How To Be A Spiritual Lion Tamer Series

One of my favorite verses is II Chronicles 16:9a: “For the eyes of the LORD move to and fro throughout the earth that He may strongly support those whose heart is completely His.”

It’s a verse that gives hope to any one and every one of us who would like to be used of the Lord that great blessing is available to us for God’s purposes. You can be greatly used of God. He strongly supports those whose hearts are completely his, and He’s looking, and looking hard throughout the earth for that kind of person.

Well, He found one of those kinds of people 25, 26 centuries ago in Babylon, of all places, the seat of idolatry. His name was Daniel. The whole book of Daniel supplies us a picture of what such a man looks like, and exactly what kind of great works God can do through such a person.

So if you’re interested in being that kind of person—a person whom God can strongly support and bless for His purposes, then take note of what the Bible says about this person. For in Daniel, we have that kind of person described for us, especially in Daniel chapter 6, perhaps the most famous of the stories found in the book of Daniel, typically called Daniel in the Lion’s Den.

Now at this point, it’s appropriate to note that between Daniel 5 and Daniel 6 we have stories that provide a great contrast—between someone whose character and actions doomed him to immediate judgment before the Lord, and someone who was greatly esteemed and highly blessed by the Lord. If you were with us last week, you might remember King Belshazzar. King Belshazzar publicly defied and defamed the Lord of Heaven, and so he experienced the handwriting on the wall, and the fate it portended—the loss of his life and the loss of his kingdom. Now Daniel, who is the hero in most of these stories, experiences another great crisis in his life. Once again, because of his devotion to the Lord, He is delivered and His faith converts a great king so that he becomes a God-fearer as well.

So what was it that was so exceptional about Daniel’s life that as the Lord’s eyes moved to and fro throughout the earth they stopped at Daniel’s doorstep? Well, he developed an impeccable character fueled by an uncompromised devotional/prayer life which was displayed in a fearless trust in God.

First, He developed an impeccable character. There was nothing about his life, or how he went about his duties that anyone could find fault with. So if you want to be a man or a woman whom God is able to powerfully work through to bless in this same way, then our first point this morning is this: Develop or pursue an impeccable character.

A new king and a new kingdom are now on the scene. It’s shortly after 539 B.C., and in accord with Daniel’s interpretation of King Nebuchadnezzar’s dream of the dazzling statue in Daniel 2, a second great world-wide kingdom would succeed the Kingdom of Babylon. It was the Kingdom of the Medes and the Persians. That change had taken place with the handwriting on the wall at the end of Daniel 5. Darius, the Mede had become king in Belshazzar’s place. And immediately, perhaps based on his 40 years of excellent service to King Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel, even though he is now in his 80s, is playing a major role in the new administration. In fact, of the 123 government officials who are over the kingdom, he is one of the three commissioners who were over the 120 satraps. So, under King Darius, he was one of the three leading administrators. And according to Daniel 6:3, Daniel possessed such an extraordinary spirit, that Darius planned to appoint him over the entire kingdom.

Well, at this point, human nature being what it is, the other administrators became jealous of Daniel’s success. So they plotted against him, not because he had done anything wrong, but because he had done everything so splendidly well. He was making them look bad by comparison. So they decided to find anything against him that they could. Kind of like in our elections this year. One candidate tries to discredit the other candidate. In this case, in a sense, the election, or the selection, had already taken place. So they all began to examine Daniel’s life and his service to the king, and after they had scoured all the records, interviewed all the people they could interview, they came up empty. As verse four tells us, all of their combined efforts did not result in a single ground of accusation or evidence of corruption against him inasmuch as he was faithful, and no negligence or corruption was to be found in him. So it was at this point, they decided that the only way they could find something against him is if they somehow could use his faith and devotion to his God against him. What became evident to them is that Daniel’s devotion to his God was a priority over everything else, and that the only way to find fault with him was to create a conflict between his devotion to God and his devotion to the king.