Excellence Is Next To Godliness

Could you put yourself in the position of one of these princes for a moment. Because I can’t figure out something. If these men were the best in the kingdom of the Medes, how come they were struggling with such jealousy because of Daniel?

Notice, that the Bible says there were three men who were to be appointed over the presidents and princes. And among those three, Daniel was to be appointed the second in command of the whole kingdom. And all these 120 presidents of the kingdom and the two other over seers of the kingdom are sick with jealousy over Daniel.

That is my idea of weak government. When men are jealous and bitter towards one another and there is envy and stife and hurt, there is surely to be a demise of the nation.

But the Bible says that Daniel had something these other guys didn’t have, there was something that even though Daniel was a Jew and not a native of the nation, that even though he was the foreigner amongst them all, there was something in him that the king found to be useful in serving the good of the nation. And that is the Spirit of Excellence.

And if you read about the life of Daniel and you study all the different things Daniel went through you see these constant attitude of excellence on the part of Daniel. Even when there were opportunities for Daniel to brag about how much he could do and the dreams he could interpret, those were the times that Daniel gave all the credit to God.

Daniel was a dream interpreter, he was favored by every foreign nation that took over. One king would die, and Daniel would be still standing, another king would rise up and soon fall, and there was Daniel in line for a higher position in the next reign of the following kingdom. Daniel was always there, always in the lead, always making it through and attaining more and more notoriety each and every step of the way. But there are no stories in the life of Daniel that let you into why Daniel was the way he was until the story of the Lions Den.

Here’s the situation. These jealous presidents and princes get a bright idea. An manipulative one, but a bright one to them never the less. They want to take down Daniel and the way they find to do it is to make the King issue a decree that “anyone who prays to any god or man during the next thirty days, except to you, O king, shall be thrown into the lion’s den.”

And the king, like any true politician doesn’t have to think long and hard about this one because after all, he is their king and if he is a king, deity can’t be that far off so he signs the edict and puts it into practice. No problem for anyone except for Daniel.

Daniel still has that excellent spirit in Him. And in verse 10 of the same chapter (2), we find out what Daniel decides to do about this new law in effect. You must understand something here, Daniel has been around a while. And He’s really old. Some historians believe that he was a Teenager around the time of the exile and here during the reign of the Medes estimate that Daniel was in the range of 85 to 87 years old. And Daniel isn’t about to change what he had been doing for 80 years of his life because some new politician has a new found idea that separation of Church and state is a good idea for the world. No, Daniel sticks to what God him this far and doesn’t worry about the rest.