immediately begins to pray; he doesn\u2019t pick at his government, he doesn\u2019t organize a protest, he doesn\u2019t write letters to the newspaper, not that those things are bad in and of themselves, they have their place, but his first order of business is to pray to his God.\u00a0 Let me ask you a question: when the crisis hits your life what\u2019s the first thing you do?\u00a0 Hopefully your attitude is a posture of prayer because that\u2019s what Daniel is role modeling for us.\n\nThe prayer of Daniel is now followed by the prosecution of Daniel.\u00a0 Notice, if you will, verses 12-15, notice how the enemy has set him up.\u00a0 Notice chapter 6 and verse 12, it says, \u201cThen they approached and spoke before the king about the king\u2019s injunction, \u2018Did you not sign an injunction that any man who makes a petition to any god or man besides you, O king, for thirty days, is to be cast into the lions\u2019 den?\u2019\u201d\u00a0 So the enemies of Daniel who got this law passed in the first place now that they have Daniel caught praying they remind the king of the edict or the law that Darius had passed.\n\nAnd Darius affirms that this law is in effect, notice the end of verse 12, \u201cThe king replied, \u2018The statement is true, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which may not be revoked.\u2019\u201d\u00a0 The enemies were so skillful at passing this law that they followed the common practice of the Persians which simply said that once a law goes onto the books it cannot be revoked, it cannot be changed.\u00a0 In fact, that concept of the irrevocability of the Persian law is going to become very prominent and popular later on in our chapter as we work through it this morning.\n\nSo once the law is on the books, once the trap has been set, once Daniel is in the snare, once his foot or leg is in the bear\u2019s trap now the enemy pounces, reminding the king of this law and pushing in a direction of prosecuting Daniel.\n\nVerse 13 you discover the enemy\u2019s complaint.\u00a0 You really get to the bottom line; what is it that bothered these contemporaries of Daniel so much about the life of Daniel.\u00a0 You find that described there in verse 13 that says, \u201cThen they answered and spoke before the king, \u2018Daniel, who is one of the exiles from Judah, pays no attention to you, O king, or to the injunction which you signed, but keeps making his petition three times a day.\u2019\u201d\u00a0 A law is passed you can only pray to Darius; Daniel \u00a0as a monotheistic Jew obviously can\u2019t follow that, he serves one God, he doesn\u2019t pray to Darius, he prays to the real God, the true God.\u00a0 And when you study the times when the nation of Israel came under persecution during this time period this is always the issue.\u00a0 It\u2019s the issue of monotheism; it\u2019s the issue of exclusivity, it\u2019s the issue where you Hebrews keep saying that your way is the only way.\n\nYou know, these early Hebrews and then later on in the church age, as the church moved into being persecuted by Rome, these early Hebrews (and the early church for that matter), could have gotten along hunky-dory with everybody if they had just said Christ is not THE way but A way.\u00a0 Just change the definite article \u201cthe\u201d to the small letter \u201ca\u201d, make Jesus not THE God but A God and they could have gotten along fine.\u00a0 The Romans could have had their god or gods; the Babylonians would have their god or gods; the Persians would have had their god or gods and the issue would have been resolved.\u00a0 Just compromise a little bit Daniel.\u00a0 Don\u2019t pray so openly, don\u2019t pray so aggressively, don\u2019t pray so publicly, don\u2019t pray so boldly, and while you\u2019re at it just throw a few prayers, if you don\u2019t mind, towards the direction of Darius.\u00a0 Just compromise a little bit on this issue of exclusivity and the world will be a wonderful place.\n\nThe problem is, the more committed you become to the things of God and the God of the Bible the more you realize that you cannot do that.\u00a0 The moment you do that you\u2019re not being fair to what the Bible itself reveals concerning exclusivity.\u00a0 This is the whole problem with Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego back in the opposite end of the chiasm, Daniel 3:12, it says, \u201cThere are certain Jews whom you have appointed over the administration of the province of Babylon, namely Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego. \u00a0These men, O king, have disregarded you; they do not serve your gods or worship the golden image which you have set up.\u201d\n\nWhat is the matter with these Hebrews? What\u2019s the matter with these Jews, why don\u2019t they get with the program, why don\u2019t they pray allegiance to all gods.\u00a0 And yet they won\u2019t do it, they won\u2019t bow down to a pagan god, they only worship their own God.\n\nThe Book of Esther, which is going to take place in the Persian era about 60 years later, that\u2019s the same issue related to Mordecai.\u00a0 Esther 3:5 says this: \u201cWhen Haman saw that Mordecai neither bowed down nor paid homage to him, Haman was filled with rage.\u201d \u00a0\u00a0You mean, you just worshipped your God and\u00a0 you won\u2019t worship me?\u00a0 Esther 3:8 says, \u201cThen Haman said to King Ahasuerus, \u2018There is a certain people scattered and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom; their laws are different from those of all other people and they do not observe the king's laws, so it is not in the king's interest to let them remain.\u201d\u2019\n\nThese people will do their own thing; they go their own way.\u00a0 They say that their system is the only system.\u00a0 They use the definite article \u201cthe\u201d instead of the small letter \u201ca\u201d which is what we would all prefer.\u00a0 This is what got the Hebrews in trouble.\u00a0 And beloved, as God is my witness this is the exact same issue today.\u00a0 What gets us in trouble with the world is the statement that Jesus is not \u201ca\u201d way but He is the what?\u00a0 \u201cTHE WAY.\u201d\n\nAnd people act like we just made this up but the fact of the matter is Jesus Himself, did He not say in John 14:6, \u201cI am the way, the truth, the life, no one comes to the Father but through Me.\u201d\n\nDid not Peter, as he\u2019s being quoted here in the book of Acts, chapter 4:12, did he not say, \u201cAnd there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved.\u201d\n\nDid not the Apostle Paul, in 1 Timothy 2:5 say, \u201cFor there is one God and one mediator also between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.\u201d\n\nDid not Christ Himself say in the Gospel of Matthew, Matthew 7:13-14, \u201c\u2019Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the way is broad that leads to destruction, and there are many who enter through it. For the gate is small and the way is narrow that leads to life, and there are few who find it.\u2019\u201d\n\nThe moment a person moves in the direction of this idea that the things of God, the things of Christ is just a possibility of many, one of many roads, is to negate the reason why Christ died.\u00a0 Paul says in the book of Galatians, chapter 2 and verse 21, He in essence says if righteous could be gained another way then Christ died needlessly.\u00a0 [Galatians 2:21, \u201c\u2018I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness comes through the Law, then Christ died needlessly.\u2019\u201d]\n\nIf there are many paths, many roads, many ways and all that matters is one\u2019s sincerity then Jesus really didn\u2019t have to die at all, did He?\u00a0 Think of the horrors that Christ went through on that cross as we celebrate this this Friday, Good Friday.\u00a0 Think of the path, as was so beautifully sung this morning, the pathway to suffering, to Jerusalem, essentially if you say that Jesus is just \u201ca\u201d way that path is unnecessary.\u00a0 Everything that He went through is unneeded.\u00a0 Jesus has to be the only way given the lengths that He went to and through to procure for us our salvation.\u00a0 And the more you talk like this the more you find yourself on the outs with the unsaved, unregenerate world.\n\nOprah Winfrey, who I believe is the most influential theologian in the world today and I don\u2019t say that tongue in cheek, I say it because it\u2019s true.\u00a0 This woman has more power over more people on this planet related to spiritual issues than any other person I know of.\u00a0 She is all about all paths lead to God.\u00a0\u00a0 She says this, \u201c\u2026one of the mistakes that human beings make is believing that there is only one way<\/u>\u2026\u201d\u00a0 There are \u201cmany ways\u2026many paths to what you call God<\/u>.\u201d\u00a0 [www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Lb2RUpMDk34]\n\nShe says it doesn\u2019t matter whether she called it God along the way or not, there couldn\u2019t possibly be just one way, there couldn\u2019t possibly be just one way with the millions of people in the world.\u00a0 Are\u00a0 you telling me that in some remote part of the earth if you\u2019ve never heard the name Jesus, you can\u2019t get to heaven?\u00a0 And what we\u2019re saying is yes.\u00a0 In our soteriology lectures we\u2019ve gotten into that issue and how to explain that issue.\u00a0 But the biblical standard isn\u2019t something that I created, it\u2019s not something that I made up, it\u2019s what the Bible itself declares.\u00a0 It is an immutable, unchangeable spiritual law.\u00a0 And what people do is they attack the messenger but the reality is who they\u2019re attacking is God Himself because God is the one that created the law.\n\nThe laws of God are not subject for debate; they\u2019re not subject for disagreement.\u00a0 The laws of God are not open to dialogue over the subject matter anymore than the law of gravity is open for debate.\u00a0 God also created physical laws, like the law of gravity; now you might disagree with the law of gravity,\u00a0 you might find your personal lifestyle impinged by the law of gravity but the law of gravity still is subject to you, you throw yourself off a two story building, which I don\u2019t recommend you do any time soon, and the law of gravity is in effect, is it not?\n\nIt\u2019s the same with spiritual laws; this is a spiritual law; the exclusivity of Christ is something that God ordained, something that God established and it\u2019s not up to us to decide what parts of it we like and what parts of it we don\u2019t like; it\u2019s the way it is!\u00a0 It\u2019s the way the world works.\u00a0 And taking stances like this on the authoritative Word of God never engenders the appreciation of the unsaved world.\u00a0 This is why Daniel at this time in history, as an 80 year old man who probably should have been enjoying his sunset years, finds himself looking at ravenous lions in the lion\u2019s den.\n\nNotice if you will verse 14, Darius realizes that he\u2019s been had.\u00a0 He realizes that he has been manipulated.\u00a0 Darius, I believe is generally a good king and you see this there, as it dawns on him in verse 14, it says, \u201cThen, as soon as the king heard this statement, he was deeply distressed and set his<\/em> mind on delivering Daniel; and even until sunset he kept exerting himself to rescue him.\u201d\u00a0 Darius is starting to see through the motive of Daniel\u2019s accusers and attackers and he is in great distress because the bear trap is already around Daniel\u2019s leg and there\u2019s nothing he can do as a king to spring Daniel from this bear trap, because as we indicated before, once the law goes into effect in the empire of Persia it become irrevocable.\n\nThe Book of Esther, as I mentioned before, taking place about 60 years into the future, says this of Persian law.\u00a0 Esther 1:19 says, \u201cthe laws of Persia and Media so that it cannot be repealed.\u201d\u00a0 Esther 8:8 says, \u201cfor a decree which is written in the name of the king and sealed with the king's signet ring may not be revoked.\u201d\u00a0 There\u2019s a reason why these enemies of Daniel wanted this law passed fast and quick, without a lot of discussion.\n\nIt kind of sounds like modern day politicians, doesn\u2019t it?\u00a0 We\u2019ve got to get this done now!\u00a0 We can\u2019t have any delays, we\u2019ve got to act fast, the security and the safety of the American people is at stake.\u00a0 We\u2019ve got to pass a law to find out what\u2019s in it as one politician said. Whenever someone is in a hurry to act fast, get it done now, tie it off, this law that\u2019s coming to pass with too much dialogue discussion and debate, that\u2019s when your radar should start to sound; you know that something isn\u2019t right because the whole American system of government is based on long protracted dialogue and discussion.\u00a0 I\u2019m always nervous about people that want to do things, particularly putting them into the force of law so rapidly and so quickly.\n\nI get a chuckle out of these commentators, they say there\u2019s too much gridlock in Washington, nothing\u2019s getting done in Washington and I say to myself every time I hear that, \u201cpraise the Lord\u201d and thank God because our Founding Fathers wisely gave\u00a0 us a system where things couldn\u2019t get done fast, it\u2019s called the separation of powers, it\u2019s called Federalism, it\u2019s called checks and balances.\u00a0 Things are supposed to happen in America slowly after vigorous debate.\u00a0 You say well I want more efficiency.\u00a0 Okay, if you want more efficiency move to Iran.\u00a0 Once the hierarchy in Iran want\u2019s something done there isn\u2019t any discussion, there isn\u2019t any debate, it just happens.\u00a0 I don\u2019t want efficiency, I want things to move slow, particularly when it comes to legal subjects.\n\nBut you see, these guys knew what they were doing, they knew they were springing this trap, they wanted this law passed quick.\u00a0 In fact, it was passed so fast that Darius himself didn\u2019t even understand the intent of those pursuing this course of action.\u00a0 And while I\u2019m on the subject another thing that makes me very nervous is legislation that looks like the GTE phonebook, that goes on and on and on for thousands and thousands of pages, a piece of legislation that\u2019s so voluminous who could ever read that?\u00a0 Who could read it within seven days, ten days, ninety days?\u00a0 You need a lawyer and a CPA to help you handle ten pages.\u00a0 And yet what we\u2019re being given today by politicians is not things like The United States Constitution, which by the way if you were to go home today and read The United States Constitution you could finish it in eleven pages, including The Bill of Rights, the first ten amendments to The United States Constitution, ten pages, maybe eleven pages and you\u2019re done.\u00a0 Think about universal health care, three thousand pages, four thousand pages, and that should send alarms off everywhere that someone is trying to sneak things in without an opportunity for vigorous debate.\u00a0 Okay, I\u2019m off that subject, back to the Bible\n\nVerse 14, \u201cThen, as soon as the king heard this statement, he was deeply distressed and set his<\/em> mind on delivering Daniel; and even until sunset he kept exerting himself to rescue him.\u201d\u00a0 Everything we know about this man, Darius, he was a good man.\u00a0 In fact, when you go down to verse 18, when Daniel was actually thrown into the lion\u2019s den what we learn in verse 18 is Darius keeps on fasting, praying, refusing entertainment, looking out for Daniel\u2019s best interest. [Verse 18, \u201cThen the king went off to his palace and spent the night fasting, and no entertainment was brought before him; and his sleep fled from him.\u201d]\u00a0 He realized that he had been played for the fool here.\u00a0 He realized that the situation was outside of his control and consequently he began to tell Daniel himself to seek his God because that\u2019s the only place where help is going to come from.\n\nIt\u2019s interesting, we read these words in Daniel 11:1, it says this, \u201cIn the first year of Darius, the Mede, I arose to be an encouragement and a protection for him.\u201d\u00a0 That\u2019s an angel talking. Isn\u2019t it interesting that when a person is sincere about God and pursues the things of God and has a clean conscience before God, as apparently Darius had had, that the angels are dispatched from heaven to help that person.\u00a0 Did you know that?\u00a0 Hebrews 1:14, of angels, says this:\u00a0 \u201cAre they\u201d angels, \u201cnot all ministering spirits, sent out to render service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation?\u201d\n\nIsn\u2019t it interesting that the positions that we take in life help us or assist us in taking a position in the angelic conflict.\u00a0 If I am working against the things of God then I am working with demons themselves.\u00a0 Demons themselves are cooperating with me and I may not even realize it, doing the things of the devil by matter of converse, if I, or the opposite, if I am sold out to the things of God, pursuing biblical priorities, then God, as in the case of Darius here, is the recipient of angelic blessing.\n\nThe fact of the matter is we can\u2019t see it happening but there\u2019s an invisible spiritual war around us all of the time. \u00a0The Bible is very clear about this because it says \u201cwe wrestle not against\u201d what? \u201cflesh and blood, but against principalities, and powers and rulers of this dark world.\u00a0\u00a0 [Ephesians 6:12, KJV, \u201cFor we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places<\/em>.\u201d]\n\nA demonic conflict verses the good angels and every single day of my life I\u2019m having to make a decision, am I going to be for God today or against God, in any realm of decisions you can think of.\u00a0 And the moment I begin to move in a particular area I\u2019m either siding with the devil and his work or I\u2019m siding with God, the good angels and their work.\n\nDarius was a good king and he found himself, if I\u2019m reading Daniel 11:1 correctly, the recipient of angelic help in the midst of this conflict.\u00a0 Darius, as we talked about last time, was such a good king that he didn\u2019t even destroy Babylon.\u00a0 We talked about the circumstances of that, I think not last week, a few Sundays ago, he left Babylon intact.\u00a0 All of our historical sources seem to indicate that.\u00a0 And Persia itself was on the right side of the angelic conflict because it would be under Persia that the three returns would take place where the nation of Israel would be released from the seventy years of captivity in Babylon back to the Promised Land.\u00a0 That happened in three waves; the books of Ezra and Nehemiah describe it and those all take place under Persian kings; Cyrus and also Artaxerxes, Darius being part of that group was actually one of the good guys in biblical history, working for God.\u00a0 That\u2019s why he is exerting himself to delivering Daniel from sunset into sunset, trying to rescue him because he knew he had been played for the fool and the law was now on the books and Daniel, absent the intervention of God, was going to be all but destroyed.\n\nThe empire of Persia is very interesting because Persia continued on as a modern nation and what modern nation today comes from Persia?\u00a0 The nation of Iran.\u00a0 Isn\u2019t it interesting that in Ezekiel\u2019s prophecies Ezekiel, in chapter 38, verses 1-7, saw something in the end times.\u00a0 He saw Persia no longer being a friend or an all of the nation of Israel but turning against Israel.\u00a0 And Ezekiel probably told the Lord, Lord, this is crazy, Persia is the good guy, Persia is the assister, Persia is helping the Jews return into their land after seventy years of captivity.\u00a0 But God says back to Ezekiel most likely, no, this\u00a0 concerns something yet future, this is distant.\n\nAnd it is very interesting that even in my own lifetime, as a 50 year old, I have seen the Persian Empire change; I have seen the Persian Empire get on the wrong side of the angelic conflict exactly like Ezekiel said would happen one day.\u00a0\u00a0 In 1979, you will recall, the Shah, who was a human rights violator, no doubt, but also at the same time was considered an ally of the nation of Israel, considered an ally of the United States of America, the Shah was deposed and\u00a0 replaced by the Ayatollah; this happened in 1979, I can remember it as clear as day, I was in the 7th<\/sup> grade when this happened, I wasn\u2019t even saved at the time but I was watching the news reports and I knew that this was big.\n\nAnd since the Islamization, a Shite Muslim theocracy in Iran subsequent to the deposing of the Shah and the advent of the Ayatollah you have seen Iran, or Persia, turning against the nation of Israel.\u00a0 In fact, the leaders of that particular theocratic regime Ahmadinejad<\/em> said very clearly that he wanted to wipe Israel off the map.\u00a0 Turning against Israel, turning against the\u00a0 United States of America, that is not the history of the Persian people.\u00a0 That is not the history of Iran.\u00a0 This is a group of people, because of a bad theology, that have come under the influence of something that I think is quite wicked, and something that is causing them to lose sight of their culture and their heritage as a people.\n\nJim McGowan and I did a Facebook live feed on this which you can find on the SLBC Facebook page if you\u2019re interested, tracking the trajectory of this international change and how the world today is being set up exactly like the prophet Ezekiel indicated would happen in the last days.\n\nAnd yet Persia, you can see here, is a helper of Israel, not an enemy as she is today.\u00a0 Cyrus is exerting himself trying to rescue, trying to save Daniel, just as the Persian people helped the nation of Israel to return to their land.\u00a0 Isn\u2019t it interesting that you can become so out of focus with your own history and traditions that you lose sight of what your ancient culture once stood for.\u00a0 And I don\u2019t just point the finger at Persia or Iran, I point the finger at the United States of America.\u00a0 Even our own culture we\u2019ve lost sight of why we\u2019re here.\n\nIf you get into the writings of Christopher Columbus, in his book called The Book of Prophecies, <\/em>he believed that he was sent to the United States of America by God for the purpose of furthering and expanding the gospel.\u00a0 When you study the Mayflower Compact created about 1620 you discover that this country was started for evangelism and the propagation of what they called the Christian faith.\u00a0 And look how far we\u2019ve fallen from that.\u00a0 Today your average Americans see themselves largely in America to become prosperous, to achieve the American dream.\u00a0 We promote ourselves and advertise ourselves economically, as if God gave us this country and this culture and this continent so I could keep up with the Joneses, and buy more toys.\u00a0 And we\u2019ve lost sight of why we exist and what our founding documents actually say.\n\nAnd in fact it\u2019s gotten so bad that you can\u2019t even mention our founding documents many times in school.\u00a0 Try talking to some of these millennials, teenagers or younger; ask them about the Mayflower Compact, see what they know.\u00a0 You\u2019ll be shocked at what they don\u2019t know.\u00a0 Ask them about the Declaration of Independence.\u00a0 Ask them about the United States Constitution.\u00a0 You\u2019ll be shocked little, if anything, they know.\u00a0 Go into a public school, look at its curriculum, what are they teaching?\u00a0 Where is the Mayflower Compact?\u00a0 Where is the treatment of Christopher Columbus and His Book of Prophecies. \u00a0It\u2019s not there.\u00a0 It\u2019s all been eviscerated from history.\u00a0 It\u2019s not just Persia that loses sight of her heritage, it\u2019s the United States of America.\u00a0 May God help us to understand the time period that we are living in.\u00a0 Darius is trying to rescue Daniel, unlike Ahmadinejad and the Ayatollahs of today.\u00a0 <\/em>\n\nAnd look at verse 15, as the enemies are sensing what Darius is trying to do and they bring out this technicality of Persian law.\u00a0 Verse 15, \u201c<\/em>Then these men came by agreement to the king and said to the king, \u2018Recognize, O king, that it is a law of the Medes and Persians that no injunction or statute which the king establishes may be changed.\u201d\u2019\u00a0 They sprung the trap, they know the law, they understand the irrevocability of Persian law and they bring this technicality to Darius\u2019s attention, and Darius at this time recognizes that all of his good intentions are not going to save Daniel.\u00a0 If Daniel is going to get bailed out of this it\u2019s got to be his God that comes through.\n\nMay I just way to you that is the exact same circumstance that God is creating in your life as I speak.\u00a0 He is putting you into circumstances where the only thing that\u2019s going to help is God Himself.\u00a0 He deliberately puts us into those circumstances so that we will reach out to Him and if we\u2019re not put in those circumstances our natural inclination will be through the flesh or human energy to manipulate our way out of our problems.\u00a0 But the arm of the flesh reaches this way and God shuts it down.\u00a0 The arm of the flesh reaches that way and God shuts it down.\u00a0 And He closes this door and He closes that door and He puts\u00a0 you into circumstances that are bigger than you.\u00a0 And then you finally say to yourself, we say to ourselves, well, I\u2019ve got one to trust in but God and God says thumbs up.\u00a0 That\u2019s the response I\u2019ve been waiting for all along.\u00a0 And now that your human options are exhausted and you have called for My help, watch My hand move miraculously through your life.\n\nThere would not have been a rescue of Daniel in the lion\u2019s den, there wouldn\u2019t have been a rescue of Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego from the fiery furnace if God had not put these individuals in this circumstance.\u00a0 If you find\u00a0 yourself in this type of circumstance, something impossible, rather than getting angry, rather than getting upset, it\u2019s the time for optimism and joy because now that you\u2019re out of human options you\u2019re going to start to see the hand of God.\u00a0\u00a0 And it\u2019s a wonderful place to be in but God has to set it up accordingly.\n\nNotice, if you will, verse 16 and 17 as we move now into the presentation of Daniel into the lion\u2019s den.\u00a0 Look at verse 16, very interesting, \u201cThen the king gave orders, and Daniel was brought in and cast into the lions\u2019 den.\u201d Why is it that a man that\u2019s living for God is cast into the lion\u2019s den. \u00a0Shouldn\u2019t it be the opposite?\u00a0 Shouldn\u2019t it be the more you\u2019re living for God the more you get out of trouble?\u00a0 Not so!\u00a0 What did Paul say in 2 Timothy 3:12, \u201cIndeed all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be\u201d what\u2019s the rest of it? \u201cpersecuted.\u201d\n\nWe oftentimes reach for the promises of God; in fact I\u2019ve been in many Christian bookstores, they have little books on the promises of God, usually happy promises.\u00a0 But what about these negative promises; how come they never include this verse as a promise from God to you.\n\u201cIndeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.\u201d\u00a0 Persecution and trouble and problems are part and parcel of a walk with Christ and growth in Christ.\u00a0 And this is what Daniel is experiencing.\n\nThe rest of verse 16 says this, King Darius understands he\u2019s out of options, \u201cThe king spoke and said to Daniel, \u2018Your God whom you constantly serve will Himself deliver you.\u201d\u2019 I can\u2019t deliver you, the legal system won\u2019t allow me but God Himself will deliver you.\u00a0 Notice that Darius saw a relationship between God and Daniel as he refers to Daniel\u2019s God as the God that Daniel constantly and continually serves.\n\nIs that true when people look at your life as a Christian?\u00a0 That God, would they say of you, who you continuously serve, the God who you constantly serve.\u00a0 1 Corinthians 16:15 says this, \u201cNow I urge\u00a0 you, brethren (you know the household of Stephanas, that they were the first fruits of Achaia, and that they have devoted themselves for ministry to the saints),\u201d Paul says I want\u00a0 you to observe this particular household, it\u2019s a family apparently, that household of Stephanas, and I want you to see what makes them different.\u00a0 They have devoted themselves for the ministry of the saints.\u00a0 These people are so on fire for God it\u2019s obvious and it\u2019s contagious, because you know that these people are serving God every chance they get.\u00a0 That\u2019s what Darius noticed about Daniel.\n\nAnd this is why I have entitled this message Balance in the Christian life<\/em>. I want you to see the balance here.\u00a0 Daniel, going back to Daniel 6:10-11 of last week, was a man of prayer.\u00a0 [Daniel 6:10-11,\u201cNow when Daniel knew that the document was signed, he entered his house (now in his roof chamber he had windows open toward Jerusalem); and he continued kneeling on his knees three times a day, praying and giving thanks before his God, as he had been doing previously.\u00a0 [11] Then these men came by agreement and found Daniel making petition and supplication before his God.\u201d]\n\nThis same Daniel who was a man of prayer was also a man of action.\u00a0 He was a man of service.\u00a0 He was a man that when the church doors opened he was there.\u00a0 When the Word of God was being taught he was listening.\u00a0 When the opportunity to give arose he gave of himself, of his financial resources.\u00a0 When service projects were opened up, help with the kids, teach Sunday School, whatever the case may be, Daniel was the guy.\u00a0 He was serving, he was active, it was contagious.\u00a0 He was on fire.\u00a0 The fact of the matter is he was so on fire that even Darius, a pagan, recognizes this character trait in Daniel.\u00a0 Do people see that in our lives, or do they see a Christian on holiday, a Christian on vacation, a Christian who has mentally checked out because the warfare is just too great for us, we mentally check out.\u00a0 And in fact, every time I go to church someone hurts my feelings so I guess I won\u2019t go to church.\n\nLet me let\u00a0 you in on a great secret here\u2026 you ready for this?\u00a0 There is no perfect church. Why is that?\u00a0 Because everybody in church still is susceptible to a sin nature.\u00a0 People that have walked with God for\u00a0 years still have a sin nature that they go back to.\u00a0 In church you\u2019ll be disappointed.\u00a0 In church you\u2019ll get your feelings hurt.\u00a0 In church some standard that you have won\u2019t be met.\u00a0 That\u2019s the way it is and it\u2019s going to be that way until the rapture.\u00a0 And by the way, if you find a perfect church I would advise you not to join it because your presence will end up ruining that perfect church.\u00a0 [Laughter]\n\nSometimes we need a little reality check, don\u2019t we?\u00a0 People expect church to be heaven itself; I know of no such church.\u00a0 In fact, I saw a sign on a church the other day, they articulated themselves or promoted themselves as a First Century Church.\u00a0 \u201cWe are,\u201d the marquee said, \u201ca first century church.\u201d\u00a0 And I said to myself, I wonder which one, Corinth, Laodicea, those are all churches with problems.\u00a0 Just because it\u2019s a first century church doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s not beset by problems.\n\nAnd yet Daniel didn\u2019t allow hurt feelings or whatever the case may be to serve and to vigorously pour himself out before the Lord.\u00a0 Daniel didn\u2019t just pray, pray, pray, pray, pray but he served.\u00a0\u00a0 You know some people are like that; they have this mindset it\u2019s just me and God, I\u2019m in prayer, all I need is God and my Bible and I\u2019ll sit under a tree and I\u2019ll just cut myself off from the body of Christ.\u00a0 That\u2019s not the life of Daniel.\u00a0 Daniel was a prayer warrior, no doubt, but he was a servant.\u00a0 Other people are like this: they serve to the point of exhaustion, and yet they never get into communion with God where they need their batteries recharged.\u00a0 If you\u2019re not getting into communion with God through prayer, getting your batteries recharged, you will exhaust yourself serving the Lord\u2014the balance in the Christian life.\u00a0 Daniel was\u00a0 a man of intimacy with God but not just that, he vigorously served God. Daniel was a man of vigorous service to God but not just that, he was a man that experienced great intimacy with God. We can see that very clearly from his own lifestyle.\n\nVerse 17, notice if you will Daniel 6:17 where the king has made an order, the king has made a judgment, and now comes the authorization, verse 17.\u00a0 Look at this: \u201cA stone,\u201d let me say that again, \u201cA stone was brought and laid over the mouth of the lion\u2019s den; and the king sealed it with his own signet ring and with the signet ring of his nobles, so that nothing would be changed in regard to Daniel.\u201d\u00a0 I don\u2019t know what you think of when you read that, a stone being placed over a cave with an insignia on it where it couldn\u2019t be violated, does not sound a little bit like Matthew 27:66?\u00a0 It says this of Christ: \u201cAnd they went and made the grave secure, and along with the guard they set a seal on the stone.\u201d\n\nIsn\u2019t it interesting that as we go through the Bible verse by verse that the Lord would have us in Daniel 6:17 on Good Friday (coming up) getting ready to celebrate Good Sunday.\u00a0 You say wow pastor, you\u2019re a master of calendar work\u2026 let me tell you something, I don\u2019t have enough smarts, I don\u2019t have enough intelligence, I don\u2019t have enough organizational skill to plan something like that out. I just go until the text is over and sometimes the people are over before I\u2019m over, but that\u2019s the way I do things. \u00a0I have no agenda at all and it just fascinates me, and I\u2019ve seen this time and time again, the Lord, just by gradually moving through His Word, would put us in an exact verse that has an exact replica, resemblance, of something that we are getting ready to celebrate.\u00a0 That\u2019s not the work of myself; that\u2019s the work of the Holy Spirit.\n\nYou know what I hear all the time from the various Sunday School teachers in this room?\u00a0 They say you know what?\u00a0 Exactly what you covered in the sermon is what we covered in our Sunday School.\u00a0 Or you hit it from one angle and I hit it from a different angle but it comes together beautifully.\u00a0 And let me tell you something, that is the work of the Holy Spirit.\u00a0 Do you think I have some kind of conference with our Sunday School teachers every week\u2026 all right, let\u2019s plan it out this way\u2026\u00a0 Nonsense!\u00a0 It\u2019s hard enough just getting our staff together to pray for an hour.\u00a0 The fact of the matter is it\u2019s God that does this, it\u2019s God that organizes this church.\u00a0 It\u2019s God that puts teachers on the same page.\u00a0 It\u2019s the matter of walking under the Spirit\u2019s direction and being open to His leading and then marveling at what He\u2019s able to do.\u00a0 It\u2019s the kind of thing that keeps me in the ministry.\u00a0 It\u2019s the kind of thing that keeps me at Sugar Land Bible Church because I see the hand of God moving.\u00a0 If the hand of God wasn\u2019t moving, if the hand of God wasn\u2019t doing anything what\u2019s the point?\u00a0 I\u2019ll find a church where the hand of God is moving.\n\nThe reality of the situation is the hand of God is moving at Sugar Land Bible Church, sometimes in obvious ways, sometimes in more discrete ways that it takes a little bit more time to think about but God is the author and the builder of His church.\n\nChrist goes into a grave, He\u2019s thought of by the world as dead, it\u2019s over.\u00a0 And yet what we\u2019ll see next Sunday is He comes out of that grave alive.\u00a0 We serve, not a dead Savior but a living Savior.\u00a0 In fact, there\u2019s a song about that, isn\u2019t there.\u00a0 I won\u2019t be singing it for you but it says \u201cI serve a risen Savior, He\u2019s in the world today, I know that He is living whatever men may say.\u00a0 I see His hand of mercy, I hear His voice of cheer, and just the time I need Him, He\u2019s always near.\u00a0 He lives, He lives, Christ Jesus lives today, He walks with Me and talks with me along life\u2019s narrow way.\u00a0 He live, He lives, salvation to impart.\u00a0 You ask me how I know He lives, He lives within my heart.\n\nIsn\u2019t it interesting that we have the objective evidence of the empty tomb as proof for the risen Christ and yet we see the hand of the risen Christ over and over again in this church, and in our personal lives as we walk with Him.\n\nWell, you might say to yourself, I\u2019m sitting on the edge of my seat pastor, what\u2019s going to happen to Daniel.\u00a0 Is he going to be protected?\u00a0 Will God be vindicated as not the God of history but the God who is alive?\u00a0 And you\u2019ll have to come back Sunday morning, Resurrection Sunday, to find out.\u00a0 Shall we pray.\n\nFather, We\u2019re grateful for this time of the year; we\u2019re grateful for the things that\u00a0 You teach us through\u00a0 Your Word.\u00a0 We\u2019re grateful for Your resurrection and for the hand of Your Son in our church and in our lives.\u00a0 We pray that You\u2019ll be with us as we continue through this series and as we move through the book of Daniel. We\u2019ll be careful to give You all the praise and the glory. We ask these things in Jesus name, and God\u2019s people said\u2026 Amen.","series_sermon_number":""},"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t