1 - Introduction - Living like a real Christian Daniels prayer | Page 4

Monday
Daniel 6 v 1 – 16
The first prayer which I would like for us to consider was actually prayed by an
unbeliever. Daniel lived and served under King Darius and it was he who prayed

the words in verse 16, “May your God, whom you serve continually,rescue you.” I

realise at the outset that this king was not praying these words specifically to God,
but very clearly, from God’s response, God must have taken these words to be a
prayer.
The question that we have to ask, however, is that if God responded to a pagan
king’s prayer like he did on behalf of Daniel, what was it about Daniel that got
God’s attention and caused Him to move His hand to close the mouths of the

lions? In order to answer this question we may need to look back to chapters 1, 2

and 5 of the book of Daniel. The life of Daniel incorporated a number of really
great stories.

In chapter 1 we have the story of Daniel as a young man being taken into exile in

a foreign land. On being presented food that was fit for a king, he refused to eat it,
choosing rather to obey the laws of God in recognition of his Jewish heritage.
In chapter 2 we have Daniel interpreting Nebuchadnezzar’s dream.
In chapter 5 we have Daniel interpreting the writing on the wall in the incredible
story of Belshazzar.

But in chapter 6 we have probably the most well-known story of Daniel, and that

is the story of Daniel in the lion’s den. Daniel at the time of the lion’s denwas some
85 years old. He had lived all these years under the reign of a number of pagan
kings inaparticularly godless environment, but despite these odds he thrived. We
read about his great work ethic and his involvement in politics, and in chapter 6

we have his contempories scheming against him because of their jealously of him.
They tried to find some scandal or corrupt involvement in his life, but they could
find none. And so they turned to his religious beliefs. They presented a proposal to