Daniel, Episode 3: The Law Against Praying

Hey Carpool Crew! I'm Pastor Justin, and today we're back for episode 3 of our journey with Daniel. Now, I need you to do something with me right at the start of today's episode. I need you to imagine a whole lot of time passing. Because we are about to jump forward in Daniel's life. A long way forward. Let me catch you up first. In our first episode, Daniel was a teenager taken from his home to Babylon. In our second episode, he was a young man who passed the food test, staying the same kid even when nobody from home was watching. Well, today, Daniel is not a kid anymore. He is not even a young man anymore. Daniel is old. We're talking somewhere around eighty years old. His whole life has gone by. And a lot has changed. Remember Babylon, that giant, scary empire that took Daniel from his home? Babylon fell. A new empire took over, called Persia, and now there's a brand-new king in charge. His name is King Darius. So Daniel has lived under one empire his entire life, watched it crumble, and now he's serving in a completely different one. But here's the amazing thing. Through every single one of those years, through every king and every change, Daniel stayed faithful to God. And because Daniel was so wise, and so honest, and so trustworthy, King Darius noticed him. In fact, Darius liked Daniel so much that he was about to put him in charge of the entire kingdom. An old man from Judah, a man who had been taken as a prisoner decades ago, was about to become the second most powerful person in the whole world. And that, Carpool Crew, is exactly where the trouble started. Let me set the scene. There were other leaders in the kingdom. Important men, governors and officials, who worked right alongside Daniel. And when they heard that the king was going to put Daniel over all of them, they were not happy. They were jealous. Green with it. They could not stand the idea of answering to Daniel. So they decided to get rid of him. They started digging. They watched Daniel's work like hawks, hoping to catch him cheating, or stealing, or lying, or doing something, anything, wrong, so they could run to the king and get him fired. And you know what they found? Nothing. The Bible tells us they couldn't find a single thing wrong with how Daniel did his job. He was honest. He was faithful. He never cut a corner. Imagine being so trustworthy that your enemies search your whole life and come up empty. That's Daniel. And do you see how Daniel got there? This is the same Daniel from our last episode. The young man who passed the food test. By now he had been practicing being faithful in the small, everyday stuff for sixty, maybe seventy years. So when the biggest test of his life finally came, he was ready for it. All those little choices he made when he was young had been quietly building a man who simply could not be cracked. That is how it works. Being faithful in small things, over and over, grows into being faithful when the huge things come. So these jealous men realized something. They said to each other, we are never going to catch Daniel doing anything wrong in his work. The only way we'll ever trap this man is to go after his God. The only crack in Daniel's life, the only thing they could use against him, was that he loved God and prayed to Him every day. Think about that. The thing his enemies wanted to attack was the very best thing about him. So they came up with a sneaky, evil plan. They went to King Darius, and they buttered him up. They made him feel powerful and important. And they suggested a brand-new law. Listen to what they said. This is Daniel chapter 6, verse 7. "All the administrators of the kingdom, the prefects, satraps, advisers, and governors have agreed that the king should establish an ordinance and enforce an edict that for thirty days, anyone who petitions any god or man except you, the king, will be thrown into the lions' den." Let me unpack that, because some of those are big old words. An ordinance and an edict are just fancy words for a law. A new rule. And the rule was this. For thirty days, you are not allowed to pray to anybody, any god at all, except King Darius himself. If you pray to anyone else, you get thrown into a den of lions. Now King Darius didn't realize this whole thing was a trap aimed at his friend Daniel. He just felt flattered. He liked the idea of everyone praying to him for a month. So he signed it. And back then, once a Persian king signed a law, it could not be changed. Not even by the king. It was locked. It was permanent. So now there is an actual law of the land that says praying to God will get you killed. And every jealous official in that kingdom is just waiting, watching, to see what Daniel will do. So what did Daniel do? Here is one of my favorite verses in the whole Bible. Daniel chapter 6, verse 10 tells us that when Daniel found out the law had been signed, he went home, up to his room, where the windows opened toward Jerusalem, his old home. And he got down on his knees, and he prayed and gave thanks to God, three times a day, just as he had done before. I want you to catch four little words in there. Just as he had done before. Daniel didn't suddenly start praying louder to prove a point. He didn't go stand in the town square to make a scene. But he also didn't hide. He didn't shut his windows and whisper so nobody could hear. He didn't quit. He just kept doing exactly what he had always done. Three times a day, on his knees, windows open, praying and thanking God. The law changed. Daniel didn't. Think about it for a second. Daniel could have prayed in a closet with the door locked. He could have whispered. He could have told himself, God knows my heart, so I'll just pray quietly where it's safe, and nobody can blame me for that. And honestly, that would have felt like the smart, careful thing to do. Nobody would have called that wrong. But Daniel didn't change one single thing. Same room. Same open window. Same time of day. Same knees on the floor. He wasn't trying to get caught, and he wasn't trying to show off either. He just refused to act ashamed of the God he loved. Now I am not going to pretend this was easy for Daniel, because it wasn't. Daniel was an old man. He knew about the law. He knew his enemies were watching. He knew where this was heading. He could see the lions' den at the end of this road. Daniel was not careless. He was brave. And brave does not mean you're not scared. Brave means you do the right thing even when you are scared, even when it's dangerous, even when it might cost you everything. And that is the one thing I want you to carry out of this episode. When doing right gets you in trouble, keep doing right anyway. Because here's something we don't always tell kids, and I want to be honest with you. Sometimes doing the right thing doesn't make your life easier. Sometimes doing the right thing actually gets you in trouble. That feels so backward, doesn't it? You did the good thing, the God thing, and now you're the one who's in a hard spot. That happened to Daniel, and it can happen to you too. So let me bring this to your life, because you face smaller versions of Daniel's choice more than you might think. Maybe you tell the truth about something, and now your friend is mad at you because you wouldn't go along with their lie. You did the right thing, and it cost you a friend's good mood. Maybe you refuse to join in when everybody's making fun of one kid, and now the group turns on you a little. You did the right thing, and it got lonely. Maybe you stand up for somebody who's getting picked on, and suddenly you're a target too. Maybe you won't cheat, even though everyone else is, and now they think you're weird, or worse, they're annoyed at you. You did the right thing, and it got hard. Maybe you owned up to something you did wrong, you told the truth even though you could have gotten away with staying quiet, and instead of anyone being proud of you, somebody was disappointed, or you still got a consequence. You did the right thing, and it still stung. In every one of those moments, there's a voice that says, see, doing the right thing isn't worth it. Just shut your windows. Just go along. Just quit. It'd be so much easier. But Daniel shows you another way. Daniel kept his windows open. Daniel kept doing right, even when right got dangerous. Not because he was showing off, but because he knew who he belonged to, and he wasn't going to stop loving God just because somebody made a rule against it. So here's what you can actually do this week. The next time doing the right thing gets you in trouble, I want you to remember Daniel on his knees, windows open, praying just like always. And I want you to keep your windows open too. Keep doing the right thing. You can even pray Daniel's kind of prayer. "God, this is hard, and it cost me something, but I'm going to keep doing what's right, and I trust You with the rest." That last part matters so much. Daniel did the right thing, and then he trusted God with whatever came next. Because something was coming next for Daniel. The jealous men got exactly what they wanted. They caught Daniel praying, and they ran straight to the king. And now even King Darius, who loved Daniel, was stuck. The law could not be changed. Not even by the king himself. There was only one place this could go. The lions' den. Thanks for riding along today on Carpooling with Heroes of the Bible! Next time is the episode you've all been waiting for since episode one. Daniel is going into the lions' den, and we are going to find out what really happens in the dark, with the lions, when a man who loves God spends the night in the most dangerous place in the kingdom. You will not want to miss it. And remember, even when doing right gets hard, God is with you, and He loves you. I'll see you next time, Carpool Crew. ================================================