In the Lions’ Den
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The voice of the prophet replied: “O king, live forever. My God
hath sent His angel, and hath shut the lions’ mouths, that they have not
hurt me: forasmuch as before Him innocency was found in me; and
also before thee, O king, have I done no hurt.
“Then was the king exceeding glad for him, and commanded that
they should take Daniel up out of the den. So Daniel was taken up out
of the den, and no manner of hurt was found upon him, because he
believed in his God.
“And the king commanded, and they brought those men which had
accused Daniel, and they cast them into the den of lions, them, their
children, and their wives; and the lions had the mastery of them, and
brake all their bones in pieces or ever they came at the bottom of the
den.”
Once more a proclamation was issued by a heathen ruler, exalting
the God of Daniel as the true God. “King Darius wrote unto all people,
nations, and languages, that dwell in all the earth; Peace be multiplied
unto you. I make a decree, that in every dominion of my kingdom
men tremble and fear before the God of Daniel: for He is the living
God, and steadfast forever, and His kingdom that which shall not be
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destroyed, and His dominion shall be even unto the end. He delivereth
and rescueth, and He worketh signs and wonders in heaven and in
earth, who hath delivered Daniel from the power of the lions.”
The wicked opposition to God’s servant was now completely bro-
ken. “Daniel prospered in the reign of Darius, and in the reign of
Cyrus the Persian.” And through association with him, these heathen
monarchs were constrained to acknowledge his God as “the living
God, and steadfast forever, and His kingdom that which shall not be
destroyed.”
From the story of Daniel’s deliverance we may learn that in seasons
of trial and gloom God’s children should be just what they were when
their prospects were bright with hope and their surroundings all that
they could desire. Daniel in the lions’ den was the same Daniel who
stood before the king as chief among the ministers of state and as a
prophet of the Most High. A man whose heart is stayed upon God will
be the same in the hour of his greatest trial as he is in prosperity, when
the light and favor of God and of man beam upon him. Faith reaches
to the unseen, and grasps eternal realities.