Sometimes the Lions Are Hungry
Daniel 6
I know what I’m supposed to say today
-and what I’m supposed to say today is what I’d planned to say
today until a few days ago
--now, please understand—what I’m supposed to say today and
what I’d planned to say today is still true and right and good
---and it speaks to the power of God
---and it speaks to the faithfulness of a man who humbly
obeyed God in far-from-ideal circumstances
-but I can’t preach that aspect of today’s text—again, not because
it’s untrue...but because it’s simply not the entire story
--and we know it’s not the entire story—we’ve always known
that—but we’ve just been afraid to raise our hand, interrupt the
preacher, and ask the questions no one wants to ask aloud
Let’s begin with the amazing story—a story so popular that even
those who know very little about the Bible have heard of Daniel in
the lions’ den
-remember, Daniel is one of the many Jews who are in exile in
--God’s hand continues to be on Daniel...and the king appoints
him to be one of the top three government officials
--but Daniel’s abilities arouse the jealousy of the other two top
officials, as well as by the 120 provincial governors (called
satraps) who were beneath them
---and when they learn of the king’s intentions to promote
Daniel to an even higher position...well, that’s the
proverbial straw that breaks the camel’s back
Read Daniel 6:3-11
We can only imagine what happens next
-because while Daniel does not parade his faith by praying on the
street corner or in the palace, neither does he kowtow to the king
or his edict
--Daniel simply continues doing what he’s always done...praying
three times a day...at home...with the shutters of his windows
wide open for all the world to see
Now that these men have their evidence they return to the king, first
reminding him of his inability to repeal the law, and then present
their case against Daniel
Read Daniel 6:14-18
Now if this were a TV drama or an old radio show, this is when we
would hear: “Will the government officials succeed in their attempt
to silence Daniel for good? Will Daniel’s God be able to save him?
Or will the lions make mincemeat out of Daniel? Tune in next week
to find out!”
Because I’m a nice guy, I won’t make you wait until next week
-Read Daniel 6:19-23
No matter how you try to explain it—that’s a miracle
-that’s God stepping into the human drama and rescuing His servant
from the literal jaws of death
--the Bible is full of that...earlier in Daniel 3, we read about God
saving Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego from the fiery
furnace...we could turn to the book of Jonah and discover how
God saved His disobedient prophet...we could read the story
in 1 Samuel 17 about a shepherd boy who single-handedly
defeats the greatest warrior in history
---miracles—all of them
--and while few of us have faced actual lions, almost all of us can
tell stories about our personal miracles...when God healed you
from a disease...when He protected you from a serious car
accident...when a tornado narrowly missed your house...or
good things, like when He led you to a job, when you met your
spouse, when your child was born
---we have had those times when God works in such a way
we simply know it was God’s hand opening to pour out
His undeserved blessing or closing to shield us from evil
For example, there’s the story of Amanda Meyer
-one spring day, while Amanda was waiting to
meet some friends for
lunch, a girl she knew from work invited
her to go out instead
--her friends were late, she thought, plus
she figured she would
meet them after lunch to study in
the library as they’d planned
-so she and the girl from work went to Taco
Bell where Amanda
managed to spill taco sauce on her white T-shirt
--her first reaction was to wear her
coat the rest of the day, but
her co-worker offered to drive her
home so she could change
-since she was already going to be late,
Amanda accepted
--the two girls returned to school, but
instead of racing to the
library to meet her friend, Cassie,
they watched in horror as
hundreds of students were fleeing from
their school
---within moments, one teacher, the
two gunmen, and twelve
students lay dead in
Columbine...including Amanda’s
friend, Cassie Bernall...who
was murdered in the library
-Amanda’s mother firmly believes God spared
her daughter’s life
--and who can blame her?
---it was, after all, the only time Amanda
had ever left school
grounds to eat lunch
Great story. True story. Miraculous story?
-if I were Amanda’s father, I don’t think I could see it any other way
--can God do something like that? [of course!]
But what about the others who didn’t happen to go to Taco Bell?
-because you see, for every Amanda Meyer, there are 13 Cassie
Bernalls
--for every salesman who missed his flight because his alarm
didn’t go off, there are 145 who did wake up on time and
boarded a plane that would crash minutes after take-off
--for every good Samaritan who helps a stranded motorist who,
in turn, offers them a once-in-a-lifetime job...there are good
Samaritans who are beaten, robbed, or hit by a passing semi
-I’m sorry, but that’s how life is
-two weeks ago,
just outside of
11- and 8-year-old granddaughters were struck and killed by a
train while on their way to church
What is God thinking about then?
-if God feels the need to kill somebody with a train, why kill people
going to church?
--weren’t there any child molesters or drug dealers crossing
those tracks same tracks that morning?
--or why couldn’t one of the girls been sick that morning?
We might reply, “Hey, that’s why we call them ‘miracles.’ If they
happened every day, we’d call them ‘routines’ or ‘regulars’”
-and while true, perhaps, that doesn’t answer all the questions...not
even close
For too long the church has been handing out sugary-sweet
preprogrammed responses to those heart-sick questions
-it’s not so much that we’re afraid of the questions...instead, I think
we’re terrified of what the answers might be
--because even though I know God delivered Daniel from the
lions...and I know He can and does do those death-defying
miracles still today...I knew I could not stand in front of you—
you who have suffered so much, and tell you that God will
always work a miracle...I’d feel like a hypocrite
---because the truth is, sometimes the lions are hungry
Like when a gunman entered the Jibla Baptist hospital in the
mountains of
southwest
-if God can cause the lions to have lockjaw...then why would He
choose not to cause that man’s gun to jam?
-now before you argue that God used that tragedy for His glory, let
me ask you—wouldn’t He have received just as much glory by
miraculously intervening?
Roger Loyd used all of his five weeks of vacation in 2006 to serve
with the Arkansas Baptist Convention disaster relief team
-so when a
crippling ice storm struck southwest
of January, Roger didn’t even have to think twice before he took
more vacation, grabbed his chainsaw, and headed north
--after a full week of making a real contribution in the clean-up
efforts, Roger headed toward his home
in
---but the 47-year-old never made it
-I realize this will sound blasphemous, but sometimes events like
that make me wonder if God has any common sense
--why let Roger die?
---he had a wife, two daughters, and a granddaughter
---he had a couple more decades of kingdom work to do...it’s
not like we’re going to run out of disasters
--wouldn’t everyone have been better off if God had made one
of Roger’s tires go flat before the crash?
So that kinda’ puts us in a quandary, of sorts...at least it does for me
-sometimes, God does step in and do the miracle-thing, but most of
the times He doesn’t
--sometimes God does step in, but does it in a way that we don’t
recognize how His hand is working
--then there are times when “bad” people get away with murder
--and sometimes really “good” people suffer more than anybody
-and all the while people like me stand in front of people like you and
try tell you with
a straight face that God is good and at
the same
time that God is all-powerful
Yet, that message is the unmistakable message of the Bible
-so that means, logically, that one of us is wrong
--either God’s written Word is in error
--or me in my cynicism is messed up
Before we go any further, let me say in my defense that my thinking is
much, much more commonplace than you might imagine—and
that’s true both outside and inside the church
-ask someone whose child has been killed by a drunk driver...and
the other driver was not only uninjured, but spent 3 months in jail
-ask someone whose father has been diagnosed with ALS
-ask someone who actually pays attention to the unbelievable
suffering around the world
Back to our choice: one of us must be wrong—either the Bible or me
-against my natural tendency and pride, I’m going to confess that I
must be the one in error
--my heart and mind are fickle, driven by emotion, and always
lacking the complete truth
--God, on the other hand, is the very epitome of rock-sold truth
-the problem is that too often we listen only to our opinion or the
beliefs of others...and very rarely turn to Scripture, which should
be the source of how we interpret what’s going on in the world
We need to rest on a recurring theme from Scripture...one that we
know is there, but we assume it applies only to other people
-so when we face the diagnosis of a terminal illness or get a phone
call about an accident or are numb with grief...we are left
suddenly having doubts about the reliability of His Word
My typical response to this question is that we suffer the
consequences of our choices...of our sin
-and that sometimes we suffer because of someone else’s sin
--that’s the “curse” side of the blessing of free will
-but I’ve been pulled in a different direction...one I will try to convey
quickly and clearly...or at least get the discussion started
--let me warn you, however, that you probably won’t like this...in
fact, it may make some of you angry
-but I ask you to hear me out on this one—it’s important...and it’s
true—whether we like it or not
The reason most of us struggle with tragedy like we do is because we
do not share God’s perspective on death
-now, before you get up and walk out—please listen for a moment
--I’m not denying the reality of death or pain
--I’m not claiming that experiencing deep grief is wrong
-instead, I want to invite you to look at Scripture through a different
set of lenses
First, we must realize that even “back in Bible times” good people did
die for doing good things
-tradition says that 11 of the 12 disciples of Jesus were killed for
their faith...and the other one, John, was exiled to an island
-earlier in the service we read about Stephen
--this is a guy
who is described in Acts 6 as being a man
full of
faith and of the Holy Spirit...a man
full of God’s grace and
power...[who] did great wonders and
miraculous signs
--yet he is killed for nothing more than speaking the truth
-and when Hebrews 11, the great faith chapter, describes the
unforgettable, triumphant lives of the saints...it ends with a
blatant honesty that many Christians seem to ignore
--Hebrews 11:35b-38 à Others
were tortured...Some faced
jeers and flogging, while still
others were chained and put in
prison. They were stoned; they were sawed in two;
they
were put to death by the
sword. They went about in
sheepskins and goatskins,
destitute, persecuted and
mistreated—the world was not
worthy of them. They
wandered in deserts and mountains
and in caves and holes
in the ground.
-and we’re thinking, “Gee, that’s not exactly what I signed up for!”
I’m convinced that a large part of our ongoing problem is that we’ve
bought into the lie that God intends for us to have our best life now
-I realize you’ve heard me criticize Joel Osteen before, but his
book is not the problem—his book is only the symptom of a
disease that has infected American Christianity for so long that
millions of people can’t even recognize how unbiblical it is
--too many American Christians are convinced that chasing the
American Dream is God’s purpose for their lives...and they
believe that when “the Dream” comes true that must be
proof God has blessed them
--it’s not just that the Declaration of Independence has “the
pursuit of happiness” as a God-given right...or that Madison
Avenue constantly screams in our ears...the problem is that
Christians, of all people, have bought into that lie
---we’re living so much for the here and now that when
death so rudely wakes us up from our version of the
Dream, we demand an explanation from God
-1 Thessalonians 4:13 à Brothers,
we don’t want you to be
ignorant about those who fall asleep or to grieve like the rest of
men, who have no hope.
--Paul isn’t telling us not to grieve, not to cry...but he’s quite
clear that, as believers, we do grieve differently—we grieve
knowing that death is by no means the end
Listen to God’s perspective...to how radically different it is from ours
-Psalm
116:15 à Precious
in the sight of the Lord is the death of
His saints.
--this verse floored me the I first time read it...I couldn’t believe
what it was saying
---not that death was a part of life...not that death was
inevitable...not that death was vile and evil and to be
avoided at whatever cost
--but instead, when we are talking about a follower of Jesus
Christ, in God’s eyes, death is precious
That just naturally goes against our grain, but as believers we must
allow God’s way of interpreting the world be our perspective on life
and death...and when we do, we realize several things
-life is a fragile, precious gift from God
-life on this
earth is unbelievably brief...James 4:14
asks à What
is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while
and
then vanishes.
-life is lived for God, not for us
--listen to Paul in the context of this conversation
---Read
Philippians 1:20-24
----Paul knew that being with Christ would be better for him,
but he had long ago surrendered to the fact that his life
was not his own
----so whether living or dying, his goal was to glorify God
This letter was written by Southern Baptist Missionary to
Watson, prior to leaving for
the
March 7, 2003. Karen was
killed, along with four other missionaries,
on March 15, 2004 à
You should only be
opening this letter in the event of my death.
When God calls there are no regrets... I wasn't called to a place. I was called to Him. To obey was my objective, to suffer was
expected, His glory my reward, His glory my reward...
The Missionary
Heart:
Care more than
some think is wise.
Risk more than
some think is safe.
Dream more than
some think is practical.
Expect more than
some think is possible.
I was called not
to comfort or success but to obedience….There is no joy outside of knowing
Jesus and serving Him.
At the risk of
being too cliché, there’s an old saying that asks à Why
do we celebrate a birth and grieve a
death? Because we’re not the
person involved.
It’s true,
sometimes the lions are hungry...but
they don’t have the last
word...we are convinced that death is no longer a dreaded enemy to
be feared...death is now and forever will be a conquered enemy
1 Corinthians 15:12-26, 50-57