TRIAL AND DELIVERANCE
‘Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house; and his windows being open in his chamber toward Jerusalem, he kneeled upon his knees three times a day, and prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime.’
I. In these few and simple words we have an insight given to us into the true character of Daniel, and into the hidden source of his strength.—Many years had elapsed since he had been carried, in early youth, into the land of Babylon, and there exposed to the temptations of a heathen court, and surrounded by the debasing rites and superstitious emblems of idolatry. But amidst all these incentives to apostasy, Daniel had not swerved from his allegiance to the one true God, and he was neither afraid nor ashamed to make an open confession of his faith.
Daniel was emphatically a man of prayer. Had he become remiss in prayer, amidst the cares of office, the allurements of pleasure, and the baits of worldly ambition, he might well have been tempted to yield such an amount of outward obedience to the king’s edict as would have sufficed to deliver him from the machinations of his foes. Had he been accustomed to permit any excuse, however plausible, to interfere with his appointed hours of prayer, how strong would have been the temptation to plead such an excuse at a time when it might have availed him for the preservation of his life. It was but the omission of an open confession of his faith at particular seasons of the day which was demanded at his hands. During the silent watches of the night he could still have held communion with his God, and none could at such a time have been witnesses of his devotions. Nay, more, it needed only, during the hours of day, that he should withdraw from the scrutinising gaze of his adversaries, and he might have still continued to pray ‘as he did aforetime.’
But as Daniel’s accustomed mode of prayer was not prompted by the desire to be seen of men, but was designed and regarded as an open profession of the worship of the one true God, in contrast with the prevailing forms of idolatry, so any deviation from that custom, in compliance with the king’s edict, would have been regarded by Daniel as an unworthy compromise with the claims of conscience, and would have been esteemed by his heathen adversaries as a virtual abandonment of his faith.
As regards the three hours of the day which Daniel observed for prayer, although there is no law which expressly prescribes this practice, nevertheless we find in a psalm, which is not without cause assigned to David, words which imply that in his time this custom was not unknown to the faithful, and that in addition to those hours of the day at which the offering of the morning and evening sacrifice was regarded as a summons to prayer, the hour of noon was also deemed a suitable season for pouring out the souls of the faithful before God, and for making known to Him their request—‘As for me, I will call upon God; and the Lord shall save me. Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and He shall hear my voice’ (Psalms 55:17). Nor must the fact be overlooked, that during those anxious days of suspense which preceded the accusation which was preferred against Daniel, he continued not only to pray and make supplication before his God at his wonted hours, but, as he had been accustomed to do whilst he was in the enjoyment of outward prosperity and honour, to unite praise with prayer—‘He prayed,’ we read, ‘and gave thanks before his God, as he did aforetime’ (Daniel 6:10).
II. The opportunity for which his adversaries had long looked, and which they so eagerly desired, was now afforded.—The accusation was at once preferred against Daniel, that he regarded not the king nor the royal decree, an offence which, in accordance with the laws of the Medes and Persians, could be expiated only by the death of the offender. The absolute power of a despotic sovereign appears to have been unequal to the pardon of an offence committed against his own sovereignty, In spite of the bitter remorse which the king experienced when he awoke to a consciousness of the snare into which he had fallen, the fatal sentence which his courtiers desired was reluctantly extorted from him, and, in accordance with the new custom which a change of dynasty had introduced, Daniel was consigned (not, as under the Babylonian sway, to a furnace of fire, but, in accordance with the equally barbarous custom of the Persians,) to the den of lions.
The history proceeds to record a signal intervention of Divine power on behalf of Daniel, similar to that which had been already vouchsafed in the case of his three companions in the captivity.
III. The history of Daniel teaches the importance of habitual preparation for the hour of trial; and that more especially in the time of outward prosperity. Had Daniel, in the plenitude of his power and the distraction of a heathen court, yielded to the many temptations by which he was surrounded, and broken through his habit of prayer at stated hours of the day, we may well believe that he would have been induced, in the hour of his yet severer trial, to tamper still further with the voice of conscience, and, by falling into the snare which his wily adversaries had prepared for him, to pave the way for the open denial of his faith. It must have required the exercise of no ordinary amount of self-control and self-restraint to persevere, amidst the many calls of duty and of pleasure, in the course which Daniel prescribed for his own adoption. But Daniel had learned the great lesson that in exact proportion to the magnitude and multiplicity of the duties which devolve upon us is the need which we have of grace and of strength for their rightful discharge; and he had learned also that as long as man continues to make a faithful use of the means of grace which God has provided for him, no temptation too strong for him shall be suffered to assail him.
IV. There is another lesson which the history of Daniel is well calculated to enforce, and that is that true security is to be found only in the path of simple obedience to the Divine law, and of humble reliance upon the Divine protection.—In some one or other of the many forms of error and of temptation by which the great enemy of souls lies in wait to deceive, the faith and the constancy of all God’s people must be tried. Their own unaided strength is as unequal to enable them to endure the trial as that of Daniel was to effect his own deliverance from the den of lions. But God still gives His angels charge over His people now, as, in the days of the captivity in Babylon, he gave them charge concerning Daniel. To us, equally with him, it is permitted to plead the fulfilment of the promise—‘Thou shalt tread upon the lion and adder: the young lion and the dragon shalt thou trample under feet” (Psalms 91:13); and to us, more clearly than to him, has been revealed the nearness of the presence of Him, of Whom it is declared that He will Himself bruise Satan under the feet of His people shortly. If, then, like Daniel, we continue steadfast in faith, patient in tribulation, and instant in prayer, our path, like his, will be made plain before our face, and either a way of escape will be opened for us from the trials which we most dread, or grace and strength will be given which will enable us to endure them.
—Canon Elliott.