Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:
6Then the administrators and the governors these conspired upon the king and thus ones saying to him, “Darius, O king, live to ages, 7the all of the administrators of the kingdom, the prefects and the governors, the royal officials and the rulers took counsel together to establish the statute of the royalty and make strong a ban that whoever asks a request from all of a god and a man upon thirty days except from you, O king, should be cast into the pit of lions. 8Now, O king, cause to establish the ban and sign the writing so that not to change according to the law of the Medes and Persians which cannot pass away.” 9Consequently, the king Darius signed the writing and the ban.
What a complete opposite! In the first five verses, we’ve been able to observe a model human being, a man we can all admire, a man who was “trustworthy and neither corrupt nor negligent.” I would go on to note that Daniel’s job was to govern. He was one of three administrators over the entire kingdom and the king was pondering raising him to the position of singular prime minister. Had that happened, we can all be assured Daniel would have been a very diligent ruler, a man who we could count on to sincerely work for the good of the people, to govern honestly and do his job well.
Now in verses 6-9, what we see is government at its absolute worst. Here we have a gathering of the highest officials in the government of Babylon and what are they doing? What do they spend their time discussing? What concerns of the kingdom occupy their time? This group of men could care less about the kingdom. They are concerned with one thing and one thing only—themselves and their own promotion.
Surely there were issues needing desperately to be addressed. Surely there were significant matters of national security or problems within their justice system. Surely there were significant issues of public works projects, of water and sewer and roads, needing serious attention. No doubt there were people suffering all over the kingdom in ways which could have been addressed by this group of men and their king.
And what do they spend their time doing? Plotting the ruin of the only one of them who’s actually doing his job! What a complete dereliction of duty! What an absolute abuse of their power and position! What a total betrayal of public trust. What a shameless bunch of dirty crooks and liars.
The similarity to our own government is heartbreaking. Is this not a picture of exactly what the American government has devolved to? In my lifetime, I cannot remember one single time where the government actually did anything at all to solve the problems we face as a nation. Every bill they pass is designed, in one way or another, to advance their own political agendas, to pad their own off-shore bank accounts. The only thing they’ve ever done well is to vote themselves what is probably the most spectacular package of salaries and benefits in human history. What an absolute abuse of their power and position! What a total betrayal of public trust. What a shameless bunch of dirty crooks and liars.
In the verses before us, what do we see? We have Daniel, a man and his God, contrasted with an entire governing body of utterly godless men. We see here in a nutshell government with God and government without Him. America was what it was because it was a “nation under God.” “Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord.” The men who founded this country, whether they were all truly believers or not, respected the Bible, saw themselves as accountable to God, and sincerely tried to establish a nation for “the good of the people.” They were Daniels and we all enjoyed the benefits of their good governance.
What has happened? We threw God out and now we have a government just like what we see here in Daniel 6—useless self-promoting sycophants, leeches draining the very blood out of what little is left of the America we once knew. Should we believers be surprised? Certainly not. Heartbroken? Yes. But not surprised. These men are of their father the devil and the lusts of their father they’ll do. They are liars and thieves and murderers, just like him.
However, the book of Daniel tells us what to think of it all. First of all, we believers should not be surprised. We already know we “wrestle not against flesh and blood but against…the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” Let us remember, Daniel had to live his faith in Babylon, the absolute epicenter of evil. The Great Harlot may have been kept somewhat at bay here in America for a time, but without the very present acknowledgment of God, we join the rest of a world “intoxicated with the wine of her adulteries.” These evil charlatans who accuse Daniel have been dead for 2,600 years, yet they have been constantly replaced by one generation after another of the Harlot’s children.
What I mean is this: I can today easily put names on many of the people I believe are precisely the children of these same men. None of us would have any trouble identifying people today who represent that “spiritual wickedness in high places.” I wish somehow all of those people could be exposed for who they are, removed from our government (and companies), and replaced with Daniels. However, though those people were removed, they will only be replaced with more of their kind. What this all means is there is no point in wasting too much thought or energy on disliking these people. As a believer, I see the force behind them all, I see it is all a part of a great cosmic spiritual battle raging all around us. I see this is only our generation’s expression of that battle. I see that, in the big scheme of things, the answer is not a voting booth, but rather the victory of faith in individual people’s hearts. In this “first of all,” Daniel would teach us to not look too hard at this generation’s expression of evil, but to look beyond it and recognize the real battle in which the Lord has placed us.
Second, we should not be surprised when the guns of evil are turned very specifically on us and our faith. When these men could find no fault in Daniel, what did they attack? His faith. They attacked prayer itself! It’s not surprising that our demise started with things like prohibiting prayer in schools. Then we’re told we can’t even display the Ten Commandments on the courthouse green (in spite of the fact they are engraved on the walls of the Supreme Court!). We should realize that attacks against faith and against Jesus are only an expression of that same battle. In all likelihood, here in America and throughout our world, they will only get worse, not better. Daniel ended up in the lions’ den. We may well end up in one of our own. Our “second of all” is to not only not be surprised that our world is evil, but to realize it’s only a matter of time and that evil will get aimed squarely at us and our faith.
Third, we should note how Daniel responded to it all. He went on being Daniel. Once again, let us remind ourselves, he lives in Babylon. It doesn’t get any worse. Yet he emerged from it all as a man of exemplary character and consistent faith. Even in a world too much like our own, Daniel could still be a man of an “excellent spirit,” one who “was trustworthy and neither corrupt nor negligent.” Daniel could do it and so can you and I. Regardless of where or when you and I live, we should and can be people who live exemplary lives, being honest, working hard, and letting the Lord show the world Himself however He wants to through us.
Last of all, and I can’t say much about this because I’m running ahead, but isn’t it interesting that Daniel’s response to it all was very specifically prayer. This was true back in chapter 2 when Daniel and his friends were about to be executed and he “urged them to plead for mercy from the God of heaven.” When the Lord did deliver them, he went straight back to prayer and “praised the God of heaven and said, ‘Praise be to the name of God for ever and ever…’” Here in Daniel 6, it is his prayer itself that comes under attack, and how does he respond? He prays. Again, running ahead, this won’t be the last time we see Daniel praying. I would suggest we could write it down, if we would be Daniels in our own expression of Babylon, we’ll have to be people of prayer. The battle is simply beyond us. We need the power of our God to enable us to live well in our Babylon. Like Daniel, we’ll need to put on “the whole armor of God,” and be “praying in the Spirit on all occasions with all kind of prayers and requests…”
Daniel 6:6-9 portrays the vindictive, malevolent reality of evil in our world and the fact that, sooner or later, we may find ourselves squarely in the cross hairs of that very evil. However, the book of Daniel would teach us that faith will yet be the victory. It was in Daniel’s life and can be in yours and mine!
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