When to Defy Authority: A Case Study of Daniel!

When to Defy Authority: A Case Study of Daniel!                                by Kelly Durant 3-16-14                 

Daniel 6:3 Now Daniel so distinguished himself among the administrators and the satraps by his exceptional qualities that the king planned to set him over the whole kingdom. 4 At this, the administrators and the satraps tried to find grounds for charges against Daniel in his conduct of government affairs, but they were unable to do so. They could find no corruption in him, because he was trustworthy and neither corrupt nor negligent. 5 Finally these men said, “We will never find any basis for charges against this man Daniel unless it has something to do with the law of his God.”6 So these administrators and satraps went as a group to the king and said: “May King Darius live forever! 7 The royal administrators, prefects, satraps, advisers and governors have all agreed that the king should issue an edict and enforce the decree that anyone who prays to any god or human being during the next thirty days, except to you, Your Majesty, shall be thrown into the lions’ den. 8 Now, Your Majesty, issue the decree and put it in writing so that it cannot be altered—in accordance with the law of the Medes and Persians, which cannot be repealed.” 9 So King Darius put the decree in writing.10 Now when Daniel learned that the decree had been published, he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened toward Jerusalem. Three times a day he got down on his knees and prayed, giving thanks to his God, just as he had done before. 11 Then these men went as a group and found Daniel praying and asking God for help. 12 So they went to the king and spoke to him about his royal decree: “Did you not publish a decree that during the next thirty days anyone who prays to any god or human being except to you, Your Majesty, would be thrown into the lions’ den?”

2. As a child most of us learned about Daniel getting thrown in the Lion’s den and all of us were fascinated that he came out alive! It is an amazing story and a proof of God’s authority above all other authorities! Some die for the faith but then there are others being holy and outstanding that God uses to shock the world! Daniel continues to fascinate us with his prophecies!

So what lead up to Daniel’s arrest and punishment in this manner? This is what we will discover today and compare how it parallels many current world systems. In the scripture we observe that Daniel had an exceptional ability to receive messages from God, to know and understand His justice and precepts, which are eternal, and this wisdom from God, with God’s anointing, empowered him to predict the future and get it right! Something no other religious leader has ever done. Apart from Jesus Christ, Daniel is the one that has left us the most information about the future fate of the world! These predictions are truth and they continue to sober anyone who studies them! The world has witnessed already all the kingdoms come and go and we are on the final span of the mixed iron and clay!

3. It is very miraculous how he accurately predicted the rise and fall of the world kingdoms after his death! (Babylon, Medes-Persians, Greeks, Romans, and soon to come the 10 toes or final nations under the anti-christ) Later on in the book of Daniel one can discover that Daniel himself did not even understand all of the prophecies he recorded! Daniel 12:8 I heard, but I did not understand. So I asked, “My lord, what will the outcome of all this be?”9 He replied, “Go your way, Daniel, because the words are rolled up and sealed until the time of the end. 10 Many will be purified, made spotless and refined, but the wicked will continue to be wicked. None of the wicked will understand, but those who are wise will understand.”

Jesus gives reference to the entire Book of Daniel in Matt. 24, in other words Jesus wants his followers to be well versed in his prophecies. Why? Jesus knew that through the centuries people would witness that all his prophecies would come to pass. Why do world powers or kingdoms rise and fall? It all depends on their rejection or acceptance of our God Jehovah and his Son Jesus! In the case of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar recognized the authority of Daniel’s God because after being so proud of his accomplishments he was humiliated to mental illness so that he lived naked like a wild beast for 7 years, and after this humiliation he returned to reign again. The words in Proverbs 16:18 are proven true: “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.” Apply that to yourself! (And I will to me!)

4. What was the situation of Daniel in chapter 6 (the first verses of today)? Darius the Mede who became King after conquering Belshazzar of Babylon, appointed Daniel as an administrator over a portion of his Kingdom. He was one of 120 appointed. I am sure everyone knew that it was Daniel that interpreted the writing on the wall of the prediction of the conquering of Babylon by the Medes-Persians Empire.

Why did God allow this change of world powers? It was because of arrogance and the lack of respect to our God by the Babylonians! Observe Daniel 5: 22 “But you, Belshazzar, his son,[d] have not humbled yourself, though you knew all this. 23 Instead, you have set yourself up against the Lord of heaven. You had the goblets from his temple brought to you, and you and your nobles, your wives and your concubines drank wine from them. You praised the gods of silver and gold, of bronze, iron, wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or understand. But you did not honor the God who holds in his hand your life and all your ways. 24 Therefore he sent the hand that wrote the inscription. 25 “This is the inscription that was written: mene, mene, tekel, parsin 26 “Here is what these words mean: Mene[e]: God has numbered the days of your reign and brought it to an end.27 Tekel[f]: You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting.28 Peres[g]: Your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.”29 Then at Belshazzar’s command, Daniel was clothed in purple, a gold chain was placed around his neck, and he was proclaimed the third highest ruler in the kingdom.30 That very night Belshazzar, king of the Babylonians,[h] was slain, 31 and Darius the Mede took over the kingdom, at the age of sixty-two.

5. What an immediate judgment! Now a new world power is in place and Daniel is respected by King Darius as a man of God, as an intelligent prophet and as one on their side. But always when an authority allows a man of God to be influential, the jealous corrupt people of Satan come out of the woodwork to persecute, attack, and destroy their reputation, influence, and seek their destruction.

Notice even several thousand years ago that the tactics of Satan remain the same to divide and conquer. Satan is always active in the powers that be and active in the churches as well. Darius was a just king, his laws allowed for religious tolerance and he did not have a problem with Daniel worshiping his Jehovah God, after all Daniel had a wisdom and power superior to even his own wise men!

But Satan working through evil people will always express their full epitome of murderous hatred and jealousy.  Since Satan knows he can never obtain the worship and power that God has, he does his best to destroy those who do love God and obey his statues. He tries to divert power to himself and be worshiped by imposition and applying the law is one of his favorite ways issuing death decrees on those who refuse to accept his dominance. Massive murders throughout all history have taken place by Satan’s world leaders. This includes all false religions, fascists, and communists! Over 100 million in the past 100 years!

6. When you read many books concerning power acquisition you run across a certain formula that Satan uses continuously in his divide and conquer scheming. It is the “thesis, anti-thesis, syntheses” formula. Let me give you an example from today’s lesson. The ‘thesis’ refers to the established system, let’s say the general consensus from the king is that religious tolerance is good, so as a principle and in practice it is legal and accepted.  Evil people who want dominance over the public know that they must destroy the established system in order to rebuild a new one in their own image, so they attack a noble principle which was fair and just with an ‘anti’ attack. Darius’ leaders convinced him to become religiously intolerant for the exaltation of himself!  

The goal of multitudes of evil people today is to abuse their liberty and destroy God’s people who are the ones that expose their evil abuses with truths that awaken the masses. This exposure prevents the people from being subdued under their evil practices. The goal of Satan is to use people as an instrument making them a “naysayer”. In meetings, they arise as the contradictors: the ones that always bring contention. They usually attack the established way accusing that it is not valid. The motive is to get others to accept their way as truth. But here is a truth: a contradiction can never over-ride the truth even though it may deceive a majority of ignorant ones for a season. The truth of God always prevails!

7. In the 6^th chapter of Daniel Darius was tricked by his corrupt advisors to make a law restricting worship only to him the King. So blind pride caused Darius to change his tolerance to intolerance without analysis, so the ‘antithesis’ of the established was introduced and there were grave consequences. The ‘synthesis’ or outcome was not the expected by the schemers who sought Daniel’s death though as no one expected Daniel to survive the Lion’s den! But that miracle changed the direction of this new world kingdom and God Jehova had influence in the kingdom!

Instead of the evil ones becoming the absolute powerful leaders that they envisioned their selves to become, they were exposed as scheming fools having no power to overcome the plans of God for the future! Remember, they got thrown into the den and they were eaten!

And when Jesus came out of the grave, Satan thought he had defeated Him as well, but resurrection was an unexpected maneuver that changed all the laws of the universe forever! Death was conquered and Satan as well so that ‘whosoever’ (desires) can be saved if they just accept Jesus and seek to live as He lived. The lesson: God in his mercy is resolved to allow evil ones to destroy their own selves. No one can ever blame God for injustice! People reap what they sew!

8. Historian Toynbee said, “The only thing we learn from history is that we never learn from history.” This principle is a tragic truth as today we see that this nation is in crisis because the former functional and fair established system and law is being sabotaged by the ‘antithesis’ seducers. Sadly, few people are standing up to expose the corrupters with their evil hearts desirous of destruction scheming to shift absolute power into their undeserving hands. The U.S. has always had corruption but today we are insulting God!

I will use the example of religious tolerance, which most people value; it is under very heavy fire as we speak. I had a conversation with a person whom I perceived had radical left views and he was telling me that this country has tolerated far too long all the Christian conservatives and that they need to be outlawed and imprisoned! It seems illogical that this mindset exists, that people would hate values that confirm respect and loyalty to all, but it is a sad truth: evil people hate the good and good people! Did you know that in the new U.S. military manuals demonize conservative Christians and they are to be treated as suspects or even terrorists? Why, what evidence justifies this? Do Christians in the U.S. show evidence of violence more than others?  No! The Muslim religion and prayers on the bases are welcomed under the guise of ‘we are religiously tolerant’, but Christian pastors have been repeatedly shut out of doing services on many military bases! What a radical change from history!

When you investigate deeper you see that Christian non-profits are being denied permits and are being persecuted as well. The current tax system has far too much power (as in all nations) and they are the ones who with too little resistance continue to overtly persecute Christians and those who are not embracing their values which are diametrically opposed to God’s values as defined in the Bible.

9. Today, respect for freedom of expression has been perverted from its original intent. The evil ones in power appear intent on drying up Christian influence by financial persecution. Christians are hated by evil people because they have clean enough hearts (exposing theirs) to perceive with wisdom the truth of their ‘modus operandi’ exposing their hypocrisy and corruption. The blind cannot lead the blind, but the seeing can!  Real Christians never accept a bribe or money to join the inner circle and keep quiet. But the law of reaping is like a rubber band, it goes only so far then it snaps so the backlash is coming. Who recalls that this nation rebelled and was born out of the concept of ‘no taxation without representation’? And how about remember people came here to escape religious persecution!

One other thing, the anti-christ will demand that everyone worship him as god: now that is not being very religiously tolerant! Daniel 11: 36 “The king will do as he pleases. He will exalt and magnify himself above every god and will say unheard-of things against the God of gods. He will be successful until the time of wrath is completed, for what has been determined must take place. 37 He will show no regard for the gods of his ancestors or for the one desired by women, nor will he regard any god, but will exalt himself above them all. Read between the lines, we can see the nature of those who are anti-christ!

The imminent question is will you be as brave as Daniel? When word got to him that he could no longer pray to his God, but instead he by law had to pray to Darius, he intentionally left open his window for all to see that he was not going to submit to an unjust law, and worship a man nor a false god, nor succumb to their schemes! Their ‘anti’ tolerance was intolerable! Our first loyalty is always to God and we need to proclaim Him above all, always and forever! The Romans burned Christians alive in the arenas because they would not worship their leaders as gods as well! Caesar was god and you were condemned as a law-breaker if you did not bow to him. But was that a sustainable system? No! Rome fell due to their corruption but how ironic that it became in part Christian in the last quarter of its end! It was too little too late! No one today worships any Caesars, Venus, or any of their pagan gods! Satan’s cruelty fails in the face of God’s holiness, mercy, and love!

10.  Romans 14:8 If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. This must be our stance, our attitude, and our die is cast, we will stand up for the right! We must be imitators of Daniel and esteem God’s will above any law that contradicts God’s law. Ever since the 1960’s the laws of this land, against the will of the Christian majority, have been re-written to accommodate everything abominable, detestable, and ‘anti’ Biblical. Young people today are seriously confused because confusing contradicting laws are governing their world. Sadly they live with no past perspective of living in a safe predominately Christian society where no one locked their doors when Biblical laws reigned and 70% went to church. That was just a few decades ago!

As Christians we live under grace and not the law, but still the Torah law does give us a guide for what kind of a healthy lifestyle God desires for us to have. God’s laws have worked very well for a few thousand years! However, today these basic functional laws which function well in any culture have been ‘anti-ed’, and no good synthesis is being produced! Laws pertaining to life, sexuality, religious freedom, protection from substance abuse, exploitation and on and on are our concern so we can protect our grandchildren and preserve society from decay. Many people today live in every way possible totally against a majority of God’s commands! They, of course, reject Jesus Christ and this is why no love is in them: they are the haters! We must always speak up against evil identifying evil as evil!

11. So when should a person of God defy authority? Whenever it is a direct contradiction and attack on God’s commands! Remember what happened in the book of Acts when the hypocritical religious leaders were furious with God’s disciples for preaching?  28 “We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name,” he said. “Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us guilty of this man’s blood.” 29 Peter and the other apostles replied: “We must obey God rather than human beings!

God protected Peter and the disciples, God protected Daniel and countless others throughout history who took a stance against those inspired by Satan who were seeking dominance by imposition of laws and trends contradictory to God’s truths that stand forever. Tolerance is the epitome of hypocrisy when demanded yet not given! You have God given rights, so stand firm on them and expose evil! Think about this, God never extended tolerance to idol worshipping murderers! In the Old Testament time of the law the climate was was either kill or be killed and today evil is dominating and expanding because evil doers are not getting enough resistance. Too many people are too afraid of what these abusers would do to them and what they would lose if they take a stand. But Christians, it’s time to man up!

Today is a good time to examine if you have any pride in your heart. Many people have lost their soul mates, or their jobs, over pride and we might even lose a nation if pride continues to provoke stark contradictions of God’s values. We live in times as in Isiah Isaiah 5:20 Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Our role is to fight for the standards of God and it is a tiring hard spiritual war! This is a warfare that includes the battling against demons in humans! So fight the good fight of faith defending it, amen?