Segment 5 - Daniel 6
The Question
of Loyalty
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“I issue
a decree that in every part of my
kingdom people must fear and
reverence the God of Daniel.
‘For he is the living God
and he endures forever; his
kingdom will not be destroyed,
his dominion will never end. He
rescues and he saves; he performs
signs and wonders in the heavens
and on the earth. He has rescued
Daniel from the power of the
lions.’” - Daniel
6:26,27
Someone once said that
loyalty is like the juice of an
orange – the flavor cannot be
determined until the orange is
squeezed beyond the breaking point.
The Bible testifies to the
truthfulness of this statement.
Loyalty is one of the most powerful
forces within the human heart.
Loyalty can produce good results, and
misplaced loyalty can produce evil
results. For example: Judas Iscariot
was loyal to his dreams of
self-importance, power and wealth.
When he realized that following Jesus
would not fulfill his dreams,
he betrayed Jesus for the equivalent
of $12.60 (thirty pieces of
silver). King David was loyal to his
passions for Bathsheba. To cover up
their illicit affair and the
resulting pregnancy, the king killed
her husband. David’s crime was
especially heinous because
Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah, was
one of the thirty-seven gallant men
who defended David during his days of
hiding from King Saul. Peter swore
loyalty to Jesus in the garden, but
when he learned that he might have to
share a martyr’s death with
Jesus, he denied that he The Master.
The Philippian jailer was loyal to
his job until the earthquake
destroyed his jail. When he realized
his life was in jeopardy, he suddenly
experienced a change of heart. Saul
was loyal to his religion. He
faithfully persecuted Christians
until Jesus confronted him on the
road to Damascus. Afterwards, Paul
maintained unwavering loyalty to
Jesus and he suffered persecution
from Jews and Romans alike for
preaching salvation through Jesus
Christ. Legend says that Nero
sentenced Paul to death because Paul
refused to renounce his loyalty to
Jesus and worship Caesar. Shadrach,
Meshach and Abednego chose to be
loyal to the God of Heaven rather
than worship the golden image, and
King Nebuchadnezzar threw them into a
fiery furnace. John the Baptist was
loyal to God’s righteousness
when he told King Herod that living
with his brother’s wife was a
sin. John’s remarks cost him his
head. Jonathan was loyal to David
instead of his father, King Saul.
Jonathan was almost killed because of
his loyalty to David. Jeremiah was
loyal to the Lord when he told Israel
all that the Lord had said about
their apostasy. The Jews threw
Jeremiah into a cistern to die.
Job’s loyalty to God was tested
with some of the harshest suffering
ever recorded, but Job was more
blessed in the end than at the
beginning. Noah was loyal to
God’s command and he saved his
family. Ruth was loyal to Naomi and
chose to suffer poverty with her, but
Ruth’s loyalty to Naomi made her
an ancestor of Jesus. Because she
feared God, Rahab, the prostitute,
was loyal to the spies that entered
Jericho and she saved her family.
Queen Ester was loyal to her people
and ultimately saved them from
destruction. The prophet Daniel chose
to defy the decree of the king by
openly praying toward Jerusalem, and
for this act of rebellion, he was
thrown into the lion’s den.
Webster says that loyalty means being
constant and faithful, bearing true
allegiance to something.
Every human being has
loyalties, but the essential question
is, “To what or whom are we
loyal?” Are deepest loyalties
are revealed when we are forced into
making a decision that favors one
loyalty and harms others. Until
we are put to the test, it is
impossible to say where our deepest
loyalties really lie. This is the
sobering point that Peter learned
after the rooster crowed the third
time.
Daniel: A Prisoner of
War
For centuries,
Christians have repeated the story of
Daniel’s escape from the
lion’s den, but few people know
the whole story that surrounds this
incident. As we will see,
Daniel’s loyalty to God had a
profound impact on two nations! I
would like to present this story with
the necessary background so that (a)
you can “stand in Daniel’s
sandals” and consider the
importance of loyalty to God, and (b)
Daniel 9 will make a lot more sense.
Daniel was taken to
Babylon as a prisoner of war as a
result of Nebuchadnezzar’s first
siege on Jerusalem in 605 B.C. It is
believed that Daniel was about 17 or
18 years of age. It was
Nebuchadnezzar’s policy to take
the brightest captives and enroll
them in an academy to prepare them
for government service. The king has
wisely established a school to train
captives from various tribal nations,
so the captives could return to their
homeland and serve the empire of
Babylon as rulers loyal to the
interest of the king of Babylon. This
is why Daniel and some of his friends
were inducted into the king’s
academy. The book of Daniel begins
with Daniel and his closest friends
asking the king’s steward if
they could be excused from eating at
the king’s table. They wanted to
maintain a more simple, vegetarian
diet, but the steward refused this
first request. He was sure that
Daniel and his friends would become
sick and feeble if they ate nothing
but vegetables and water. If they
sick on his watch, he could lose his
job or possibly his head! Daniel
persisted and the steward gave in.
When it came time for the king to
test the trainees, Daniel and his
friends were found to be at the top
of their class. In fact, the Bible
says their knowledge was ten times
better than their fellow students.
(Daniel 1:20) Do you think the
success of Daniel and his friends had
anything to do with their diet and
their loyalty to God?
A short time later,
Daniel gained worldwide recognition
when God used him to interpret a
dream that God gave to
Nebuchadnezzar. (Daniel 2) As a
result of that incident,
Nebuchadnezzar promoted Daniel to a
very high government position and all
the wise men of Babylon reported to
him. Do you think Daniel’s lofty
promotion had anything to do with his
loyalty to God?
Why Was Daniel Sent to
Babylon?
Historians tell us
that Nebuchadnezzar set siege to
Jerusalem three times. He finally
destroyed the city in 586 B.C.,
because Israel’s kings refused
to submit to Nebuchadnezzar’s
“higher” authority. In
actuality, God destroyed Jerusalem
with Nebuchadnezzar’s sword, and
He put the Jews in captivity for
seventy years because Israel refused
to submit to His “higher”
authority.
The Bible carefully
justifies God’s wrath on Israel.
To understand God’s wrath, we
have to start with a conversation
between God and Moses. Carefully
review these texts:
1. Sabbath
Rest Required for the Land –
Leviticus 25
A few weeks after the
Exodus, ‘The Lord said to
Moses on Mount Sinai, ‘Speak to
the Israelites and say to them:
‘When you enter the land I am
going to give you, the land itself
must observe a Sabbath to the Lord.
For six years sow your fields, and
for six years prune your vineyards
and gather their crops. But in the
seventh year the land is to have a
Sabbath of rest, a Sabbath to the
Lord. Do not sow your fields or prune
your vineyards. Do not reap what
grows of itself or harvest the grapes
of the untended vines. The land is to
have a year of rest.’” (Leviticus
25:1-5) This text is
self-explanatory. God required the
land to rest every seventh year. Why
would any nation refuse a year’s
vacation every seventh year? The Lord
continues, “You may ask,
‘What will we eat in the seventh
year if we do not plant or harvest
our crops?’ I will send you such
a blessing in the sixth year that the
land will yield enough for three
years. While you plant during the
eighth year, you will eat from the
old crop and will continue to eat
from it until the harvest of the
ninth year comes in.” (Leviticus
25: 20-22) There is a profound point
in these verses: God promised to send
a bumper crop every sixth year so
there would be enough food to observe
a year of rest! Contrary to what many
scholars say, the Sabbath rest for
the land was not for agricultural
purposes. In fact, God made the land
produce its greatest harvest during
the sixth-year- when the land was in
its most exhausted condition! The
fist lesson to be learned from the
Sabbath year is simple. God
established the Sabbath year rest to test
His people. Would Israel be loyal or
rebellious? (See Exodus 16 for a
parallel test concerning the seventh
day.)
2. “If
You Don’t Keep My Sabbath
Years” – Leviticus 26
God warned Israel: “If
in spite of this you still do not
listen to me but continue to be
hostile toward me, then in my anger I
will be hostile toward you, and I
myself will punish you for your sins
seven times over…. I will turn
your cities into ruins and lay waste
your sanctuaries, and I will take no
delight in the pleasing aroma of your
offerings. I will lie waste the land,
so that your enemies who live there
will be appalled. I will scatter you
among the nations and will draw out
my sword and pursue you. Your land
will be laid waste, and your cities
will lie in ruins. Then the land will
enjoy its Sabbath years all the time
that it lies desolate and you are in
the country of your enemies; then the
land will rest and enjoy its
Sabbaths. All the time that it lies
desolate, the land will have the ret
it did not have during the Sabbaths
you lived in it.” (Leviticus
26:27,28,31-35, insertion mine) A
person does not have to be a rocket
scientist to understand these words.
God said His land was going to rest,
with or without Israel. God wanted
His people to understand a profound
truth: “…[The Lord
said] the land is mine and you are
but aliens and my tenants.” (Leviticus
25:33, insertion mine) God wanted
Israel to know that their occupation
of His land was conditional on their
steadfast loyalty to Him. (Leviticus
18; Deuteronomy 28)
3. Because
You Have Rebelled – Jeremiah 25
The Old Testament
indicates over and over again that
Israel did not remain loyal to God.
Their cup of grace overflowed with
rebellion and around 615 B.C., God
gave a message to Jeremiah. He said, “I
will summon all the peoples of the
north and my servant Nebuchadnezzar
king of Babylon,’ declares the
Lord, ‘and I will bring them
against this land and its inhabitants
and against all the surrounding
nations. I will completely destroy
them and make them an object of
horror and scorn, and an everlasting
ruin. I will banish from them the
sounds of joy and gladness, the
voices of bride and bridegroom, the
sound of millstones and the light of
the lamp. The whole country will be a
desolate wasteland, and these nations
will serve the king of Babylon
seventy years. But when
the seventy years are fulfilled, I
will punish the king of Babylon and
his nation, the land of the
Babylonians, for their guilt,’
declares the Lord, ‘and will
make it desolate forever.’”
(Jeremiah 25:9-12) Notice three
things: First, God called
Nebuchadnezzar “my
servant.” This is an important
concept. God chose a pagan king to be
His agent of wrath against Jerusalem.
(Parallel: The Antichrist, the modern
king of Babylon, will be God’s
agent of wrath during the Great
Tribulation.) Second, God said that
Jerusalem would be destroyed and
Israel would be captives in Babylon
for seventy years. Third, God said
that Babylon would eventually be
destroyed for the same sins as
Jerusalem.
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