Daniel 6:10 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.
Power is from Submission, Not Rebellion
Some readers are cheaters. Maybe you are one of those readers who doesn’t possess the patience to read the book all the way through before you find out how the plot plays out. Well, if that’s your weakness, I want to invite you to indulge it today by looking at the very last verse of Daniel 6-the story of “Daniel in the lion’s den.”
The Bible says in Daniel 6:28, “So this Daniel prospered.” Now there’s no reason at all that Daniel should have prospered, humanly speaking, given his Jewish race, his slave class, and the fact that he was going cross grain to a totalitarian government and wicked culture. Now this doesn’t mean that Daniel was a rebel. He certainly was not.
The other presidents and the princes under his authority resented him and sought to get him in trouble. They knew he would not be a rebel and willfully break the law, so they made a law he would have to break because he was living in submission to God. The law was that no one was to pray to anyone or any god save the king. The king naively signed this piece of Medo-Persian legislation which could not be changed. Then they waited to spring the trap.
It fascinated me to read in verse 10, “Now when Daniel knew that the writing was signed…” Note those words “when Daniel knew.” Daniel prayed precisely when he knew it was taking him into dangerous waters. This was an open act, not of rebellion, but of submission. The king had no choice but to throw Daniel into prison, but he did so with a broken heart because he loved Daniel.
Here’s the point: our power comes from submission to God, not from rebellion to men. This submission dictates our stance towards men’s laws. Daniel was driven by obedience, not rebellion. It’s obvious that these princes, the actual rebels of the story, knew that Daniel was a man of submission. The king himself knew that Daniel served God, so on some plane the king understood that Daniel was acting under submission to God, not out of rebellion towards him. Truly, Daniel was more in submission to the king in heart than the princes and presidents who had concocted this law.
You are going to have the courage to stand when the chips are down if you make it a habit to live in dependence upon and submission to God. There’s a big difference between practicing obedience towards men when it is safe and living in obedience to God when it is not. Our power comes from submission. May that submission give us power before men and before God.