My Lord hath sent His Angel.
Daniel’s Marvellous Deliverances
These words are Daniel’s religious and thankful acknowledgment of his deliverance.
1. Here is a reverend compellation. “O king.” Darius was a heathen prince; an enemy to God’s people; and he here makes a wicked law, forbidding religion, and inforcing to idolatry. Yet the prophet acknowledges and honours him, as his king and sovereign.
2. A loyal and pious salutation. “Live for ever.” He prays for him, wishes him both length and prosperity of life here, and eternity of life and felicity hereafter. He upbraids not the king with tyranny and impiety; charges him not with the cruelty of his usage; threatens him not with vengeance, and judgments from God. He will not pray to the king, but he ceases not to pray for him.
3. Thankful declaration of his marvellous deliverance.
(1) The author; “My God.” Two things: his helper--God. His hold that he lays upon this helper. “My God,” by special service and religion, the God of my faith, and piety, and devotion; by special trust and affiance; by present evidence and experience; by resolution, and engagements of holy thankfulness.
(2) The Instrument. “Sent His angel.” Not my angel, but God’s angel. It is not “the angel came,” but God sent him. This ministry of an angel, in the delivering of Daniel, adds unto it three excellencies. It makes a comfortable deliverance. As a forlorn and forsaken man, he is visited by an angel. It makes a glorious deliverance. Such a saint shall have not only safety, but honour. It makes an irresistible deliverance. There is no disappointing of this salvation.
(3) The manner of this deliverance: how it was wrought. “He shut the mouths of the lions.” God delivers not from the den, but when in it. How did he shut the mouths? By a secret power, weakening or restraining them; or by taming and allaying their fierceness; or restraining or slaking their hunger; or by making the prophet appear awful and dreadful to them.
(4) The measure of the deliverance. Complete.
(5) The motive which God graciously respected. A double innocence of the prophet. General, and particulars to this incident. (Geo. Stradling.)
Daniel’s Deliverance from the Den of Lions
I. THE ANTECEDENTS OF DANIEL’S MIRACULOUS DELIVERANCE.
1. They remind us that the penalty of greatness is the envy of inferiors. Daniel was as the sun in the Persian kingdom, showing to all who come under his influence what a good ruler really was. But the intense light of his character was too strong for men whose conduct he then condemned, and who were thus made painfully conscious of their own shortcomings.
2. Envy will seek an opportunity of false accusation. It was the envy of the Jewish rulers which was the foundation of their false accusations against Christ.
3. They remind us that it may be the penalty of moral greatness to be condemned by legal greatness. The law of a nation may be a very strong law because of its great antiquity, but it may be a very wicked law notwithstanding, and whoever obeys it may bring himself under the penalty of a much more powerful and a much older law, the law of moral rectitude--a law older than the creation of man.
II. THE MIRACLE ITSELF. The lions did not act according to the instincts of their nature. This holding back of the appetite of the lions is the more remarkable, because the instinct returned as soon as Daniel’s persecutors took his place in the den. Lessons:
1. The most pressing demands of business are not incompatible with daily waiting upon God in prayer.
2. Escape from trial of our constancy at one time is no guarantee that we shall not be called upon to prove it at another.
3. Sometimes disobedience to man is the highest virtue in the sight of God. When man’s laws are in opposition to God’s, the breaking of them is righteousness.
4. We are in the path of obedience to God, even though the obedience leads to death. (Outlines by a London Minister.)
Daniel’s Preservation from the Lions
For unshaken confidence in his God, zeal in His service, and for His honour, for fearlessness in danger, and for virtuous disregard of all human power and human threatenings, when employed against God and religion, the prophet Daniel is justly conspicuous in Bible history. No character in Scripture has attained more honourable distinction. Three things deserve our attention.
I. THE CONDUCT FOR WHICH DANIEL WAS THROWN INTO THE DEN OF LIONS. Daniel’s enemies contrived to obtain the king’s consent to a wicked decree, binding all men to abstain from worshipping any god, or asking a petition of any god or man, except the king himself, for thirty days. But the prophet, knowing that when human laws are found to clash with the divine commands, it is right to “obey God rather than man,” continued, regardless of consequences, to pray to his God three times a day, as he had heretofore done. In the discharge of his duty to God, he had no real cause for dismay. God, he knew, was with him. Having, therefore, faithfully performed his duty, he submits to the will of his enemies, commits himself to Him that judges righteously, and calmly and steadily leaves the event in His hands.
II. THE EXTRAORDINARY FACT RECORDED, THAT DANIEL WAS TAKEN UP OUT OF THE DEN UNHURT. By this signal preservation of the life of Daniel among the lions, God displayed at once His power over the creatures of the forest which He had made, and His care over His servants when He calls them out to suffer for His cause. Under the protection of the Almighty, Daniel was as safe in the den of lions as he would have been in the palace, and under the protection of Darius. This God is our God for ever and ever. He will still honour and preserve them that honour Him, still bear up and support His faithful people.
III. The reason assigned for the miraculous interposition of God on Daniel’s behalf. “Because he believed in his God.” Mark what honour God puts upon faith. Faith was the spring of Daniel’s holy obedience to God. Faith gave him peace and comfort, and brought down the angel of God into the lions’ den. This holy principle has never failed to attract the divine regard, and to insure the approbation of God. This subject may teach us:
1. The importance, under all circumstances, of stedfast adherence to the path of duty. “Duties are ours, events are God’s.” One common duty of Christians is that of calmly resting under affliction, in patient submission to the will of God.
2. The importance of steady trust in God, especially in the great event of death, that last trial of the Christian.
3. This subject affords a ground of consolation to all faithful Christians in tribulation, and to the surviving friends of the departed saints. (J. Jaques.)
Daniel taken out of the den
His case at first seemed very hard to flesh and blood. But here we see the end of the Lord. All was so over-ruled, that Daniel had no reason to repent of his conduct, or lament the result of it. How much did Daniel’s stedfastness conduce to the glory of God, and the advancement of his cause! Christians never honour God more than in the fires. But the result terminated in Daniel’s own honour and welfare. When taken up, how would every eye be drawn to him. What influence would be attached to his character! What weight to his advice and counsel! He is restored. He is promoted by his Sovereign to a higher station. And who would not have done what Darius did? He who had been faithful to his God, was more likely to be faithful to his king. This is indeed one of the ways in which Godliness naturally conduces to a man’s present advantage. Constantius, the father of Constantine the Great, wished to know the character of those about him. He, therefore, called together before him, all the chiefs in his suite, and ordered them to offer Sacrifices to his gods (he was a heathen), on pain of being deprived of all their honours and functions. The trial was severe. Many sunk under it. They could not give up everything that was dear and valuable. But some were inflexible. They had bought the truth, and they would not sell it at any price. Whatever they suffered, they were resolved to have a conscience void of offence. But what happened? Those who basely complied, he drove from his presence, while those who nobly refused, he entrusted with the care of his person, and placed them in the most important offices, saying: “On these men I can depend--I prize them more than all my treasures.” And we know who hath said: “Them that honour Me I will honour; but they that despise Me “ shall be lightly esteemed. (William Jay.)