Daniel's Example: The Power of Prayer in Adversity

1) "And so Daniel, by this point, he's been in Babylon for nearly 70 years. He's in his mid-teens when he's carried off into exile. And so now he's in his mid to late 80s. I don't know about you, but in a lot of the pictures that I was read as a child and read about Daniel, he always was painted almost as being quite young, but he's not. This is Daniel in his mid to late 80s, his entire adult life and virtually his whole life has been spent in exile away from his homeland. But as we've seen in previous chapters, and if you look at the pattern of what is said about Daniel from chapters one through five, that we consistently read the same things about his character. We read that he is a man of integrity. He is faithful. He has great skill. He has these gifts that God has given him." [07:22] (54 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2) "And I was struck this week by how difficult it must have been for Daniel to keep applying himself, for Daniel to keep turning up and being excellent and faithful in his work, to keep showing up in a kingdom that was not his own, in a kingdom and a culture that was hostile to his people and to his God and yet Daniel continued to apply himself to the work that he had been called to and part of this is because of the nature of his character, he's a man of integrity, he's a man of great skill and so he's honouring those who are in leadership and authority over him but there's actually more to it than that because he's honouring God's word to the Israelites." [08:12] (50 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3) "And so undoubtedly these words are echoing in Daniel's ears and in his heart God has good planned for us while we are in exile while we are in captivity God has promised to bring us out and he will be faithful but until that time comes I'm actually going to live as God has called us to live I'm going to contribute to the peace and the prosperity of the land and I'm going to use the gifts that God has given me faithfully. And so this is what Daniel does. And it's recognized and he climbs through the ranks and it brings jealousy from the other rulers and leaders. And so they go about trying to find some dirt on Daniel. And when they can't find anything, they decide to take another approach. They decide to draw a conflict between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of Persia or in Babylon." [10:50] (61 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4) "And so then the king finds himself in a predicament. So clear is Daniel's faithfulness and his skill and his giftedness of his job that the king thinks so highly of him that he sets about trying to save the life of this one man. But when he can't find a way, a stone is rolled in front and we read that the den is sealed, so no rescue is possible. And then the effect on the king is clear. He spends that whole night distressed, not able to sleep. We don't really know how Daniel spent the night. I know in the picture books I read as a kid, he was snuggling up with one of the lions. I'm not sure whether that was accurate. We don't really know. Maybe he spent the night praying or maybe he spent the night cuddling." [17:13] (47 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5) "And I was struck. I don't know if I've seen it before, but I was really struck this week how incredible it is that the glimpse of the testimony of Daniel's life is so strong, so compelling is his wisdom and his faithfulness to his God that the king, while deeply concerned and not able to sleep, actually rushes to the den. Thinking that there is a chance. there is a hope that Daniel is still alive what an incredible miraculous testimony that is that even the king thinks there's something different about Daniel and about Daniel's God just maybe he's alive and we see Daniel calls out and he says yes I am alive and he says that I've been found innocent in God's sight I want you to notice he doesn't say I'm sinless because Daniel was just as sinful as you or as me instead he says I've been found innocent in the face of immense persecution Daniel has not forsaken God's command to him Daniel had chosen the kingdom of God over the kingdom of man and what an incredible choice he's made there" [18:00] (79 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


6) "And I'm not saying that there aren't challenges. There certainly are, and some of you in your work context would know that firsthand. We also know that there are places in the world where people are under threat, where their very lives are under threat if they choose the kingdom of God over the kingdom of man. But regardless of whether we sit in a modern-day Babylon today or in a few years' time, if things get trickier, Daniel gives us a really good model to follow. He gives us a great model to follow when we're trying to navigate these two kingdoms, that as followers of Christ, we know that we are called into the kingdom of God and we have glimpses of that now as we await the fulfillment of it when Jesus returns. But we also have to live well in this kingdom of man that surrounds us." [19:48] (55 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


7) "And what do we see from Daniel's example? We see that Daniel didn't go looking for fight. he wasn't short-tempered he wasn't hostile he didn't adopt a posture of the world is out to get me even when the world was out to get him he doesn't adopt this posture instead he works faithfully for the wellness and the prosperity of the city in which he's living he applies himself to his job he acts with wisdom and compassion and integrity and he demonstrates to all those around him including the king faithfulness to his God but he does it in a way that is wise you see Daniel had managed to successfully navigate 70 years in exile 70 years in leadership in this foreign land 70 years and the way that he'd done that he'd been respected by leader after leader after leader that had come and even when he spoke truth that was hard for them to hear they still showed respect for him because of the nature of his character because of his integrity because of his wisdom and because of his faithfulness to God" [21:00] (76 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


8) "And as he faces a threat on his life, what does he do? He goes straight to his room. He looks out over the grandeur of Babylon. Out towards Jerusalem. And he says, God, I need your favor. and I need your protection and I need your promise. And that's where he goes. And so if you said to Daniel, couldn't you have just not prayed for 30 days? Daniel would probably, I'm assuming, say to us, I couldn't not pray for a day. I couldn't not go to God and seek God's favor and seek God's protection and thank him for his goodness and thank him for his promise and thank him that he declared that he was gonna set his people free." [25:51] (41 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)