Speaker 1: Welcome to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope. I'm so glad you're here.
Speaker 2: Today.
Speaker 1: We're going to continue our series called Unshakable. Rick is
Speaker 1: taking us through the Book of Daniel and that so
Speaker 1: we'll be equipped to handle whatever curveball life throws at us,
Speaker 1: even the most difficult trials. And now here's Rick with
Speaker 1: part one. And it's actually a question. The message is
Speaker 1: called will you stand strong for God? Publicly?
Speaker 2: We've been in this series on Daniel now for a
Speaker 2: long time, and we come to the eighth major test
Speaker 2: in Daniel's life. Now, at this point, Daniel is an
Speaker 2: old man. We started when he was a teenager. He
Speaker 2: was a prisoner of war at fifteen, and we saw
Speaker 2: three or four tests in his life even while he
Speaker 2: was a teenager. And then we look at some tests
Speaker 2: in his twenties and in his thirties, and then in
Speaker 2: his middle years. And now Daniel is about eighty two
Speaker 2: years old. He has survived through at least two three
Speaker 2: now his third king, two different empires, the Babylonian Empire
Speaker 2: which crushed the Assyrian Empire, and now the Persian Empire.
Speaker 2: This is all in history. Crushed the Babylonian Empire and
Speaker 2: Daniel was such an amazing man and leader and a
Speaker 2: man of integrity that every single leader wanted to keep
Speaker 2: him on. You know, usually when he gets a new administration,
Speaker 2: a clear house, and all of the people who were
Speaker 2: serving in the previous administration they're all gone. But Daniel
Speaker 2: keeps getting rehired, rehired, and actually keeps getting promoted. Now
Speaker 2: we're going to pick up from where we ended last time,
Speaker 2: that he had outlasted two Babylonian kings, Nebukanezer and his
Speaker 2: grandson Belshazar. And now he gets a new boss called
Speaker 2: Darius the Mead, who is a general with another guy
Speaker 2: named Cyrus the Persian. Cyrus the Great and Darius the
Speaker 2: Mead actually killed Daniel's previous boss, Belle Shaser, and ransacked
Speaker 2: the city of Babylon. He destroys the city, takes it over,
Speaker 2: but says, I'm keeping Daniel. This is an amazing man.
Speaker 2: Now look up here on the screen. Here's where we
Speaker 2: left off last time. King Belshasle. Remember that's the guy
Speaker 2: who saw the writing on the wall. Remember that, and
Speaker 2: he said, your days are numbered. It's over, buddy. You
Speaker 2: didn't honor God. King Belshazer promoted Daniel, here's another promotion
Speaker 2: to be the third highest ruler in his kingdom. However,
Speaker 2: that wasn't a very long promotion because it says that
Speaker 2: very night King bel Shazar was killed by Darius the Mead,
Speaker 2: who took over the kingdom at the age of sixty two.
Speaker 2: So now Daniel is still in the royal Palace in Babylon,
Speaker 2: but he's got a new boss, and the guy's not
Speaker 2: a Babylonian, he's actually a Mead and a Persian. And
Speaker 2: once again he gets promoted to a more powerful position,
Speaker 2: changing bosses, but the new guys keep promoting him. My
Speaker 2: first question before we actually get in into what I
Speaker 2: want to speak about this weekend is why what was
Speaker 2: it about this guy so unique that he kept getting
Speaker 2: promoted at work? Because if we could bottle that, I'd
Speaker 2: sell it to you. Who doesn't want to be promoted
Speaker 2: in life? Who doesn't want to be progressing up a
Speaker 2: ladder to greater effectiveness, greater efficiency, greater influence, greater income,
Speaker 2: and things like that? So why did Daniel keep getting
Speaker 2: promoted at work? Well? In Daniel Chapter six, which is
Speaker 2: the chapter we're in this week, in the next reverses,
Speaker 2: it tells us the three reasons. So listen, if you're
Speaker 2: interested in getting a promotion at work, pay attention to
Speaker 2: the next reverses, because these are the three reasons Daniel
Speaker 2: outlasted everybody else at his workplace. I want you tell
Speaker 2: last everybody at your workplace. I want you to keep
Speaker 2: getting promoted. And there were three reasons why Daniel kept
Speaker 2: getting promoted from teenager until now he's eighty two years old,
Speaker 2: and he still hasn't done his best work. His best
Speaker 2: work was actually done at age eighty five, so he's
Speaker 2: not finished. He doesn't believe in the word retirement, and
Speaker 2: by the way, neither do I, because it's not in
Speaker 2: the Bible. Okay, now you may change jobs. You know
Speaker 2: you earlier in life. You may be paid to good,
Speaker 2: do good. Now you're good for nothing. All right, So
Speaker 2: here are the three reasons Daniel kept getting promoted a
Speaker 2: work Number one, his professional competence made him stand out.
Speaker 2: His professional competence made him stand out. It is clear
Speaker 2: this guy is a gifted leader. But more than that,
Speaker 2: he learned. He was a student. We talked about this
Speaker 2: a few weeks ago. All leaders are learners. The moment
Speaker 2: you stopped learning, you stopped leading. He was a student
Speaker 2: of God's word. He was a student of people. He
Speaker 2: was a student of history, he was a student of culture.
Speaker 2: The Bible says that he spent his entire life learning.
Speaker 2: He just kept getting wiser and wiser and wiser. Now,
Speaker 2: if you make wisdom a goal of your life, there's
Speaker 2: no end to that one. You can just keep getting
Speaker 2: better and better and better. You know, there are some
Speaker 2: careers that peak pretty early in life. I once did
Speaker 2: a study of this. For instance, if you want to
Speaker 2: be a female Olympic gymnast, you peak at about seventeen,
Speaker 2: and then you're going to be replaced by somebody else
Speaker 2: who's fourteen or fifteen or sixty, because your body just
Speaker 2: isn't that limber when you're twenty five. It's certainly not
Speaker 2: at thirty five. If you're going to play in the NFL,
Speaker 2: you know you're going to peak at maybe twenty eight,
Speaker 2: twenty nine years old. In different careers, you know you
Speaker 2: peak at a certain level and then it's over. But
Speaker 2: if you decide to be a woman or a man
Speaker 2: who says I want to be a woman of wisdom,
Speaker 2: I want to be a man of wisdom at eighty
Speaker 2: five years old, you'd be a whole lot wiser than
Speaker 2: you were at eighty four and eighty three and eighty two.
Speaker 2: And it's one area you can just keep growing it.
Speaker 2: So he kept growing in competence. He was more skilled,
Speaker 2: he was more effective. The Bible says this in Daniel six,
Speaker 2: verse three. Now Daniel so distinguished himself above all the others,
Speaker 2: the other governors and the administrators that were called the satraps,
Speaker 2: by his exceptional qualities, that the king planned to put
Speaker 2: Daniel in charge of the entire kingdom. You know, the
Speaker 2: Bible tells us in the first verses before that that Darius,
Speaker 2: when he took over the kingdom, he reorganized and he said,
Speaker 2: I'm going to have one hundred and twenty provinces in
Speaker 2: the Babylonian Empire, which I now run. He wasn't Babylonian
Speaker 2: one hundred and twenty, and I'll have an administrator over
Speaker 2: each one, and have three governors over that. And he
Speaker 2: chose Daniel as one of the three governors. So Daniel
Speaker 2: was one of the three most powerful men in the empire.
Speaker 2: But he did such a good job that it says
Speaker 2: here Daniel so distinguished himself above all the other governors.
Speaker 2: There were three of them, and all the administrators the
Speaker 2: state tripes. That's one hundred and twenty. By his exceptional qualities,
Speaker 2: the king planned to put him in charge of the
Speaker 2: entire kingdom. He's eighty two years old. He's getting another promotion.
Speaker 2: That's a wise leader. Professional competence number two. Second reason
Speaker 2: he kept getting promoted. His personal character made him stand out.
Speaker 2: Not just professional competence, but personal character. This was a
Speaker 2: man of integrity. He was a man of generosity. He
Speaker 2: was a man of humility. He was a man of
Speaker 2: godliness and goodness and kindness and wisdom. And the Bible
Speaker 2: says in the next verse, verse four, when the administrators
Speaker 2: they were called say traps in that day, when the
Speaker 2: administrators heard the news, they tried to find a reason
Speaker 2: to undermine Daniel in his work, and they accused him
Speaker 2: of misconduct. But they were unable to do so. They
Speaker 2: could not find anything to say against him. WHOA He
Speaker 2: was honest, reliable, hard working, and incorruptible. He was never
Speaker 2: lazy or negligent in any task. Well, no wonder he
Speaker 2: kept getting promoted. I'd like to hire this guy, and
Speaker 2: so would you. Now notice we don't know why but
Speaker 2: these underlings who were in the provinces, they didn't like
Speaker 2: Daniel being their boss, probably because he was Jewish, but
Speaker 2: they started trying to undermine him. You may be in
Speaker 2: a work situation right now that there are some people
Speaker 2: who are conspiring against you at work because of your faith,
Speaker 2: because you're a Christian, and you know, they don't really lie,
Speaker 2: they don't have any reason. They're not like you. You're
Speaker 2: a good person, but because of your faith, they just
Speaker 2: want you out. And sometimes you get into an office
Speaker 2: where everybody's familiar with office politics, and people are scheming
Speaker 2: and conniving behind your back, and they want your office
Speaker 2: and they want to get you moved out. And this
Speaker 2: is what happened here. The administrators in this new administration
Speaker 2: here that Daniel, who's one of the top three guys,
Speaker 2: is going to be given the whole kingdom, and they
Speaker 2: know we're not going to have that happen. We're not
Speaker 2: going to serve that guy, and so they start looking
Speaker 2: for a way to trap him, to say traps, set
Speaker 2: up a trap for Daniel, and it says they couldn't
Speaker 2: find anything to say against him. What a testimony that's
Speaker 2: certainly not true of me. There's a lot of things
Speaker 2: people can say against me. It's probably not true of you.
Speaker 2: There's probably a lot of things people can say against you.
Speaker 2: But this guy says when they went looking for dirt, scandal,
Speaker 2: a skeleton in the closet, hypocrisy, bad character, whatever, they
Speaker 2: were looking for anything, it says they could not find
Speaker 2: anything or unable to find anything to say against him,
Speaker 2: because he was honest and reliable and hard working, and
Speaker 2: his personal character made him stand out. He was professionally competent,
Speaker 2: but he was also personally a man of character. But
Speaker 2: there's a third element, and this is the most important
Speaker 2: one of all, and it's this. His public commitment to
Speaker 2: God made him stand out. His public commitment to God
Speaker 2: made him stand out. He just didn't have personal professional
Speaker 2: competence and personal character. He had a public commitment to God.
Speaker 2: Daniel's very open. He's very public about his faith, about
Speaker 2: his love for God, about his commitment. He praised in
Speaker 2: the open. He talks about God in the open. Remember,
Speaker 2: he had led nebuchon Nezzar to faith in Christ or
Speaker 2: faith in God. And everybody knew where Daniel stood religiously,
Speaker 2: where his faith was, where his allegiance was, and including
Speaker 2: his jealous coworkers. And it says in verse five that
Speaker 2: his coworkers these enemies who were conspiring to get him
Speaker 2: fired at work. That's what's happening here. And you may
Speaker 2: have some co workers who are conspiring to get you
Speaker 2: fired at work. He says, his coworkers concluded, our only
Speaker 2: chance of finding any grounds to get rid of Daniel
Speaker 2: will find something to accuse in his religious practices. Wow,
Speaker 2: he said, the guy's done nothing wrong. He's spotless. Do
Speaker 2: we need leaders like that in America? Don't get me started.
Speaker 2: Don't get me started. We need leaders of integrity like this.
Speaker 2: They said, we can't find anything wrong with him today?
Speaker 2: Can you find anything right with him? And so the
Speaker 2: say traps concloct a Daniel trap, and let's read the
Speaker 2: story and then we'll extract some lessons for today. Up
Speaker 2: here on the screen, it says this verse six to nine.
Speaker 2: So the officials who wanted Daniel removed from office went
Speaker 2: to the king. This is Darius, and they said, King Darius,
Speaker 2: live forever. They're buttering them up. Oh you're so great,
Speaker 2: you are the man Darius, You live forever, buddy. And
Speaker 2: he says, we've convened everyone of course not Daniel. And
Speaker 2: we've all agreed that for the next thirty days everyone
Speaker 2: should pray to you. What are they doing. They're appealing
Speaker 2: to this guy's ego. Oh you're so great, you're the man.
Speaker 2: We just think, you know, yeah, everyoney's got the religion here.
Speaker 2: And actually the Babylonians and the Persians, they really didn't
Speaker 2: care so much about what you leave. There wasn't a
Speaker 2: standard religion. But they said, we really think everybody should
Speaker 2: pray to you for thirty days. Now they're setting this
Speaker 2: up just to make a trap for day Daniel. And
Speaker 2: they said, and we think that you should issue an
Speaker 2: edict saying that anyone who disobeys your order by praying
Speaker 2: to anybody else during the next thirty days will be
Speaker 2: tossed into the pit where your lions are kept. Ever
Speaker 2: heard of Daniel in the lions den? This is the story.
Speaker 2: And let's put this decree in writing so it can't
Speaker 2: be altered or repealed, according to the laws and the
Speaker 2: Meds and the Persians. So that's exactly what King Darius did. Now,
Speaker 2: the law of the means in a Persian is very
Speaker 2: famous in history, and it's this. If a king made
Speaker 2: a law it could never be reversed, and even the
Speaker 2: king couldn't reverse it if he'd signed it into the law.
Speaker 2: According to the law leads in person. Once it was law,
Speaker 2: it could not be rescinded, could not be revoked, could
Speaker 2: not be repealed, and the king couldn't even do it
Speaker 2: himself even if he made the law. And so that
Speaker 2: that's why they said, don't just make this edict, make
Speaker 2: a law and write it and sign it. And what
Speaker 2: are they doing. They're kissing up to this guy's ego,
Speaker 2: And in a moment of weakness and ego, Darius goes, sure,
Speaker 2: why not, So he signs this law. Everybody has to
Speaker 2: pray to me for the next thirty days. Now, these
Speaker 2: guys are so desperate to get rid of Daniel that
Speaker 2: they pass a national law just to hurt one guy.
Speaker 2: There's only one guy there worried about. This is one guy,
Speaker 2: because then everybody knows Daniel is a believer, and he
Speaker 2: prays in the open and he talks about God in
Speaker 2: the open. Now, how do you think Daniel responded to
Speaker 2: this test? Everybody's got to stop praying to anybody else,
Speaker 2: and you got to pray to the emperor for thirty days. Well,
Speaker 2: he's got a lot of options, so let's put us
Speaker 2: up here on the board. Here's some options he could.
Speaker 2: Number one, he could accept the law and kind of
Speaker 2: fake pray to the king for thirty days. He wouldn't
Speaker 2: obviously be praying to him, but he could pretend. He
Speaker 2: could just go, Okay, I'm just going to go with
Speaker 2: the flow the law of the land, and so I'm
Speaker 2: gonna I'm just gonna go ahead and fake pray to
Speaker 2: the king for thirty days. That's an option. Okay. Here's
Speaker 2: a second one. He could publicly protest the law with
Speaker 2: picket signs. Okay, he could go down to the palace
Speaker 2: with the biggest say I won't pray, I won't pray,
Speaker 2: I won't pray. Okay, Okay, that's a possibility, but it's
Speaker 2: not going to do any good because the law of
Speaker 2: the meeds and Persian. This is not a democracy in America.
Speaker 2: Law is going to be changed, and you can protest
Speaker 2: and you can change laws, but this is not a democracy,
Speaker 2: so there's no way this law is going to be
Speaker 2: presented no matter how much he protests. Here's the third possibility.
Speaker 2: He could appeal privately to the king. Obviously, Darius liked him.
Speaker 2: He had promoted him to the third in command and
Speaker 2: then was going to put him over the entire kingdom.
Speaker 2: So he's got a good relationship with the king. He
Speaker 2: could probably just go back to our channel and say, heiking,
Speaker 2: come on, cut me some slack on this. You know
Speaker 2: I'm Jewish, you know I believe in the true God,
Speaker 2: and you know, once you just cut some corners here
Speaker 2: and let me do it. He could appeal privately, but again,
Speaker 2: even the king couldn't reverse this law. Here's another possibility.
Speaker 2: He could just stop praying to God for thirty days.
Speaker 2: Not pray to the emperor, but just stop praying to
Speaker 2: God for thirty days. That's an option, not a good one,
Speaker 2: but it's an option. Here's another one. Number five. He
Speaker 2: could keep praying to God, the real God, just do
Speaker 2: it in secret. Now some of you think, what's wrong
Speaker 2: with that? Okay, the law says you can't do it,
Speaker 2: but you're canna break the lodges. Keep praying, but pray
Speaker 2: in secret. Well, although Daniel could do this, if he did,
Speaker 2: his enemy just won what they wanted because they wanted
Speaker 2: to embarrass him. They wanted him to back down off
Speaker 2: his faith and he was the kind of guy who
Speaker 2: prayed in public. He prayed before meals. I know some
Speaker 2: Christians who are afraid to pray before meals in a restaurant.
Speaker 2: What will other people think? Maybe they think of a fanatic,
Speaker 2: and so I'll pray in secret. But I'm not going
Speaker 2: to pray when I go to Chile's or when I
Speaker 2: go to some other restaurant, and I'm just afraid of
Speaker 2: what other people think. Well, he could have done that.
Speaker 2: But if he'd done that, then those guys actually win
Speaker 2: because they're trying to get him to back down and
Speaker 2: to cave in and to be ashamed of his God.
Speaker 2: Then there is of course a sixth option, which is
Speaker 2: keep praying in public, as he'd done all his life.
Speaker 2: In other words, it was his habit and it was
Speaker 2: his customer. Now, which of those six options would you
Speaker 2: choose if you were Daniel, The easiest one, the convenient one,
Speaker 2: or the one that in all likelihood would throw you
Speaker 2: into a pit with a bunch of alliance. I think
Speaker 2: the big question of this text is this, how far
Speaker 2: are you willing to go for your faith? Or, as
Speaker 2: the title of the messages, will you stand strong for
Speaker 2: God publicly? Hey?
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening to Pastor Rick's Daily Hope.
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