Daniel 5 - 6

Daniel — Steve Gregg

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Daniel 5 - 6

DanielSteve Gregg

In this segment, Steve Gregg discusses the fifth and sixth chapters of the book of Daniel. He explains that the first four chapters covered the reign of King Nebuchadnezzar, while these two chapters focus on a new king named Belshazzar, who is referred to as Nebuchadnezzar's son. The narrative details how Belshazzar and his subjects' revelry is interrupted by a divine warning written on the wall, which Daniel interprets as a message of judgment. Ultimately, Belshazzar is slain during a siege, and the Medes and Persians take over Babylon.

Transcript

All right, we're turning to Daniel chapter five. In the first four chapters, it has been during the time of Nebuchadnezzar, the king who captured Daniel and his friends in 605 BC and carried them away into Babylon. Chapter one, we see that Daniel and his friends were selected from a number of captives and given special training because of their superior traits, their good looks, their brains, their spirit.

Daniel, in particular, we are told in chapter one, had particular gifting in interpreting dreams. That came out twice in the succeeding chapters. In chapter two and in chapter four, Nebuchadnezzar had dreams.

In chapter two, he had a dream about an image which was destroyed by a stone striking it in the feet, and Daniel said that the various metals from which this image was made represent successive empires, beginning with Babylon and ending with the establishment of the kingdom of God during the time of the fourth kingdom, which history has shown to be the Roman Empire was the fourth kingdom, and therefore Christ established his kingdom during the times of those kings as Daniel said he would. Chapter three didn't have Daniel in it at all, but it had an image in it, and that was the image that Nebuchadnezzar set up, big gold image, 90 feet tall, nine feet wide, very possibly an image of himself. We don't know that to be the case, but he required everyone to worship it, and the three Hebrews, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused to do so, and even under the threat of death, they would not compromise, and so they were thrown into the fiery furnace, and they were preserved there supernaturally by a supernatural being whom Nebuchadnezzar described as being looking like either the son of God or a son of the gods.

In any case, only three men came out. Three men went in and three men came out, and between time there were four in there, and so when the three came out, they were unhurt by the flames and didn't even have the smell of smoke on them. Their garments were not singed, their hair was not singed, and Nebuchadnezzar knew that was a miracle and praised the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

Chapter four, Nebuchadnezzar had another dream. This time it was about himself, though he was depicted as a tree that was cut down and then later restored, and it was because of his pride that he was cut down and he was told that he would become insane for a period of time. Actually, it is said until seven times pass over him.

The exact length of time is not known. Probably the default interpretation is that seven times means seven years, although we recognize that the number seven can be symbolic for a complete period, and the word times is itself, of course, inexact, but either it was seven years or some other period of time that Nebuchadnezzar was insane and then he was restored, and then when he came back to his senses, he was praising God again. So we have actually in chapters two, three, and four, Nebuchadnezzar's praising God.

In chapter five, he's dead, he's gone, maybe gone to heaven, who knows? But in chapter five, his grandson, Belshazzar, is now ruling. Throughout this chapter, Belshazzar is referred to as Nebuchadnezzar's son, and Nebuchadnezzar is referred to as his father. That is simply a manner of speaking, of course.

Father can mean ancestor, and son can mean descendant. Throughout the scripture, this is true, and that is certainly the case here. It'd be wrong to think that Belshazzar was the direct one-generational removed from Nebuchadnezzar.

He was, in fact, the son of Nabonidus, who, as we saw in our introduction, was the last known king of Babylon recorded in secular records. That is, secular historical records in cuneiform tablets initially only informed us of a man named Nabonidus who was the final king in Babylon at the time of its fall. And that, of course, led critics to say that the Bible was incorrect because Daniel said that Belshazzar was the man reigning at that time.

And that's what we read about in this chapter, the fall of Babylon to the Medes and the Persians. And, of course, the Bible was vindicated by archeological finds just in the past 150, 160 years. And so the critics have pretty much had an egg on their faces.

They never seem to admit it. They just move on to the next complaint and then they're disproven again. So they never say they're sorry.

I guess being a critic means never having to say you're sorry for having lied and defamed Daniel. But Daniel seems to always come out on top whenever there's a scrap between him and the critics. It just takes a while because the critics are slow learners and it takes a while to unearth everything relevant to the truth.

But when the truth is unearthed, so far, so good. Daniel has always proven to be right and his critics wrong. Belshazzar then is seen to be the king in chapter five.

And this story happens on the last night of Babylon's dominion. Cyrus the Persian, who either is also called Darius the Mede or else there's another man under Cyrus named Darius the Mede or Darius. I say that it can be pronounced either Darius or Darius.

I sort of switch back and forth. I should probably pick one and stick with it. But sometimes Darius sounds good to me.

Sometimes Darius sounds good to me. So I just flip flop. I should be a politician.

But he is the, you know, Cyrus, the leader of the Medes and the Persians conquers Babylon without a struggle. There is no resistance. He marches under the walls in the riverbed of Euphrates, takes the city while it's off guard.

It is actually the case that the city was under siege at this time by Cyrus, but the walls of Babylon were so large that the Babylonians inside felt they were invulnerable. And so, I mean, Belshazzar decided to have a party and he invited a thousand of his highest officials. Says, Belshazzar the king made a great feast for a thousand of his lords and drank wine in the presence of the thousand.

Now, by the way, this is more than 20 years after Nebuchadnezzar's death. So there's been quite a gap between the previous chapters in Daniel and this one, at least 20 years has passed. While he tasted the wine, Belshazzar gave the command to bring the gold and silver vessels which his father Nebuchadnezzar had taken from the temple, which had been in Jerusalem, that the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines might drink from them.

Then they brought the gold vessels that had been taken from the temple in the house of God, which had been in Jerusalem. And the king and his lords, his wives, and his concubines drank from them. In the closing chapters of Jeremiah, we read of all the vessels and things that were taken by Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BC back to Babylon.

But even in this book, we read that of an earlier time in 605 BC, the very time when Daniel was taken into captivity, that there were also vessels and such taken from the temple. Some articles of the house of God, it says in verse two of chapter one, were taken. So there were gold and valuable furniture and vessels and such associated with the temple, which Nebuchadnezzar took some on one occasion and the rest on another occasion.

Now they had been in storage there for quite a long time. And these vessels were holy unto the Lord. They were not to be used for anything except the worship of Yahweh.

I mean, even pious Jews could not use them for private use. They were specially set aside for God, just like the ark was or the tabernacle was. You know, if a person would touch the ark who was not authorized to do so, he could drop dead.

If a person would offer anything other than holy fire in the tabernacle, he could be struck dead. And such cases are known to have happened in the Old Testament. And here, Nebuchadnezzar has taken these holy things and put them in storage and Belshazzar takes them out of storage to use them to worship and to drink toasts to his pagan gods.

And this is a direct and deliberate insult to Yahweh that Belshazzar is doing. He fears God not at all, unlike Nebuchadnezzar who came to fear God and to declare that God was to be honored. So it says in verse three, then they brought the gold vessels that had been taken from the temple of the house of God, which had been in Jerusalem and the king and his lords and wives and his concubines drank from them.

They drank wine and praised the gods of gold and silver, bronze and iron, wood and stone. Now they probably didn't say, let's drink to the gods of iron and wood and stone. They probably named those gods.

No doubt they were, you know, praising their pagan gods by name, but the author doesn't even give the names of the God. He just refers to them as gods of gold and silver and bronze and wood and stone in order to, of course, underscore the fact that they aren't gods at all. They're simply made of human materials and shaped from human materials.

In the same hour, the fingers of a man's hand appeared and wrote opposite the lamp stand on the plaster of the wall of the king's palace. And the king saw part of the hand that wrote. Now what it wrote, we're not told until considerably later.

Once Daniel finally shows up to give the interpretation, he also reads what words were written there. You'll read of that in verse 25. The writing said, mene, mene, tekel yutharsin.

And these were words that were not immediately intelligible to Belshazzar and his people and needed interpretation. Certainly seen, actual hand of a man or part of the hand of a man, whether this is like a giant hand or, you know, life-size hand or whatever, we're not really given a clear picture, but only a part of the fingers of the hand was seen and they are scraping these letters and words into the wall, the plaster in the wall, which was spooky to say the least. And it says, then the king's countenance changed.

He had been, you know, boldly, you know, celebratingly mocking the God of Israel by using his vessels to praise the false gods. And God showed up and that changed the king's attitude. His countenance changed and his thoughts troubled him so that the joints of his hips were loosed and his knees knocked against each other.

You see that in cartoons, people's knees knocking against each other when they're afraid. You never really see that in real life, but actually I'm pretty sure the author of Daniel hadn't seen the cartoons, so it must be from here. But the idea of someone being so afraid that their knees are knocking against each other must have originated.

The king cried aloud to bring in the astrologers, the Chaldeans and the soothsayers. And the king spoke saying to the wise men of Babylon, whoever reads this writing and tells me its interpretation shall be clothed with purple and have a chain of gold around his neck and he shall be the third ruler in the kingdom. And of course, the reason he says third ruler, although it's not explained in Daniel, we know from what we were told from archeological discovery now that Nabonidus, the father of Belshazzar was the first ruler, but was in semi-retirement.

He was off in Arabia at this time. Belshazzar was second ruler under his father. So the next position available that he could give away without giving away his own would be to make someone a third ruler in the kingdom.

Now he actually ends up offering this to Daniel after Daniel reads the writing. Belshazzar makes good on his offer, but Daniel's not even a little bit interested in becoming the captain of a ship that's sinking that night. So he'd be being made the captain of the Titanic.

Now all the king's wise men came, but they could not read the writing or make known to the king its interpretation. Then King Belshazzar was greatly troubled. His countenance was changed and his lords were astonished.

The queen, and this queen who is not named for us here knows more than Belshazzar does about the earlier career of Daniel and his influence and respect that he'd gained from Nebuchadnezzar. Belshazzar seems to be unaware of Daniel. It's possible that when Belshazzar came to power, Daniel just kind of receded or even in a previous administration may have receded into more obscurity.

Younger counselors may have been brought in and Daniel was probably in his 80s here or 90s. And I mean, he'd been about 60 years probably in Babylon at this time himself, if not more. And yeah, it would be more than 60 years at this point.

So if he was even a teenager when he came in, he'd be in his probably around 80 or older. So this queen knew of Daniel. Apparently Belshazzar didn't.

She must've been an older queen, possibly the queen mother, maybe Belshazzar's mother, even maybe his grandmother, perhaps the widow of Nebuchadnezzar himself. Whoever she was, she's not identified by name, but she advises him that there was an older counselor that Nebuchadnezzar had consulted. Says the queen, because of the words of the king and his lords, came to the banquet hall.

She wasn't invited apparently or wasn't interested in coming until this point. She heard about the perplexity and thought she actually knew something she could contribute to solve the mystery. And the queen spoke saying, oh king, live forever.

Do not let your thoughts trouble you nor let your countenance change. There is a man in your kingdom in whom is the spirit of the holy God. And in the days of your father, and she means your ancestor, light and understanding and wisdom, like the wisdom of the gods were found in him.

And King Nebuchadnezzar, your father, your father, the king, made him chief of the magicians, astrologers, Chaldeans and soothsayers. In as much as an excellent spirit, knowledge and understanding, interpreting of dreams, solving riddles and explaining enigmas. This expression explaining enigmas in the Hebrew is literally, or actually in this case, it's in Aramaic, is untying knots.

Of course, it's a figure of speech, but in the original it says untying knots. It's here explained for, so paraphrased as explaining enigmas. Were found in this Daniel when the king named Belshazzar, excuse me, whom the king named Belteshazzar, very similar to the king's name, slightly different.

Now let Daniel be called and he will give the interpretation. Then Daniel was brought in before the king and the king spoke and said to Daniel, are you that Daniel who is one of the captives from Judah, whom my father, the king brought from Judah? I have heard of you that the spirit of God is in you and that light and understanding and excellent wisdom are found in you. Now the wise men, the astrologers, have been brought in before me and that they should read this writing and make known to me its interpretation.

But they could not give the interpretation of the thing. And I have heard of you that you can give interpretations and explain enigmas, again, untying knots. Now, if you can read the writing and make known to me its interpretation, you should be clothed with purple and have a chain of gold around your neck and shall be the third ruler of the kingdom.

And Daniel, of course, is disgusted with this man, even greatly offended because of him having used the temple vessels in the manner that he has. And so Daniel does not speak respectfully to him. He says, let your gifts speak for yourself and give your rewards to another.

Yet I will read the writing to the king and make known to him the interpretation. Now, instead of just going directly to the assignment, he decides to give a sermon. He decides to rebuke the king for not being as wise as Nebuchadnezzar was in fearing Yahweh, the God of the Hebrews.

So he's got a captive audience. Certainly the Belshazzar is gonna stay around and wait for the interpretation. So Daniel can use the time as however he chooses.

And so he's gonna, like I say, preach and rebuke the king. He says, oh king, the most high God gave Nebuchadnezzar your father, a kingdom and majesty, glory and honor. And because of the majesty that he gave him, all people's nations and languages trembled and feared before him.

Whomever he wished, he executed. Whomever he wished, he kept alive. Whomever he wished, he set up.

And whomever he wished, he put down. But when his heart was lifted up, that means with pride, and his spirit was hardened in pride, he was deposed from his kingly throne and they took his glory from him. Then he was driven from the sons of men.

His heart was made like the beasts and his dwelling was like the wild donkeys. They fed him with grass like oxen and his body was wet with the dew of heaven till he knew that the most high God rules in the kingdom of men and appoints over it whomever he chooses. That was in fact the lesson of chapter four that Nebuchadnezzar learned and which was actually predicted in the dream that he had before he went mad.

Daniel predicted that this is gonna happen to you until you know that heaven's rule, that the God of heaven raises up kings and gives them to whoever he wants to. And this is what Nebuchadnezzar confessed to be true at the end of chapter four when he came back to his senses. That's the only way to be sensible is to recognize the sovereignty of God.

And Nebuchadnezzar became sensible through the dealings of God, but this young man has not learned those things. He has not paid any attention to history and therefore he has brought his own doom upon his head by not honoring the God of heaven. And it says, but you, his son Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, although you knew all this.

So apparently the business of Nebuchadnezzar's madness, though it was many years earlier, was a matter of public knowledge, a matter of public record, and Belshazzar could not have been unaware of it. And you have lifted yourself up against the Lord of heaven. They have brought the vessels of his house before you.

And you and your lords and your wives and your concubines have drunk wine from them. And you have praised the gods of silver and gold, bronze and iron, wood and stone, which do not see or hear or know. And the God who holds your breath in his hand and owns all your ways, you have not glorified.

Then the fingers of the hand were sent from him and his writing was written. So the hand that you saw was the hand of this God, the God who holds your breath in his hand. That same hand that marked the plaster also holds your breath.

And that of course is saying that every breath you have is delivered to you from God. It's a gift. It is not owed.

And of course, Belshazzar did not have very many more breaths beyond hearing this oracle. He died before midnight that night. And so God had given him all his breaths up to that point.

He should have been thankful and feared. If God is the one who can choose to strike you dead right now and give you no further breaths, then there's nothing to fear but him. There's no one to please but him.

And he said, he owns all your ways. Because he gives you breaths, he owns them. He owns all your time, all your actions.

He owns everything that proceeds from you. He doesn't just own you, he owns all the ways and things that proceed from you. Everything is owed to him.

And therefore, Belshazzar is going to be judged for having dishonored that God and honored a great number of false gods that cannot save him, cannot save him from Yahweh. Verse 25, this is the inscription that was written. Mene, mene, tekel yutharsen.

Now, these are words, Hebrew words, that don't in themselves make a sentence. The first one, mene, which is literally mina, it's a measurement of money, a measurement of weight of money. It equivalent to 50 shekels of silver.

The name of that measurement comes from the word that means to number. And that's how Daniel understands mene, it means number, number. And Daniel has to make a sentence out of that because the word itself doesn't communicate anything.

So he's going to say, your kingdom has been numbered. But it also says tekel. And tekel is another coin, another denomination of currency.

It was simply the word for a shekel. And it comes from the word to weigh. So mene, mene, tekel is interpreted by Daniel to mean numbered, numbered, weighed.

But it's like money is being weighed and numbered out. I mean, the words come from it. And so that may have been what confused the wise men.

They weren't sure how to make sense of it. It seemed like some kind of a financial statement of some kind. But Daniel's making it very clear, no, that's not the way it goes.

And you farsen, you is like the word and in English. And farsen is plural for pares. Now, pares means a half shekel.

And, or a division of a shekel. And so Daniel takes this to mean divided. So we've got numbered, numbered, weighed, divided.

As you can see, this does not communicate information without some other words being added. So Daniel is needed to give the interpretation. There's a play on words too, because pares, farsen is plural for pares.

Pares, I should say, P-A-R-E-S. It's also, it's vocalized similar to the word for Persian. And so it kind of, he gives it sort of a double meaning here because you farsen sounds a lot like the word for Persian, but it actually means divided.

It actually means a half shekel, but it comes from the word in language, mean divided. So there's some, obviously there's ambiguity here. This is not a message that a clever fake would have necessarily gotten the message from.

Although maybe clever fakes could have improvised something, but it's not clear what the message is without Daniel being called in. It's obvious that God didn't just write out the message clearly for Belshazzar. He required that Daniel be come in.

God could have written it out more clearly than this, but he made it ambiguous and difficult to understand so that again, Daniel could be brought in to show his own superiority over the astrologers and the wise men who couldn't make sense of it. And he says, this is the interpretation of each word, meaning, which means number. God has numbered your kingdom and finished it.

Apparently numbered the days of your kingdom. And you've reached the end of the numbers of their days. Tekel, which means weighed.

You have been weighed in the balances and been found wanting. You haven't measured up to the standard that God is expecting of a king. And therefore the number of your days has reached its end, perhaps prematurely because of your stupidity and evil.

Perez, your kingdom has been divided. And then there's other meaning, and given to the Medes and Persians. It's actually Perez, P-E-R-E-S is the word divided and P-A-R-A-S, just one letter difference is the word for Persians, Pares.

So he says, the kingdom has been divided and given to, he could have just said the Persians, but since it's divided, it's divided between two groups, the Medes and the Persians. Of course, the Medes and the Persians didn't constitute separate groups that actually divided the city between themselves, but it worked since the Medes and the Persians had joined into one force and they were separate ethnic groups that were together gonna divide up the spoils here. Then Belshazzar gave the command and they clothed Daniel in purple and put a chain of gold around his neck and made a proclamation concerning him that he should be the third ruler of the kingdom.

So Daniel was a really man of high rank for a few minutes, third ruler in the kingdom of Babylon, the biggest kingdom in the world for the moment. So Daniel wasn't just a Jewish prophet, he was the third most powerful man in the world for a few minutes or a few hours at the most. He did not wish for this.

Of course, he had said in verse 17, let your gifts be to yourself and give your rewards to another. But I guess he probably was more pleased to have the king put a purple robe on him than to say off with his head or throw him in the fiery furnace, which is what the king might've been expected to say having been given such a message that the king was drunk enough, I guess, to be, he was probably a happy drunk, not the mean drunk. So he was, oh, you're a good old boy, Daniel.

Thanks for telling me the truth. Let's put the robes on him. And that very night, Belshazzar the king of Chaldeans was slain and Darius the Mede received the kingdom being about 62 years old.

Now Cyrus in his thought was closer to 50 at this time, although his exact age, I think is not known, but certainly the writer of Daniel, and I believe it was Daniel who wrote it, but whether it was him or someone else, as many people suggest, it was someone living much later, which I don't agree with, but whoever it is would have known about Cyrus. I mean, let's face it, Cyrus was famous for having, especially after the fact that the Jews knew the name of Cyrus as their great deliverer. It'd be like the George Washington of their history, who delivered them from their oppressors.

And so a later writer would not be making some mistake, obviously, thinking that someone named Darius had freed the Jews and had conquered Babylon when in fact everybody knew Cyrus had. So we either have to have Darius who is really hard to identify. Historians don't quite know who is intended by Darius here, but it's either a reference to Cyrus, as many scholars have suggested, although it raises some problems, why he's called the Mede when Cyrus was in fact a Persian.

You know, that's a bit of an issue there. Darius could be a title, which either Cyrus adopted for himself or was later retroactively used to speak of him, because there are, I believe, about five known Darius's or Darius's in Persian history, rulers. And so it could have been just a royal title, and Cyrus may have been called by that title, but there are some issues here that make it a little difficult to identify this man with Cyrus.

Perhaps not impossible, and there are scholars who think that he is. But others feel like he's Gubaru, spelled G-U-B-A-R-U, Gubaru, and he is known from historical records as the general who was, well, Agbaru and Gubaru are two different men, but they're both involved militarily in the capture of Babylon. And it is said in some ancient records, I think it's Herodotus, that mentions that Gubaru was made the governor, Cyrus made Gubaru the governor of the city, and he ruled the city for a couple of years while Cyrus was occupied elsewhere.

Cyrus conquered the city, did some initial business and left, and came back to rule from that city himself a couple of years later. So Gubaru was the de facto ruler, king of Babylon for that short period of time, and it is speculated by many that he is the one referred to as Darius the Mede. Whether Gubaru was a Mede or not, we don't know.

Daniel knows more about Darius than we know about Gubaru. Daniel knows the man's parentage, as we shall see as we go through. He knows the man's age, he knows the man's race.

This man is obviously a historical character. There's too many facts known about him by the writer to be a mistake. But we have a difficulty identifying him with certainty.

In any case, some, when they read about Darius in the remainder of the book of Daniel, where he's mentioned more than once again in the future, they just impose the picture in their head of Cyrus in that role. Others say Gubaru is in that role. And while either of those theories could be defended, neither of them is a slam dunk.

So there are some things about Daniel we will simply not be able to solve at this present time. Now, chapter six, maybe the most famous story in the book of Daniel. Every Sunday school child knows it.

It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom 120 setraps to be over the whole kingdom. These were just provincial administrators. And so he divided the kingdom once Persia had conquered.

This is the Persian ruler now, not the Babylonian. He divided the kingdom into 120 divisions with each having an administrator over them. Says, and over these, there were three governors.

It may be that each one had 40 under him or it may not have been divided equally among them, but there were three persons to whom these 120 answered of whom Daniel was one. Now how Daniel came to have a position in Darius's administration is not explained. Daniel has shown himself brilliant and useful under more than one king of Babylon, but now Darius is another king from another kingdom, but he must have learned soon upon his arrival about the value of this man, Daniel.

Just like Nebuchadnezzar, when he conquered Jerusalem, appreciated Jeremiah. So the conqueror of Babylon appreciates Daniel and Daniel is given a position. Initially just one of the three supervisors over the 120 setraps, but before this is done, Daniel is made more important even than that.

Then this Daniel, oh, I should say Daniel was one that the setraps might give account to them so that the king would suffer no loss. Then this Daniel distinguished himself above the governors and setraps because an excellent spirit was in him. That's what the queen had said in chapter five in verse 12 that it says an excellent spirit, knowledge and understanding is in him.

And the king gave thought to sending him over the whole realm. Now this of course made others who are not godly, but who are ambitious, jealous because Daniel was being given preferential treatment because of his competence, frankly. And it says, so the governors and setraps sought to find some charge against Daniel concerning the kingdom that is concerning his defect in his loyalty to the Persian empire.

But it says they could find no charge or fault because he was faithful, nor was there any error or fault found in him. Note the difference between Daniel and the presumed character of the setraps. Daniel was faithful, the setraps, king wasn't so sure about them.

He had to put supervisor over them so that he might not suffer loss at the hands of his officers. Obviously people in power have opportunity and therefore temptation to take advantage, to use bribes or even to steal from the government in certain ways that they have access to that others don't. The king knew that with that many crooks, or I mean that many politicians, that there was always the danger that he might be ripped off by them.

And so he had to supervise them with people like Daniel, but that's because they weren't faithful or at least could not be counted on to be faithful. Daniel, however, proved himself to be faithful. And there's a contrast I think of in the days of Josiah, when Josiah was doing the repairs on the temple and doing things like that, a great deal of money had to be made available for that.

And the people who took care of the money, who administrated that were said to be faithful and they didn't have to give account to anybody. It says that in second Kings chapter 22. Second Kings 22, seven, it says, however, there need be no accounting made with them.

That's these people who are the workers working on the temple to rebuild it or to restore it in the days of Josiah. It talks about all the workers, it lists them in verses four through six and verse seven says, however, there need be no accounting made with them of the money delivered into their hand because they deal faithfully. And this tells us a lot about the whole subject of accountability.

People who are accountable in their conscience to God will deal faithfully because they know God's watching. Remember in Colossians, Paul told the servants to be honest and to be hard workers, not with eye service of pleasing men, but pleasing God, knowing that you're serving the Lord, not man. The Christian's conscience is that whatever he is assigned to do, he does it faithfully unto the Lord.

And because his conscience is before the Lord, he's accountable in his conscience before God, he'll be faithful. Human accountability becomes considerably less important, if not entirely superfluous. A man who will not violate his conscience before God does not need another human being to watch over him.

On the other hand, a man who will violate his conscience against God and is not accountable to God will find ways to get around even the human accountability. I was in a church once in McMinnville where they were heavily stressed the need for accountability and submission of the elders and things like that. And I was always having problems with them and eventually we just didn't get along and didn't work out because they treated all their people like children, like disobedient children, like everyone had to be accountable about everything.

And I wasn't that submissive. I was not, I didn't need the accountability. I was behaving myself.

I was living for God. I was doing fine, but I didn't necessarily wanna be in one of their small groups because the leaders of small groups were not very spiritual and things like that. It just didn't seem to me the best thing for my family.

And I had conversations with the pastor about that. And they said, oh, you need to be accountable. It's dangerous to not be accountable.

But it turned out one of their elders who is certainly in their structure of accountability had been having affairs with two women in the church for eight years and was exposed eventually. All the time he was attending elders meetings and quite locked into this human accountability structure. He was having two affairs.

I wasn't having any and I didn't have any accountability structure outside of my own conscience. But if you're accountable to God, you have a conscience. You will be faithful.

You won't do what's wrong because you know God will disapprove. It doesn't matter what people think. But if you're only concerned about what people think and you're not accountable to God, you'll find ways even around the people who are supposed to be babysitting you.

You'll find ways to cheat. And so there's a contrast here between, for example, these satraps who are given administrative duties and responsibilities in Persia on the one hand and those workers who worked on the temple. Because we're told the workers who worked on the temple were faithful.

There was no need for them to have to give account to anybody. Strange concept to us, perhaps, if we've been in churches that emphasize the need for accountability. I was at one time communicating with a Christian organization that was basically recruiting unknown Christian musicians, that is people who were not recording artists but who had some music ministry on a small scale.

This organization was sort of wanting to be an agency for groups like that and they were communicating with me. And I actually was slightly interested in letting them book me some places. So I actually filled out an application and they said, who's your pastor? And I didn't have a pastor.

I wasn't actually in a church at the time. And so I gave the last pastor I had, which was several years earlier, in another state. And once they got my application, they called me and said, we got a problem here.

I said, what's the problem? They said, you live in Oregon and you listed a pastor who's a pastor in a church in California. I said, yeah, what's the problem with that? And they said, well, do you attend the church in California? I said, no. I used to be an elder there, but I don't attend there anymore.

And they said, well, where do you attend church now? I said, well, lots of places. And they said, well, who are you accountable to? And I said, the Lord. Who are you accountable to? And they said, but you need a structure of accountability.

I said, what's that look like? They said, well, you need to be part of an organized church with an eldership and pastor overseeing you. I said, so all you're talking about is just being a member of a church. That's what you're calling accountable.

They said, well, yeah, all the talent we work with has to be accountable to a local pastor. I said, well, I meet with two pastors two different mornings a week for breakfast, and we talk over breakfast every week. Is that accountability? They said, do you go to their church? I said, no.

I said, well, then they're not accountable. I said, but what, I have a friendship with these pastors. We talk over breakfast every week.

That's not accountable? No, you have to be in their church. There's gotta be a structure of accountability, they said. I said, you mean that if I would just go to any church in town, let's say the biggest church in town, join the church, sit in the back row every week.

The pastor doesn't even know my name. I'm just a face in the crowd to him, but I'm a member of the church. Then that's being adequately accountable as far as you're concerned? They said, yeah, that's about it.

I said, well, how can I be accountable if the pastor doesn't even know who I am? And they were just locked into this idea that you need to have some kind of a hierarchy of human accountability. Now, I think human accountability is a valuable thing because frankly, we're not always wise in our decisions. Even if we want to please God, sometimes we fool ourselves and go the wrong way.

And it's good to have people in your life. But accountability doesn't have to be structured. You have to have friendships.

Paul said he commended himself to every man's conscience. Any man can hold me accountable as far as I'm concerned. I mean, if I go to church, of course, I'll be accountable to the leaders of that church and to everybody else in the church too.

Doesn't have to be an elder. Anyone can come up and say, Steve, I heard you say something that I don't think you should say. I heard you were doing something you shouldn't be doing.

It doesn't have to be an elder because if you're accountable to God, you'll receive correction from anybody that God sends your way. You'll be teachable. But if you're not accountable to God, you'll be a crook and you'll find ways to be a crook even if you're in a structured accountability system.

And Daniel, we found, was a faithful man. Nobody was keeping him accountable and people were trying to bust him but they couldn't find anything wrong because he was faithful, unlike the men he was overseeing who were not trustworthy. And they proved it by lying to the king on this occasion.

The supervision of these satraps was so that the king might not suffer loss at their hands. And yet the scheme they came up with Daniel would certainly have caused the king to suffer loss. Daniel was his most valuable administrator, his most valuable cabinet member, and they falsely accused him and wanted to get him killed so that the king would suffer loss of that man.

And they would then perhaps be able to vie with each other for his position once the vacancy was there. So then these men said, we shall not find any charge against this Daniel unless we find it against him concerning the law of his God. So these governors and satraps thronged before the king.

Interesting word, they thronged around him. I mean, it sounds like a, almost like a, well, it's definitely a crowd. It's not just they came before the king, they thronged him, which seems to mean they brought all of the satraps in so the crowd was so large that maybe the king wouldn't notice who wasn't there.

With such a big crowd, you can't necessarily count noses and say, well, who's missing here? Well, Daniel was the one missing. Everybody else in the government was there thronging him. And they said to him, King Darius lived forever.

All the governors of the kingdom, this was not quite true because Daniel was a governor and he is not included in what they were about to say. The administrators and the satraps, the counselors and the advisors have consulted together to establish a royal statute to make a firm decree, which whoever petitions any God or man for 30 days, except you, oh king, shall be cast into the den of lions. Probably this was suggested as something to make sure that everyone was really loyal.

He was a new king, it was a new kingdom. They had taken over the rulership of a people who'd been ruled by another race, the Chaldeans. And just to make sure everyone was really loyal to the new administration, let's have a period of 30 days where they have to actually treat the new king as if he's God and not let him have any competition.

No other gods can be prayed to for that period of time. We're not abolishing all other religion permanently, but just a period of time to establish you, Darius, as the sole undisputed leader here. No one can pray to any God except you for 30 days.

Now, oh king, establish the decree and sign the writing so that it cannot be changed according to the law of the Medes and the Persians, which does not alter. And that is true. The laws of the Medes and Persians had that peculiarity in the legal system that once something was signed in law, even the king couldn't change it.

We see that also in the book of Esther. Whenever a law was made, the king himself couldn't change it. Therefore, King Darius signed the written decree.

They had framed it, they'd written it up and just asked for his signature. He hadn't thought it through and he apparently didn't notice that Daniel was not in the crowd and that this would have a negative effect on him. Now, when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went home and in his upper room with his windows open toward Jerusalem, he knelt down on his knees three times a day and prayed and gave thanks before his God as was his custom since early days.

Now, if Daniel had not done this previously and did it this time, it'd be a real show of bravado. Like, you know, I'm gonna get in the face of these people. And I don't know that Christians are supposed to be in the face of persecuting governments.

I don't think there's anything wrong with being underground if there's persecution. I don't think there's anything wrong with being discreet. But Daniel was just not gonna let his habits change.

He was accustomed to doing this. He's gonna keep doing it and no decree that puts his life in danger for it is gonna change that. His life is being lived before God and not gonna be subject to petty tyrants who would change his relationship with God in any way.

So he just continued as he had done before, unchanged by the new threat. In 1 Kings 8, Solomon, when he dedicated the temple, prayed a very long prayer in which he asked God, he set up several scenarios in his prayer where the people do wrong and there's a famine or there's an invasion or there's something else, some crisis that if they turn and pray toward the temple that God would hear them. That's what Solomon actually asks.

You see, for example, in just a small part of that prayer in 1 Kings 8, beginning at verse 46, this is just one of the paragraphs of many. He says, when they sin against you, for there is no one who does not sin, and you become angry with them and deliver them to their enemy, and they take them captive to the land of the enemy far or near, yet when they come to themselves in the land where they were carried away captive and repent and make supplication to you in the land of those who took them captive, saying we have sinned and done wrong, we have committed wickedness, and when they return to you with all their heart and with all their soul in the land of their enemies, who led them away captive and prayed to you toward the land which you gave to their fathers, the city which you have chosen, which is of course Jerusalem, and the temple which I have built for your name, then hear in heaven your dwelling place their prayer and their supplication and maintain their cause. So Daniel was praying toward Jerusalem, toward the temple.

There was no temple there in Jerusalem at this time, but that's where it had been. And Solomon said, Lord, when they're in captivity in faraway lands, if they pray toward this land, toward this city, toward this house that I've built, then hear them. And Daniel is, I guess, agreeing with Solomon in prayer about this every day, facing toward Jerusalem where the temple used to be.

Praying three times a day was a model that he may have derived from David. In Psalm 55, verses 16 and 17, David said, as for me, I will call upon God and the Lord should save me, evening and morning and at noon, I will pray and cry aloud and he shall hear my voice. Now, Muslims, I think, pray toward Mecca more frequently than that.

What is it, seven times a day? Five times a day? But David apparently set a precedent followed by Daniel of three times a day, morning, noon, and night, praying. And in this case, since Daniel was in a foreign land, he prayed toward Jerusalem. Now, he did it with the windows open.

Now, he might have regularly done it with the windows open just to get a breeze. I don't know if there's a need for the windows to be open as far as is in his mind for the prayers to be answered, but what is mentioned here is he didn't take extra precautions of at least closing the windows. It may be that the windows were open most of the time and that's not an important part of his praying, but whereas he might be intimidated by the decree and say, well, I'm gonna still pray, but I'm gonna close the windows.

I'm gonna make sure no one can hear me. He's just not gonna be affected in any way. He's not gonna break his habit.

He's not gonna try to hide. He's not gonna shut the windows. He's just gonna keep praying to God and act like nothing happened and let the chips fall where they may.

And they did fall. Then these men assembled and found Daniel praying and making supplication before his God. And they went before the king and spoke concerning the king's decree.

Have you not signed a decree that every man who petitions any God or man within 30 days, except you, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions? The king answered and said, the thing is true, according to the law of the Medes and the Persians, which does not alter. So they answered and said before the king, that Daniel, who is one of the captives from Judah, does not show due regard for you, O king, or for the decree that you have signed, but makes his petition three times a day. And the king, when he heard these words, was greatly displeased with himself.

He's kicking himself, we'd say, because he realized he had been duped by these guys and had not considered how this decree might affect someone who is so valuable to him, like Daniel. And he set his heart on Daniel to deliver him. And he labored till the going down of the sun to deliver him.

Now, it says he labored. Exactly what do you do between that morning and that evening to try to deliver him? He was probably looking for legal precedents. He was probably consulting lawyers.

Trying to find out if there's any way he could reverse this decision or give Daniel a pass. But the laws of the Medes and Persians couldn't be changed. And therefore, there was nothing he could do to legally deliver him.

Then these men approached the king and said to the king, no, O king, that it is the law of the Medes and the Persians that no decree or statute, which the king establishes may be changed. So the king gave the command and they brought Daniel and cast him into the den of lions. But the king spoke saying to Daniel, your God whom you serve continually, he will deliver you.

Then a stone was brought and laid on the mouth of the den and the king sealed it with his own signet ring, meaning no one would be allowed to open it. This is very much like Jesus when he was buried, the stone was put over the mouth of his tomb and the Romans put a seal on it. That doesn't mean they sealed it shut with cement so that no one could open it, but rather the signet of the ruler, probably Pilate, was pressed into a decree on the stone and said, nobody dares open this.

It's a violation of the authority of the man who wears the ring. And with the signets of his lords, that the purpose concerning Daniel might not be changed. Now, it occurs to me that there's one thing he could have done, and I'm sure it crossed his mind.

And that is, he could have fed the lions before putting Daniel in there. Lions don't generally hunt or kill when they've been fed, they hunt when they're hungry. So he could engorge them, throw a few oxen down there and let the lions be engorged, then put Daniel down there and it'd be pretty uncomfortable being with the lions, but he probably would be untouched.

In fact, some may suspect that that's what actually did happen, that Belshazzar said, your Lord's gonna deliver you as if he was optimistic that Daniel was gonna come out. But his real optimism was based on the fact that he knew that something had been done to make those lions not be aggressive. However, that's not the way it was, because we find at the end of this, when Daniel gets pulled out and is then to be thrown in, the lions are so ravished and so hungry that they are so famished, I mean, that they actually kill and eat the people who were thrown into them before they even hit the floor.

The lions have been fasting all night and they were hungry because they were not able to eat the victim that was delivered to them the night before. Verse 18, now the king went to his palace and spent the night fasting, so did the lions. And no musicians were brought before him.

Also, his sleep went from him. Daniel probably slept just fine. The king is tossing and turning his, he said, your God will deliver you, but this is perhaps more of a pious well-wishing than a statement of true strong faith.

He didn't sleep comfortably, as if he really believed that God was gonna deliver Daniel. Then the king arose very early in the morning and went in haste to the den of lions. It's the first order of business upon getting up in the morning, because he could, if Daniel was alive, he could pull him out, he'd done the thing.

He'd thrown him into the den of lions, the law was fulfilled. So he came to the den of lions, and when he had come to the den, he cried out with a lamenting voice to Daniel. Lamenting, obviously, is he lamenting the death of Daniel? If so, it'd be kind of silly to talk to Daniel, like even to call out to Daniel.

It may be lamenting like he's repentant. He's penitent that he had put Daniel in that position by his careless signing of that law. At this point, he doesn't know if Daniel's gonna hear him or not, but he cries out with a lamenting voice to Daniel, and the king spoke, saying to Daniel, Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God whom you serve continually been able to deliver you from the lions? Then Daniel said to the king, O king, live forever.

My God sent his angel, and he shut the mouths of the lions so that I have not been hurt. They have not hurt me because I was found innocent before him, and also, O king, I've done no wrong before you. A little bit of a jab there.

You know, you put me in this place of execution when I hadn't really committed a crime. That's not really very good, but it was mainly that I was innocent before God, that he vindicated me in delivery, so this is very much like the Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego story. They were put in a situation where certain death would have resulted in a fiery furnace, but there was an angel or somebody in there with him, with them, so we find God's, either God himself or his angels are protecting his people in exile in Babylon.

That's one thing that the book of Daniel brings out is that even though God's people are exiled from the Holy Land, yet God is not confined to the Holy Land. God is with them in Babylon, doing miraculous things and delivering them when that's his desire to do. Then the king was exceedingly glad for him and commanded that they should take Daniel up out of the den, so Daniel was taken up out of the den and no injury whatever was found on him, just like the guys who came out of the fiery furnace, there was no smell of smoke on them, not the slightest effect.

You can't tell that he didn't sleep in his own bed in his own room that night because he believed in his God. Now, because he believed in his God, the lions had not hurt him at all is restated in a slightly different way in Hebrews chapter 11, where it's recounting the great things that were accomplished by people who believed in God that is by their faith. In Hebrews 11, it's talking about various cases of people in the Old Testament who did exploits or had great deliverances because of their faith.

And in verse 33, Hebrews 11, 33, it says, who through faith subdued kingdoms, like David did, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword. Now, this reference to stopping the mouths of lions probably is a reference to Daniel. Of course, both David and Samson were delivered physically from lions, but it's not that the lion's mouths were stopped.

It's rather the lions were overcome and killed. In this case, of course, it was an angel that made the lion's mouths be stopped. And so the writer of Hebrews is certainly referring to Daniel and probably Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in verse 34, where it says they quenched the violence of fire.

Faith, it says by faith they did this. And that's what it says in Daniel 6, 23. No injury was found on him because he believed in his God.

This is faith in the Old Testament seemed to be the thing that invokes the power and the salvation of God. And the king, verse 24, gave the command and they brought those men who had accused Daniel and they cast them into the den of lions, them, their children, their wives, and the lions and their wives, and the lions overpowered them and broke all their bones in pieces before they ever came to the bottom of the den. These were a lot of lions because there were a lot of satraps and their wives.

There'd be over 200 people here thrown in, but it must have been a really big group of lions. It may be that only a few of the people were consumed before they hit the ground. And that gave rise to the statement that they were breaking their bones before they hit the floor.

It may be that it took a little longer for some of the lions to consume some of them because it'd take a lot of lions to eat that many people quickly. In any case, the wives, these women wish they'd married someone else on that occasion. Then King Darius wrote, to all people's nations and languages that dwell in the earth, peace be multiplied to you.

I make a decree that in every dominion of my kingdom, men must tremble and fear before the God of Daniel. So his previous decree was that they cannot pray to any God, including the God of Daniel, except Darius for 30 days. Now he says, okay, I'm reversing.

Well, after these 30 days have passed, now everyone has to at least revere the God of Daniel. He doesn't say they have to necessarily pray, but they have to tremble and fear before the God of Daniel. For he is the living God and steadfast forever.

His kingdom is one which shall not be destroyed and his dominion shall endure to the end. He delivers and rescues, and he works signs and wonders in heaven and on earth, who has delivered Daniel from the power of the lions. So this Daniel prospered in the reign of Darius and in the reign of Cyrus the Persian.

Now you might say, well, there we have a direct contrast between Darius and Cyrus, so he can't be the same person, but it's not that easy. The word and in Hebrew can mean even. And some take this verse actually to be a verse identifying the two, because it would be saying then Daniel prospered in the reign of Darius, even, or meaning that is in the reign of Cyrus the Persian.

So the Hebrew can be rendered that way, though not necessarily, it can go either way. So the reader has to already know whether Cyrus the Persian is the same person as Darius the Mede, so that he'll understand the sentence. And no doubt, the original readers being closer to the situation than we are, did know whether he was equating them or differentiating.

We have a harder time. We are after all living 2,500 years later and working from fragmentary archeological finds and historical information. Okay, well, we now we'll take a break again.

And when we come to chapter seven, next time, we are coming to what many people think is the highest point of the book of Daniel, perhaps even of the Old Testament itself. The kingdom of the Messiah is depicted in very glorious terms, and connected with its relationship to other kingdoms, similar to chapter two, much the same period of time is in view as that which the dream of Nebuchadnezzar in chapter two deals with, but a different imagery, new data, and so forth is brought in. And the only place in the Old Testament where Jesus is referred to as the son of man, which of course became Jesus' favorite title.