Darius assumed power over Babylon and he appointed 120 satraps to administer the city, he put these under the control of Daniel. We see two things here. By his integrity and competency Daniel earned favour and the confidence of leaders. At the same time he also earned the jealousy of others. We need to face up to this reality. By following Christ we will earn both the favour and the opposition of men.
The satraps who were jealous of Daniel tried to find ways to bring him down. The looked for moral failings in him but could find none. We may be accused of all sorts of things, we need to do our best to ensure the accusations are false accusations. So the only way they could find was to use his religion.
We are prone to the same today now that our secular society is anti-God. The area of teaching on homosexuality is the one which is most commonly used, though not the only one.
So they spoke to the king and got him to issue a decree that no one was allowed to worship any god other than the king himself. Note that rulers accepted worship from people. The king did not realise that this was a way of attacking Daniel and his pride led him to issue the decree. People in authority will from time to time do foolish things. This does not mean that God's plans will be disrupted, nor that He cannot protect us.
Daniel reacted by continuing to worship the Lord in the way he always had. We need to follow this example as well. The conspirators then used this to get the king to apply the penalty to Daniel. They made sure that the king could not get out of doing this.
The king was not pleased about this but felt he could do nothing about. So Daniel was thrown into the lion's den, but he also hoped that Daniel's God would save him.
In the morning the king went hoping Daniel was alive. Naturally this was a ridiculous thing to hope, but God had indeed saved Daniel. He had sent an angel to bind the mouths of the lions. This had happened because Daniel had trusted the Lord. We need to trust the Lord, and He will at times send miraculous intervention.
Daniel's accusers suffered a terrible fate, and the king issued a declaration praising the Lord. We need to see how the Lord works in all sorts of situations and overcomes all the scheming of men.
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