she would turn to Daniel chapter 6 and that's where we'll start tonight.
Okay. How many of you remember,
tell me the oldest telephone that you remember.
Not a picture of one,
but the oldest telephone that you used.
Okay. Did anybody have, okay, yes.
Let me go behind you first. Yes.
A what? 52617.
Yeah. What's that? Himlock.
Okay. There was your grandma's phone.
Did anybody have one of those crank cranks?
There's one. Okay.
How many of you have the lone cords in the kitchen that you would walk
clear around the house and occasionally you do this and when you hang it up,
it would go all in one little ball.
It was the ugliest mess you ever want to see.
Then they came out with those slender phones that you could sit next to your bed.
Those you pull at the trim line and it would come flying with you when you turned over.
I remember our first cell phone.
First cell phone was a brick.
It was about yay long,
about that wide and about that thick.
Yeah. Absolutely.
That thing was something else and you could make a call for eight cents a minute.
Imagine that.
One hour conversation would cost you just a little bit.
But those were the good old days and things have changed a little bit.
But I just want to bring that and just touch on those things just real quickly.
Okay. The characteristics of us as believers.
What does it look like?
If someone talked about us,
what would they say?
We said that the characteristics is a born again Christian, born again.
Can you explain that to someone who asked you that?
Here's my favorite. I'm heaven bound.
One day I'm going to be in glory and I'll see the streets of
gold and I'm going to see all these wonderful things.
My mother is going to be there as well as my grandmother,
my grandfather and my other grandfather.
But the relationship is going to be a little bit different.
It won't be my mother as my mother.
I'm the child she's a parent,
but it's going to be my mother who is a child of God and I'm a child of God.
So the relationship is going to be somewhat different.
A righteous life, a holy calling,
like this one, light to the world.
When the world thinks, this is a question,
when the world thinks about a believer,
you and we say that you are the light of the world,
how would you describe that?
How would you describe that?
You walk into a room and everything's a glow?
Or you walk into a room where there's controversy and you bring peace?
We're salt to the world.
We're going to live forever.
One place or the other,
but most believers, all believers will live in glory.
And the fact that we are more than conquerors.
And we're people of prayer.
Tonight we're going to talk about King Darius and Daniel.
How many of you love history?
Is that all?
Six people love history?
Okay. Pastries at hand twice, seven.
Okay. So what can we learn about Daniel's prayer life in this lesson?
That's what we're going to look at tonight.
We're going to learn about his consistency, his priority, humility.
He was unashamably committed to his prayer life.
And he prayed expectantly.
John Dan Cleave asked me to pray for his son.
And I said I would.
How will Michael Gentry, when he closes his eyes tonight,
when he wakes up tomorrow morning,
will he pray for John Van Cleave's son?
God, I don't know if he's a believer or not,
but if he's not a believer,
whatever things that need to happen in his life, laying in that bed,
I pray your Holy Spirit will make those move forth
so that he can hear the gospel and have the opportunity
to go to live in glory forever with you.
Dear Lord, I just covered John with my prayers and asked for your mercy and
your grace to just cover over him so that he
is thinking right. He's praying right. He's
leading by example. He's doing those things that's going to help
win the loss for you. It may not be God's will,
don't get me wrong, it may not be God's will that everyone that gets hurt
or sick lives.
But in the life that they are living, there may be those times that God needs
to bring the realization of what's happening to
that person home to you to think about what they're
dealing with and what their family is dealing with,
how you can help, how they can help you and things like that.
So,
we're going to be looking tonight at the jealousy of political
subordinates. How many of you like politics?
Okay. That blew that part right out of the water.
Okay. We're going to look at the vanity of a king,
the integrity of a man, the power and perseverance of God,
and then lastly even wow animals and violence. Look at that tonight.
This is going to be a great study. I'm going to end and take you back to the
beginning. Daniel chapter 6 verse 28. So, this Daniel
prospered in the reign of Darius and in the reign of Cyrus, the Persian.
I just want to say that up front because the story starts out with him in a
good position and it ends with him in a good position,
but there is a great deal of things that happen
between the time he rose to a position of power and then lastly
the story ends with him there. Okay. So, today we're going to examine Daniel
chapter 6 and our focus is life examples from
God's word. I want to give you a little bit of humor. How many of you like humor?
We like humor, so we just need to use it sometime to get a big
picture to kind of take a look at what's going on.
You ever heard of wrong place, wrong time?
Now talk about planning. Anybody seen any problems here?
Peter Parker, right? This is my favorite.
Macchicken Plain. Looks like a hamburger to me.
And, poor Greg, this one's for you. I brought this one especially for you.
Measured, twist, cut once.
Is anybody that bad?
As funny as these were, it's no laughing matter if we totally miss the point of
scripture in our lives. If we're not careful, we'll treat the
world, treat the word of God this way. So, we think tonight about how is this
jealousy of political subordinates manifested? We see that it's manifested
from Bale's Chasar, the king, to Darius, the me.
And this whole idea of politics and power
is as old as mankind itself. And there are many today
that this is still going on. I feel like we are the laughing stock of the
world right now between McCarthy and Gates and
what's our congressman named Jim Jordan?
And so you look at all those people, are they power hungry?
Maybe, maybe not. But we have these things going on
and these things are going on today and we see them but some of the same things
happened many, many years ago. So, we got a transition of authority passed to
finish up last week as we saw and then we're going to start off in
Daniel chapter 6. Now, it pleased Darius to set over the kingdom
120 princes which should be over the whole kingdom. Now,
at this time, this is the largest kingdom in the world or that man has known in
this particular point in time. And it pleased Darius to set this
system up. We're going to see that he had three presidents
of whom Daniel was the first. That the princes might give a counter to them
and the king should have no damage, no scandals,
no people not paying those taxes, no problems. Everybody's going to behave and
act right. He had his system set up. Him, these three, these 120.
And so this is the way it was all planned out and laid out for him.
But it pleased Darius to do this. But then we're told, we're getting to the
story a little bit more and we start seeing some things that's really
interesting. Then this Daniel was preferred above
the presidents and princes because of Anne, what? Excellent spirit was in him
and the king thought to set him over the whole realm.
Now let's think about this. Daniel is now 80 years old.
80 years young for this crowd. How about that?
He's 80 years old. He's been around. He's seen a lot.
And he has an excellent spirit and there's Daniel doesn't get in the hurry.
He didn't argue. I think he's probably a plane spoken.
God did his words, listened intently and there was something about him that the
king really liked. And so the king thought to set him
over the whole realm. It was in the king's mind, you know,
if I hadn't set these three up, I'd just put Daniel, let him run everything.
I'll be the king, you'll be Daniel and those other three and everything will be
just fine. But by him saying and thinking that
there's something called jealousy.
What's a good working definition of the word jealousy?
I like to have three people tell me that.
And if you don't start real fast, I'll appoint three people.
Okay, who is that? What? Anger? Okay, anger. Why?
You wish you had it. Okay, another one.
Greed. Greedy. Okay.
Selfish could be one, selfish could drive you to be jealous.
Yes, prideful.
That you want to be like them. Remember, I want to be like Mike.
I could slam dunk a basketball until I turned 30.
And that was year they raised the goals up about three or four inches.
You guys know about that? But they became jealous of Daniel
Huay, his spirit, the way he managed things around
him and his just his own personal being. There was something about Daniel that the
king liked and could appreciate. Is there something about us as
believers that when the world, see,
I believe that we ought to be the best employees,
the best bosses, the best neighbors, that when people look at us they go, wow!
I wish I had 10 more neighbors like him and like her.
There's something about them that I just really appreciate
and I'm drawn to them.
But this group were jealous of him.
And so they sought to find occasion against Daniel concerning the kingdom
but they could find none occasion nor fault for as much as he was faithful.
Neither was there any error or fault found in him.
Here is the $60,000 question. I don't know if they asked the same question in
Idaho but they asked it in Ohio occasionally.
Is there anybody in here that doesn't have a skeleton or half a skeleton or a
few bones in their closet? Raise your right hand.
We all have something.
Can you imagine they said of Daniel, we got nothing.
There's nothing about this guy that that we can find
and find an error or fault in him.
So today we see power struggles, professional sports,
entertainment world, and I saw a lot of this business
in corporations, power struggles. I've seen where this manager and this
manager wants that VP position
and they were so kind to the other guy and they wanted to make sure that he
got all the preferential treatment. No, no, not really.
It was like what can I do to make myself look better
so that I can have that position and I'm so glad we don't have that in
churches. Amen? Amen? There we go. We got a
couple more and then we see the greatest power
struggles in the federal government.
The definition of power struggle refers to people fighting about who is
in control and both trying to dominate the relationship
in one way or another. Whatever it takes for me to be in charge,
I'm willing to do it. That's scary, but we have many today
that have sold themselves out to get that position.
Now, serving of God, Daniel distinguished himself. Daniel was one of
three leaders directly under Darius and he shined above the other two
leaders because he had this excellent spirit and he was an old guy.
There's something to say about old wisdom, isn't it?
Wisdom has its place and he showed that and Daniel had a good attitude
in his work life, work in life and this made him the object of attack.
Who's he thinking? Look at that Daniel. Sucking up to the king. The king likes him
more than he likes me. I wonder what's...
That must be something wrong with the king because I'm as good as Daniel.
Can you hear that bickering going on?
But we have grown so much more in the year 2023 that we don't deal with that
and it's so nice that we don't have that. Today we call it work-life balance.
Daniel chapter 6 verses 4 through 9. We're getting to the actual lesson.
I think I'm there now. Then said these men, we shall not find any occasion
against this Daniel except we find it against him concerning the law of God.
Then these presidents and princes assembled together to the king and said
thus unto him, King Darius live forever. Now the Bible says all the presidents
but we know that not all the presidents were there. So all the presidents, the two
of the presidents of the kingdom and the governors and the princes and the counselors
and the captains have consulted together to establish a royal
statute and to make a firm decree that whosoever shall ask a petition
of any God or man for 30 days save of thee, O King. He shall be cast into the den of lions.
Now these guys are pretty shrewd. Now O King establish the decree and sign in the writing
that it may not change according to the law of the Medes and Persians which
alter it not. Wherefore the king Darius signed the writing and the decree.
Why would he sign?
Why would he sign? You think they stroked his ego?
He lived forever. This is going to show you almost as being divine
that no one will ask any petition of anyone except you. O King, this is going to be great.
You are going to be the man, the God, the king and so that's what they pushed to do.
No. Plot to take down a sitting president. Well I thought about several different ways
to go here when I thought I'd better behave. Sometimes today a candidate or a nominee for
political office is set under this kind of scrutiny but imagine looking as hard as you can
at a public servant in office some 60 years and finding nothing wrong. No fraudulent expense
accounts, no intern scandals, no questionable business deals, no gifts from lobbyists,
no accusations from his staff. That's just about every one of the things that has caused
certain people to fall within the last five to ten years. Simply there are no skeletons in Daniel's
closet. His enemies examined his life and found nothing to attack so they had to make something up.
Have you ever looked at someone for the day
and they lied to you? You know they're relying. They know they're relying.
What's the impasse? How do you get past that?
Sometimes you can.
Why didn't the king see through that? Wouldn't it have been easy for him to say,
you know, wait a minute these guys are trying to pull a fast one on me.
But in the midst of all the commotion somehow Daniel was missed in the calculations.
And he wasn't there when all of this was going on so as they made it up it stuck.
When I was growing up, I love this illustration, you ever cooked macaroni and cheese?
You boiled a macaroni? When is it done? Bingo. How many of you threw macaroni against the wall?
If it sticks, it's good. I think there's more people in here that's done that than is
fessing up but that's okay. That's okay.
Impeachment. What are the causes for impeachment for the president? I'm talking about today.
There are several reasons for a president to be impeached including treason,
bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors. And then there's the constitutional process
that I listed there right underneath it. It begins in the House representative like what we
saw with Trump and with Bill Clinton and others. They go to trial in the Senate with the Chief
Justice of the Supreme Court. In America, we had John Tyler, the first impeached president.
And you, Jackson was impeached. President Richard M. Nixon faced impeachment but rather than face
that he resigned office. Bill Clinton was impeached over allegations of perjury and obstruction of
justice but he did not leave office. And then Donald Trump was impeached over allegations of
abuse of power and obstruction of Congress but was acquitted on all counts by the Senate.
What can we do to get rid of this guy? In search of a scandal, when he considered Daniel's
integrity, Spurgeon wrote this. He said, Spurgeon, our modern compromises as far as
for Lord Fair Speech, Lord Time Server, Mr. Smooth Man, Mr. Anything, Mr. Face Both Ways, Mr. Two Tongues,
and all the members of their club, Mr. Byans included, the entire company of them will be swept away
when the judge comes with the bosom of destruction. Charles Spurgeon. Daniel here is not the hero
of his own virtue but the spirit speaks through his mouth. The spirit needs to speak through our
mouth. So the other presidents, we shall not find any charge against this Daniel unless they find it
against him. You're certainly the law of God. So these men, they knew Daniel well but they knew
also the King very well too and they figured out, they wanted to figure out a way to trap this guy.
So they knew that he had been faithful to his God in all circumstances. Every Christian should
consider if others can say the same thing about them. I'm not faultless, probably neither are you.
But as I've said before, our lives is a process of ups and downs.
Sometimes we're on the mountaintop and no sooner than we get there and we feel so great and who we are in Christ,
back up in his fellowship. So you look at a life that does this, will it ever stop?
But what we want to see is a life that does this. But I'm getting closer and closer to the image of
Christ. But I don't see him my whole life just bouncing up and down but I'm getting better and I'm
getting better and I'm getting better. They saw Daniel at a plateau that they could never reach
and they wanted to take him down. Kind of sad how that gets but it's so true. The world may not
know the details of doctrine or the intimacies of worship with God but they can tell a bad temper.
They can see selfishness a mile away and they can see conceitedness, dishonesty. The world is a very poor
critic of my Christianity but is a very sufficient one for my conduct. The world is always looking.
I like those shows about unsolved crimes and I love that there is no statute of limitations on
murder because it makes for good shows. Somehow the perfect crime is almost committed and then
five, ten, fifteen, twenty years later something comes up and they go, here's the evidence that can take
this person down and bring them to justice.
Oh, we could find ourselves brought to justice real easily but let's focus back on Daniel.
All the presidents of the kingdom and the governors and all these people all came together
and they set the king up. He's not the first king to be set up, he won't be the last king to get set up.
And so they've consulted together to establish a statute to make a firm decree
that whose self shall ask petition of any God or man for 30 days say the king shall be cast into the
den of lions and they knew the king very well and they figured through his pride they could figure out
a way for a unified kingdom without Daniel. In certain countries in South America and over in
Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, I had a Napoleon student, had a Bangladeshi student and one of the
things that they told me was like this one kid told me he said you know when it was time for me to
get my driver's license my dad bribed the instructor. I said he bribed him, I said you can't do that,
he said oh no that's the way we do it in our country. Well I get you in jail over here.
They couldn't bribe the king but they bribed his pride and they figured out a way to get to him.
What pretense could they urge for for so silly an audience, an ordinance probably to flatter the
king's ambition. There's to make him a god for 30 days. I should like to be a god for 30 days.
That's what they threw on him and he took it hook, line and sinker. Do they use that term in Idaho?
Hook, line and sinker? Do they? Okay. What did they come from anywhere? Anybody know? Get out of here.
That was a bait that they used for him. If the enemies of Darius knew him they also knew
they knew what they were going to do for him and these are some artifacts of his actual time in
office and some of the things that took place with him. Point number one, Jesus never sinned.
Not once, not ever. Let that sink in. Never sinned. Never an evil thought.
I don't think Jesus reached up behind his little brother's ear and thumped it.
I did. Did you do that to your brother?
He never sinned.
Temptation is not sin but yelling to temptation is.
And so he never yielded to temptation. I'm going to just go through this real quickly because I'm
running a little bit short of time but I want to just, I think this is very important. I want to get
to it. It's a little extra. And Jesus being full of the Holy Ghost returned from Jordan and was
led by the Spirit. Now notice this. He was full and he was led by the Spirit into the
wilderness being 40 days tempted of the devil and in those days he did eat nothing and when
they were ended he after it hungered and the devil said unto him, if thou be the Son of God,
command this stone to be made bread. We all know this and then Jesus answered him saying,
it is written that man should not live by bread alone but by every word of God. And the devil
taking him up into a high mountain showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time.
And the devil said unto him, all power will I give thee and the glory of them. Think about
this is where Daniel and his little friends are right now and the glory of them for that is
delivered unto me and to whomsoever I will give it. Who is the prince in the power of the air?
The devil is, Satan is.
There is some demonic activity going on right now in the Gaza Strip. Go on heights, Hamas
and all of that. I saw the beheading of children.
If that is what all the power and the glory and all that is, wow, you would have to be
pretty lost to want that. And that's what Satan said he wanted to offer. And Jesus said,
get thee behind me, Satan for it is written, thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him
only shalt thou serve. And he brought him to Jerusalem and set him on a pinnacle of the
temple and said unto him, if thou be the son of God, cast thyself down from hints for it is written,
he shall give his angel charge over thee to keep thee and in their hands they shall bury thee up.
Lest at any time thy dash thy foot against the stone. And Jesus answering said unto him,
it is said thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God. And when the devil had ended all the temptations,
he departed from him. What does it say? For a season. Is Satan out to attack us? Who you bet?
And he wants more than anything else to see us jealous?
He'd love to see a bunch of connivingness going on.
But he did it to Jesus and he left him for a season. I don't think we can expect anything
any better. Darius' worship for 30 days. Could not pass up the opportunity? Could you?
Could you pass the test? Would you fail because of Christ? That's the answer. That's the question
for all of us. Think about the whole idea of conspiracy and how they wanted to get rid of him
and to take over the kingdom themselves. Now one of the things that was really interesting
about this period of time is that, and we know that according to the Medes and the Persians,
once a law was written, it could not be rescinded. Even the king himself couldn't change the law.
How do we change laws in America?
You vote? How else? How do the politicians change laws in America?
It's called an amendment.
They make an amendment and they put something on to make things change just a little bit so
that they can get their way. The decrees of the Persians were unchangeable because why?
He thought to speak for the gods who could never be wrong and thus never needed to change their
mind. That's an interesting concept to think that they spoke for God. Man, the great danger that I
see in that is that there are many pastors in this world that think that they are speaking for God.
The Bible says that they're going to come before him and he's going to say,
they're going to say, did I not cast out devils in thy name and in thy name did I do all these
great and wonderful, God, I was good. He's going to say depart from me for I never knew you,
you workers of iniquity. Oh my goodness. It's going to be an awesome time doing that period.
Verse 10, the second portion here. Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed,
he went into his house and his windows being opened in his chamber toward Jerusalem.
He kneeled upon his knees three times a day in pre and gave thanks before his God as he did a four
time. It wasn't anything different. Now Daniel didn't do anything different when he got that
terrible bad news. He just continued to be consistent in his worship and in his prayer with God.
Wouldn't it be nice that when troubles come and the winds of light began to blow that we don't go,
oh God, but we just stay the course and say, God, it's all under your control.
And I'm going to be patient and wait for you to move and for wait for you to be my sufficiency.
Now he knew as he did a four time. Now these men assembled. I was going to bring that out in verse
six because this word assembled is like the plotting and scheming and conniving. They assembled
and found Daniel praying and making supplication before his God. And they came near and spoke
before the king concerning the king's decree. Hasstyl not signed a decree that every man that
shall ask a petition of any God or man within 30 days say thee, oh king, shall be cast into the
den of lions. The king answered the thing is true according to the law of the Mesa and the Persians
which cannot be altered. So they assembled. Daniel was doing what Daniel normally did
and they came and they sought him out and they found him praying. They found him making supplications
to God. They saw something going on and it was like, we've got him now. And so he prayed in his
private chamber. He had that place where he prayed and he prayed with his windows open towards
Jerusalem kneeling down praying three times a day. He prayed. He gave thanks for who God was,
who God is and how he has manifested himself. And even though he was in a foreign land, he prayed
to a God that was still able to sustain him when he was in Babylonian captivity and now that he's
in Meads and Persians captivity, God can take care of us no matter where we are. Whether I'm in
Finlay, Ohio, a good old Van Buren, or for that matter of fact, if I'm in the Golan Heights right
now in Israel, the same God that cares for me here is the same God that's watching over people there.
Man, we serve an awesome God. Like Satan, we see the conspirators of Daniel lying, deceiving,
and accusing him before the throne. Who's that sound like? Sounds like Satan himself. He just,
he wants to do nothing but steal, kill, and destroy. Here the battle is not physical, but it's all
spiritual. They could have duped it out and the best man won, but they took a spiritual attack.
And my friend, we are going to fall under spiritual attack. And we need to know the
difference between physical and spiritual so we can deal with it in the proper manner.
Then ask that they and said before the king, that Daniel, which is, now notice how they describe
Daniel, that Daniel, which is of the children of the captivity of Judah. He's a Jew. He's a foreigner.
And Daniel's been there a lot of years, or at 60 years. It reminds me of when we first lived in Wyoming.
There were people who lived in Wyoming, and then there was those other people moving in.
And I met people who had been there 50, 40 years, and they said, you know, I'm still,
they look at me like I'm, I transplanted in. They would never accept them because of that.
This is what they threw in the king's face. This guy, he's a Jew. And, oh king,
nor the decree that thou hast signed, make his petition. He does it three times. Not only does
he pray, he does it three times a day. In the king, when he heard these words,
or saw displeased with himself, I find it very fascinating that after all of this,
when it finally comes out what those other two kings and princes and others had done to him,
that he faulted himself rather than those around him. He didn't say, you guys trick me,
I'm going to, he was, he was so displeased with himself. And he set his heart on Daniel to deliver
him. And he labored till the going down of the sun to deliver him. And these men assembled
into the king and said into the king, no, oh king, that the law of the means and the Persians is,
and that no decree nor statute which the king established may be changed.
Daniel went and he prayed. Dr. McFerrin wrote this, unless you're prepared to be in the minority
and now and then to be called narrow, fanatic, and to be laughed at by men because you will not do
what they do, but abstain and resist, then there's little chance of your ever making much of your
Christian profession. They want you to, oh come on, do this with us. It's not going to hurt
anything. Nobody's going to see it. You can do this. It's not going to hurt. Come on. Don't worry
about it. It'll be okay. And it's amazing how those subtle little hints like that can draw people in.
It isn't hard to see why people or men pleasers seem that if people have the power to hire or fire
us or to break our hearts, to slander us, to make our lives generally miserable, the power to obey
God and stand for him comes from an subtle understanding that God is really the one that is in control.
Prayer, I love this, is reliance on God who has power to combat the enemy. It's not in Michael
Gentry to do it. It's not in you to do it by yourself. You can purpose in your heart that you
won't be tempted. You can purpose in your heart that I'll do it this way, but without God's strength
and strengthening in his power and his guidance and his mercy and his grace, you too could fail.
You could fall and we could find ourselves in a terrible situation. The consequences of doing
what is right. I can sleep better. I can have joy. I can have a good fellowship with my brothers and
sisters in Christ. I like those consequences. If I can do right and have those things happen for me,
I'm all for it. If it's important to Jesus, we should make it important for us.
We want to please him in our thinking, in our conduct, in our prayer life, in our study,
in our fellowship with one another as we edify and build up the body of Christ.
What is your role and how well are you accomplishing your role? Because it's real quickly. I'm going
to do this before I run out of time. Everyone has a role to play in this church, in your neighborhood,
in your place of employment, in your place of wherever you conduct your day-to-day activities.
Every one of us has a role and a charge to keep. I know sometimes the guys at the university think
that guy's nuts, but that's okay. I smile and I encourage and I pat on the back and I say,
hey, let me help you do that. You need something. Could you help over here? Why don't we do this
together? Wouldn't that be all right? I'm actively embracing and pulling people in to be a part.
And then I'll quote scripture while we're doing it.
Nothing wrong with it. That's what we should be doing.
They look at that guy's crazy and I love it. I'm crazy for Jesus. Isn't that all right? Be
crazy for Jesus? Let them talk and they will, but that's okay.
Hey, if it's important to Jesus, make it important to you. We better close in prayer before I get
going too much longer. Father, we just love you and we praise you for what you've done.