Here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:
25Then Darius the king wrote to the all of the peoples, the nations, and the languages—ones dwelling in the all of the land, “Your peace/prosperity be increased. 26From before me was made a decree that in the all of the domain of my kingdom, they shall be ones trembling and ones fearing from before the God of Daniel, because He [is] the God the Living One and enduring to ages and His kingdom which will not be destroyed and His dominion [shall be] until the end. 27[He is] One delivering and One rescuing and He does signs and wonders in the heavens and in the earth, who has delivered Daniel from the paw of the lions.”
These words of Darius are, of course, very similar to those of Nebuchadnezzar in 3:28,29; 4:1-3; and 4:35-37. If you read those passages and then this one, there is the temptation to see a progression. In chapter 3, Nebuchadnezzar simply decreed that no one should “say anything against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego…” In chapter 4, he has grasped God’s greatness and goes so far as to say, “I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and exalt and glorify the King of heaven…” Now here in chapter 6, Darius can even acknowledge Him as “the Living God.”
Each of these decrees must have been an enormous encouragement to Daniel and to the Jewish people. It had to be great to hear the king himself speaking well of the God of Israel. On the other hand, I myself don’t see the indications of genuinely born-again men. As we’ve noted before, this was a completely polytheistic culture. To these people, it was okay to worship someone else’s god. Each had their own god, but it was okay to worship others—especially where it seemed that god had done something stupendous. So, following each of these miraculous interventions, it would be perfectly natural for Darius (or Nebuchadnezzar) to speak words of praise for the God of Israel. However, that does not mean they realized He is the only God.
It is interesting that Darius does acknowledge Him as “the Living God.” I’m not sure what exactly he was seeing, or why he would have acknowledged that. It would be nice to say he realized all the other gods were just dead, powerless idols. In I Thes. 1:9, it was said of the Thessalonian believers that they “turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God…” In their case, of course, their conversion was quite real. However, we note that they “turned to God from idols.” They left their idols and turned to God to serve Him alone. It never says that of Darius. Once again, it is impressive that he acknowledges Him as “the Living God,” but I still fear that none of it was enough to move him to actually give his heart to the Lord. Maybe he did, but you would think, had he truly realized the rest of the “gods” were all charades, he could have said so. It is much more likely he only saw the God of Israel as a very powerful god, but just another one of the many gods.
On the other hand, I find it interesting that in each of these cases, these pagan kings responded to the Lord’s workings with worship. Each time, they respond by ascribing greatness to the God of Heaven. Rather than rushing to see in these things their conversion, I would suggest what we are seeing is these men’s creatureliness. They may be fallen creatures, but they are still God’s creation. They may be fallen men, but they are still created in the image of God. We were created to reflect God’s image in our own lives. To be fallen does not mean a man loses all ability to reflect that image. It is more as if the mirror is shattered. The image is still there in the shards of mirror; they’re just broken. In a sense, to be redeemed is to allow Jesus to slowly put those shards back together until one day in heaven the job will be complete and we will each once again beautifully reflect the Lord’s goodness.
Worship is our rightful response to all God does and everything He is. It is no wonder in heaven the Seraphim are constantly crying, “Holy, holy, holy…!” Once again, here in our text, we see pagan kings who cannot help but respond themselves with worship when they have consciously had an encounter with the Living God. How much more should that be true of you and me? And for you and me, how much more should worship be our very lives? For these men, an encounter with God required a stupendous, undeniable Class A miracle. You and I should literally wake up in the wonder of who our God is. “This is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it!”
Darius could see several things true about God. Look again at his decree. He understood that the Lord is Someone to fear and literally tremble before. That was a very good thing since “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom”! He understood in some way that He is the living God. Once again, I’m not certain what Darius meant by that, but he was at least very close to a real relationship with God. Then notice his recognition of God’s eternality: “He endures forever; His kingdom will be not be destroyed, His dominion will never end.” That was the very first thing on Nebuchadnezzar’s mind when his sanity returned. In that case, he said, “Then I praised the Most High; I honored and glorified Him who lives forever. His dominion is an eternal dominion; His kingdom endures from generation to generation” (4:34).
Finally, he at least began to comprehend that He is a God of grace. Darius observed, “He rescues and He saves; He performs signs and wonders in the heavens and on earth. He has rescued Daniel from the paw of the lions.” In every case, he is literally seeing God. Good for him. In general, us humans are so consumed with the busy-ness of this life, we rarely look up or look around and realize this is God’s world. In this case, I wish it could have been true that Darius actually entered into a personal relationship with God. We’ll only know in heaven if he did or didn’t, but wow is he close!
Back to us. If you and I have met the Living God, if we can see Jesus in all His beauty, how much more should worship be the very air we breathe? I love the fact that Darius calls Him “the God of Daniel.” You and I were not created to walk alone. I was created to be a man with a God. May the worship in my heart be so real that people around me see Him, but may they see Him as my God. May they realize the great God of heaven is a personal God. If He’s my God, He could be their God!
If the freight train of God’s reality can crash through the lives of even very immoral, polytheistic kings, may His still, small voice be enough to fill your life and mine with worship. And may that love relationship be bright enough to call someone else to enter into the very worship they too were born to enjoy! Daniel’s life did just that with Darius. May you and I “go and do likewise”!
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