Faithfulness over Decades

Daniel 6, verse 1 through 11.

It pleased Darius to appoint 120 satraps to rule throughout the kingdom with three administrators over them, one of whom was Daniel.

The satraps were made accountable to them so that the king might not suffer loss.

Now, Daniel so distinguished himself among the administrators and the satraps by his exceptional qualities that the king planned to set him over the whole kingdom.

At this, the administrators and the satraps tried to find grounds for charges against Daniel and his conduct of government affairs.

Has anyone ever had someone kind of hate on you because you're doing a good job? But they were unable to do so.

They could find no corruption in him because he was trustworthy.

I want to pause there for a second because this word is really, as we heard in the song, there's a theme that's been in my heart.

I think the Lord wants us to understand and he's even bringing it to the surface for us.

This verse for this word trustworthy.

It's this word that describes meaning firm, reliable, faithful, faithful.

So I'm going to use trustworthy and faithful as interchangeable terms.

So really looking at all this, they hunted for dirt in his life and all they found was faithfulness.

And neither corruption, nor was he negligent.

Finally, these men said, we will never find any basis for charges against this man, Daniel, unless it has something to do with the law of his God.

So the administrators and satraps went as a group to the king and said, may King Darius live forever.

The royal administrators, prefects, satraps, advisors, and governors have all agreed.

They had a meeting that the king should issue an edict or law and enforce the decree that anyone who prays to any God or human during these next 30 days, except to you, your majesty, shall be thrown into the lion's den.

Now your majesty, issue the decree and put it in writing so that it cannot be altered in accordance with the law of the Medes and the Persians, which cannot be repealed.

So King Darius put the decree in writing.

Boy, they really appealed to his ego, didn't they? Now when the king learned, now when Daniel learned that the decree had been published, notice he heard that a law had been put in order.

He went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened toward Jerusalem.

Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God just as he had done before.

Other versions of the Bible will say just as he did in his early days.

In other words, he heard this and he just did what he was always doing.