May 31, 2009
Scripture :
Psalm 150
*“Praise ye the LORD. Praise God in his sanctuary: praise him in the firmament of his power.** Praise him for his mighty acts: praise him according to his excellent greatness. Praise him with the sound of the trumpet: praise him with the psaltery and harp. *Praise him with the timbrel and dance: praise him with stringed instruments and organs. Praise him upon the loud cymbals: praise him upon the high sounding cymbals. Let every thing that hath breath praise the LORD. Praise ye the LORD.”
Hymn 345 – Jesus loves the little children
Prayer
We’ll continue in the book of Daniel. Today we have the familiar story of Daniel in the lions den, found in Daniel 6. At the end of the last chapter, we saw that Darius became king, and he is still king here. Vv. 1 & 2 tell us how he set up his kingdom: since the kingdom was so large, he had 120 princes ruling smaller pieces. those princes reported to 3 presidents, of whom Daniel was the most important. Daniel had this position because the king liked Daniel, because of his excellent spirit, v. 3. This made some of the other rulers jealous, v. 4, probably because Daniel was not even from Babylon. Do you think jealousy is a good thing? No, God has given each one of us different skills and a place to use them; we should do what the Lord wants us to do and not worry about what we don’t have.
But these men were really jealous. They wanted to find something wrong with Daniel, but they realized that they could only accuse him if he broke a rule in keeping God’s law. So, vv. 6 & 7, some of them went to the king and told him that all of his rulers had gotten together and proposed a new law, which stated that no one could ask a petition of any man or god other than the king for 30 day. If the law was broken, the offender was to be cast into the lions’ den. This probably appealed to the kings’ pride, and so he agreed to it.
Daniel heard about the law, but he didn’t change his behaviour, vv. 9 &
Then the king went home, but he was unhappy, v. 18. He didn’t eat, listen to music, or sleep. The next morning, he went down to the den, vv. 19 & 20, and called to Daniel to see if God had saved him. And God had saved him, vv. 21 & 22; He had sent an angel to shut the lions’ mouths. Daniel said this was because he was innocent before God and the king. Read Psalm 34:7. Even today, God uses angels to protect us. Satan goes around as a roaring lion, wanting to take away our thoughts from the Lord. How good to know that the Lord protects us from all Satan does to hinder and hurt.
Read v. 23. The king was relieved that Daniel was still alive; he had Daniel pulled out of the den. Then, he told them to throw the men who had accused Daniel and their families into the lion’s den. Then he made a new decree : that everyone was to worship the God of Daniel, vv. 25 - 27.
Read v. 28. Daniel prospered because he honoured the Lord. God will let us be successful, too, if we honour Him.
As we saw last time, this chapter has to do with the walk the child of God. One of the first things we notice is that there are many people building the wall, and it almost seems that they have volunteered. Each one of us should want to build today; if we are willing, the Spirit of God will show us how we can best serve the Lord. Not all the people did the same job when building the wall.
We can learn much more from this chapter if we look at the meanings of the names given here. For example, in v. 1 we see Eliashib building the sheep gate with the priests. We mentioned last week that the sheep gate is a picture of the Lamb of God, as well as those who follow their Shepherd. Eliashib means restoration. How fitting for the high priest, the spiritual leader of Israel. The priests built two towers: Meah and Hananeel. These names mean a hundred, and Grace of God, respectively. One hundred is ten times ten; the number ten stands for divine order. We are encouraged to do all things “decently and in order.” At the very outset of the building, they have made sure that everything was in order. And it was all through the grace of God that they could even be here.
V. 2 : the men of Jericho, rather than looking after their own city, helped in the restoration of the city of God. Zaccur means remembrance, and he was the son of Imri, Word. Isn’t it true that it is our remembrance of the Word of God that helps us live as we should? May the remembrance of the Lord and His word never become a tradition to us!
V. 3 : the fish gate speaks of evangelism. Hassenaah means thorn bush, pointed. This might speak of the fact that when we preach the gospel, we are trying to prick the conscience. We noticed that the priests in v. 1 didn’t build locks and bars. The fish gate had locks, but it wasn’t sanctified as was the sheep gate. In fact, only the sheep gate was sanctified: could this mean that only the priests could sanctify something?
These two gates were on the north side of Jerusalem. Until now, our chapter has said that they “built” the wall. Starting in v. 4, they only “repair” the wall, which may be a sign that the wall was not completely destroyed.
Hymn 215 - Happy they who trust in Jesus
Prayer