Obeying God’s Law Over Man’s

Imagine a law that would make praying to God illegal and punishable by death. In Daniel 6, the political leaders of the time, talked the King, Darius, to make a law that would punish anyone who prayed to any god or human that wasn’t the King.

This was a tremendous boost to King Darius’s ego, and he happily signed the law into existence. What Darius didn’t see was that these leaders were targeting one person, Daniel.

Daniel and his friends belong to the people of Israel, and they had strict beliefs, like, “only worship the LORD God of Israel.”

Their beliefs impacted the people around them and these leaders didn’t want that to happen. So, their law went into place: no prayer, except to Darius.

Once the law became law, the leaders ratted out Daniel, “BTW there is this one guy, Daniel, he prays THREE times a day to another god. He doesn’t even care about the law you just made.”

You would think that the Darius would yell out, “Off with his head!” But this isn’t Alice in Wonderland. Darius knew Daniel and already had great experiences with Daniel, so it broke his heart that Daniel would be the first to die from his law.

He tried everything he could do to save Daniel but couldn’t. Darius believed that he was the top god of the universe, so he couldn’t change the law. It would make him less godly. Ironically, it was out of his power to change (because he was god, so couldn’t god change his mind?).

There was a good reason why Daniel didn’t pray to Darius. Daniel knew Darius was just a man. He also knew that the God of Israel was the real and only God of the Universe. He didn’t just know this intellectually, but throughout his life, he experienced this God.

BTW, Daniel was saved by His God, from their death penalty, which was being eaten alive by hungry lions.

God is able to save! That is how God expresses His love for us. Daniel in the Lion’s Den is God’s communication that He has our salvation as a priority.

Jesus on the cross, is God’s salvation.

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, to live and die and rise from the dead. He gave Jesus to save us and that is why He says, and we say, “Today is the day of Salvation, if you hear Jesus speaking to you through these words or through the Bible, listen to those words.

Remember, the Word of God speaks most clearly when you are reading the Bible.

Photo by Giovanni Ilardi on Unsplash