BETWEEN THE LIONS

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Daniel 6:16-23

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God upholds us in an unfriendly culture.

A sermon preached by

Dr. William O. (Bud) R= eeves

First United Methodist Church

Hot= Springs, Arkansas

August 31, 2008

One of my favorite TV shows growing up as a ch= ild was “Gilligan’s Island.̶= 1; Though it only ran for three years (1964-67), it has been a staple of re-runs ever since, and many of us, if we hear the tune, “Just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale…”, can supply the next line in the theme song.

One of the characters on the show was the Prof= essor, played by Russell Johnson. He= was an educated man, able to make all sorts of things out of materials there on= the island. He made conveyor syst= ems for water and fashioned generators out of palm fronds. He formulated vaccines for tropical diseases out of pond scum. Bu= t the one thing he never did do was fix the hole in the boat that had them strand= ed on the island. With everythin= g else he could do, surely he could have patched the hull of the Minnow! But he wa= s too busy fabricating his little gadgets and never got around to the one task th= at could have sent them back to civilization.

Does your daily life ever feel like that? You spend your time fiddling with = the gadgets and occupying your time and energy with insignificant matters, and = all the while there is a gaping hole in your boat that needs to get fixed. Many a boat has been sunk—ma= ny a life has been damaged—by not paying attention to the most important things. As we look at our liv= es on this Labor Day weekend of 2008, we need to get a sharper focus. We need to aim for the center. We need to be able to hit the bull’s-eye on a regular basis.

Daniel lived a very focused life; let’s = learn something from him. Daniel was part of the group of Jews who were exiled to= Babylon after the fall of Jerusalem in the 6^th century= B. C. When the Babylonians fell = to the Persians, several of the Jews were elevated to positions of power, and Dani= el was one of them. He was one of three presidents that the king, Darius, set over 120 regional governors to administrate the kingdom. In = order to succeed at that high level of government, he had to stay focused. But also, at a personal level, try= ing to operate in a culture that was foreign in its beliefs caused Daniel to hold = on very tightly to the core of his identity as a child of God and a Jew. He maintained his diet and his pra= yer life as a way of staying focused on his heritage of faith. He was not going to let the foreign culture around him change his way of life.

Daniel’s success caused the other administrators in the Persian kingdom to resent him. They began to look for a way to de= stroy him. They couldn’t accu= se him of a crime or of dishonesty; Daniel was a man of absolute integrity. But he did have this God-thing. So they convinced King Darius to i= ssue an edict saying that everyone had to pray to and worship the king and only = the king for thirty days. Anyone = caught praying to another god would be thrown into the den of lions that Darius ke= pt around for dealing with his enemies.

Now Daniel knew that the no-pray rule was in e= ffect, but he went right on with his daily devotions—he prayed three times a day—which of course his enemies had figured he would do. So they easily caught him and haul= ed him before the king. Darius was extremely distraught that Daniel had been caught, but the law was the law, = not to mention the political pressure, so he walked Daniel to the lions' den himself and offered Daniel this prayer, “May your God, whom you faithfully serve, deliver you.”= = [1] They lowered Daniel into the lions’ den, sealed the door, and the king went back to the palace. He couldn’t eat or sleep all night long.

When morning came he rushed to the lions’= ; den to see what had happened to Daniel. He called out to him, and Daniel answered back, “I’m fine! The angel of the Lord s= hut the lions’ mouths, and none of them wanted a midnight snack or anything. By the way, you can= take me out now!”

So the king rejoiced that Daniel was OK, and h= e had him taken up out of the lions’ den.&= nbsp; When he came up, there was not a scratch on him, because, as the Scripture says, “he had trust= ed in his God.”[2]

I think this particular story of Daniel is a g= reat image for the way we live our lives day by day. If you work, if you go to school, = even if you are retired, you spend your day-to-day, week-to-week activity between the lions. We live in the lions’ den—we have to be very careful!

We live among the lions of a pagan culture. Ti= me was that there was a common sense of cultural and religious values in our society. Everyone accepted, e= ven if they did not follow, the norms of our Judeo-Christian heritage. That day is long gone, my friends.= America was founded on princi= ples derived from Christianity, and the Christian religion is still the most inf= luential in the country. But it would = be a stretch any more to call the United States a Christian nation. The society we live in today is mo= re like the culture of the first century, with many different beliefs, many different gods, and some of them not even spiritual gods—materialism, power, sex, mind-altering substances—these are all competing gods in = our world today. I don’t th= ink I need to rehearse for you the immoral and unchristian influences we get from various forms of media every single day: music, movies, television, and the internet. Garbage abounds. To live as a Christian in today= 217;s culture, it takes an intentional and concentrated effort.

We live between the lions of hostility day by day. Rage is all the rage today; road rage is only part of it. There is an undercurrent of anger = just beneath the surface of so many lives. I used to think “going postal” meant mailing a letter; n= ow it refers to disgruntled employees blowing away their co-workers or bosses. It hardly even makes = the news any more. I was talking = with a lady who works in the administration of one of our state universities, and = she told me that the biggest change she had noticed in the last few years was t= he amount of anger she had to deal with every day—from students, parents= , and colleagues. It’s everywhere. There is even a documented phenomenon called “church rage,” hostility that past= ors and staff have to deal with in their ministries for the Prince of Peace. Almost every large church I know of employs security personnel. I= t’s not unusual any more to hear that violence has erupted in church services, gunmen opening fire, killing people at worship. It’s a world full of lions, = and sometimes they’re hostile.

The presence of the lions can tempt you in two ways. They can tempt you to lose your integrity. When you’re under pressure to perform and the world around you seems to have lost its sense of right and wrong, then the temptation is strong to go with the crowd. It would have been so easy for Dan= iel to have ignored his heritage of faith and just go with the flow of Persian culture. Eat what they eat. Pray to whomever the law says. What difference does it make?

The presence of the lions also tempts you to lose your faith. Living in a pagan culture, surrounded by hostile people, seeing the apparent success of dishonesty, it makes you wonder. Why stay fa= ithful to God? Is God really in cont= rol any more? Is religion just so= me sort of comforting self-delusion? Why bother? Won’= t the gods of wealth and fame and power and feeling good—the gods of our own creation—suffice?

In a word, no. Self-created gods will not suffice.= We have to have more. S= t. Augustine said it centuries ago: “Our hearts= are restless until they rest in Thee.”&n= bsp; We will not find rest, we will not find peace, we will not find protection from the lions by trusting in ourselves or in the ways of humanity. It just won’t= work for the long haul.

Mike Holmgren, the head coach and general manager for the Seattle Seahawks, had invested his life in success on the football field. It all came crashing down when he was fired from the New York Jets. Suddenly he had to find (or redisc= over) a bigger God: "I had com= mitted my life to Jesus Christ when I was 11, but in my pursuit to make a name for myself in football, I left God next to my dust-covered Bible. But after getting cut from the Jets= , I pulled out my Bible and found comfort in a verse I had memorized in Sunday school: 'Trust in the Lord with all= your heart; and do not rely on your own insight. In all your ways acknowledge hi= m, and he will make straight your paths.'[3] I asked Jesus Chris= t to take control again. My priorities in life are faith, family, and football--= in that order."[4]

Daniel survived his encounter with the lions because he knew his priorities. Here is one of the greatest exampl= es of courage in all of Scripture, and it all boils down to maintaining your focu= s, knowing your target, and striving every day to hit the bull’s-eye of life. Daniel’s courage = was based on his priorities, and his priorities depended on two things.

The first was personal integrity. Daniel had integrity; there was no disconnection between his inner and outer life. When his enemies tried to destroy = him, Scripture says, “they could find no gro= unds for complaint or any corruption, because he was faithful, and no negligence= or corruption could be found in him.”[5] When the law was issued that = nobody could pray except to Darius, Daniel obeyed a higher law: “he continued to go to his house…and to get down on his knees three times a day to pray to his God and to praise him, just as he had done previously.”[6] Though his integrity got him in trouble with his enemies, Daniel stuck = to his priorities, and he was eventually vindicated. Without his integrity, he would ha= ve been destroyed. When we lose = our integrity, we lose everything—our trustworthiness, our relationships,= our community, our life. We become lunch for the lions.

The power behind Daniel’s integrity, the strength of his courage, was his faith in God. The last phrase of our Scripture s= ums it all up: “no kind of harm was = found on him, because he had trusted in his God.”[7] There is the bull’s-eye= in the target of life—faith in God.&nbs= p; It all comes down to this. Do you have a living relationship with God? Do you trust in him? Can you put everything else second= ary to him? Can you maintain your integrity and your priorities against the temptations of the world? Can you stay faithful?<= /span>

If you can, you can li= ve with courage. You can face the lions. You will be vindicated= . The lions won’t disappear, b= ut God will give you his supernatural protection.= You will be covered.

I read a dramatic story about a young student named Hawa Ahmed, a Muslim in = North Africa. One day = she read a Christian tract in her dormitory, and she decided to become a Christian. She changed her na= me to Faith. Her father was an emir= (an Islamic ruler), so she knew there would be some problems, but she was not prepared for what happened. W= hen she told her father that she had become a Christian, he exploded in a rage. He and her brothers str= ipped the girl naked and tied her to a metal chair and were going to electrocute her. She asked at least that = they put her Bible in her lap. Her father responded, “If you want to die with your false religion, so be= it.” Her brothers laughed at her “powerless” religion. But Faith was able to touch the corner of her Bible and said she fel= t a strong Presence standing next to her.

When her father plugge= d the wire into the socket to electrocute his Christian daughter, nothing happened. They tried four tim= es with different cables and hookups, and they couldn’t get the thing to work. It was as if the electr= icity refused to flow. So in exasperation, the father screamed, “You are no longer my daughter!= 221; and threw her naked into the street. In that culture, there was nothing that could have been more humiliating.

Faith began running do= wn the street to a Christian friend’s house, but the people on the street did not seem to be shocked, only curious. When she arrived at her friend’s house, naked and sobbing and shaking, her friend took her in and clothed her and gave her shelter. The next day her friend asked some neighbors what they were thinking when this naked girl came running down the street. They responded, ̶= 0;What naked girl? All we saw was a = girl in a beautiful white dress, and we wondered why someone clothed so beautifu= lly would be running down the street.”&n= bsp; God had miraculously hidden her nakedness from their eyes, clothing = her in the garments of an angel. Today Faith is a full-time evangelist with a Christian organization in Africa.= = [8]

When your live your li= fe with integrity and depend on faith, God will cover you with his love. He wi= ll take care of you. He will not= let you go. When we live in that = trust, our life becomes a real vocation, a calling from God. Whatever wo= rk we do, it is holy work. Whatever= lions we face, we face them with a Higher Power by our side. Whatever temptations and destructi= ve influences threaten our safety and our sanity, we are at rest in God. We can live with courage.

On this Labor Day Sunday, before you go out to f= ace the lions again this week, remember this.&= nbsp; Have faith in God. Liv= e with integrity. Don’t give i= n to fear or temptation. Live with courage. God will save you, a= nd you will be victorious! Amen!