Daniel

A Faithful Exile

READ Daniel 6

You may have had the pleasure of attending a performance of Handel’s Messiah or hearing it on the radio at Christmastime. It is a beautiful and intricate piece. One of the movements declares this about Christ, “He trusted in God that He would deliver Him; let Him deliver Him, if He delight in Him.”^* These words come from Psalm 22:8, but they could just as well be the words of King Darius to Daniel: “May your God, whom you serve continually, rescue you!” (Daniel 6:16). As we find in Daniel’s story, that’s exactly what God did.

Daniel had been taken captive from Jerusalem when Babylon conquered the city under King Nebuchadnezzar. The Babylonians dragged all the middle- and upper-class people hundreds of miles east, to Babylon. Daniel and other young men like him were conscripted into the king’s service. They were taught the language and culture of Babylon, given new names, and stripped of their old identities. At least that was the idea.

Daniel showed that while the Babylonians could take him out of Jerusalem, they could not take the faith he learned in Jerusalem out of him. Daniel was committed to God. He prayed three times a day, always facing the direction of Jerusalem, though it was destroyed and far beyond the western horizon. We can perhaps imagine Daniel singing the mournful song preserved for us as Psalm 137: “May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not consider Jerusalem my highest joy” (v. 6). A foreign land, a new name, and a new vocation as an officer to the king could not take away Daniel’s faith. Whatever was taken away from Daniel, Daniel never let go of his trust in God.

Daniel’s special giftedness for royal service led the king to favor him above his other officials, which caused those officials to burn with envy against Daniel. Knowing King Darius intended to make Daniel his highest official, the others sought some grounds to accuse Daniel of wrongdoing. The problem was, Daniel was above reproach. He had no skeletons in his closet, no corruption or negligence of duty with which the other officials could make a case against him. Can you imagine a politician with such a spotless record? Daniel embodied the words of 1 Peter 2:12: “Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.”

Far from glorifying Daniel’s God, however, his adversaries took a different approach. They convinced Darius to make a law prohibiting worship of anyone or anything other than Darius for thirty days. When Daniel learned about the law, he didn’t despair, and he certainly didn’t bend to the king’s demands. He simply walked straight to his room and prayed.

King Darius’s officials had him in a bind, and he was forced to send Daniel to the lions’ den for his disregard of the law. That’s when Darius told Daniel, “May your God, whom you serve continually, rescue you!” (Daniel 6:16). And, of course, that’s exactly what God did: “No wound was found on him, because he had trusted in his God” (v. 23). As a result, King Darius himself was moved to profess faith in Daniel’s God: “He is the living God and he endures forever. . . . He rescues and he saves” (vv. 26–27). Daniel’s faithfulness to God led the king of Babylon to praise God’s name.

Daniel’s story reminds us that we should always seek to live lives that are beyond reproach. Our Monday through Saturday conduct must not be out of sync with our Sunday worship. We should seek to live, by God’s grace and the sanctifying presence of God’s Spirit, blameless lives in this world, remembering Christ’s words: “Let your light shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your Father in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). Daniel modeled this: His faithfulness to God led Darius to glorify God.

Examine your heart and life. Have you grown lukewarm in your love for God and in your desire to follow Christ? What circumstances may have led to this? Take inspiration from Daniel’s faithfulness. Removed from everything he knew, and also given the luxury of a royal position, he nonetheless remained anchored to God. Losing much must not lead us away from God, and neither should gaining much. As Job declared, the Lord gives and the Lord takes away (Job 1:21). Our task is to remain faithful in hope and in prayer in every circumstance, putting our ultimate trust in God. When we trust in God, we’ll find again and again that he will indeed deliver us.