Daniel 6:26b-27a (NIV) “For he is the living God and he endures forever; his kingdom will not be destroyed, his dominion will never end. He rescues and he saves; he performs signs and wonders in the heavens and on the earth.”

If you read the portion of scripture above without knowing the context, you would assume that it is one of the servants of God in the Bible that loved and feared Him. It is a beautiful tribute of praise to the God who is worthy of it all. But when you find out who said it, it underscores the majesty and the glory of God.

The praise ascribed to God here comes not from one of His people. It comes from a pagan king. The story is that this pagan king, King Darius, ruled over Persia, the Kingdom that defeated and took over from the Babylonian Empire. Daniel, who was one of the people of God in exile and a faithful servant and prophet of the Lord, was one of three administrators of the kingdom who had been appointed by King Darius. Those three administrators oversaw 120 satraps (like governors). The satraps hated Daniel because God gave him great success and favor with the king, so they devised a plan to bring him down. They schemed to get King Darius to issue a decree that for thirty days, no one could pray to any god or any human except to King Darius. The punishment for violating this law was that the person caught praying to anyone else would be thrown in a den of lions to be mauled and killed. They knew that Daniel prayed to God three times a day. After the trap was set, they spied on Daniel and caught him praying and ran to accuse him to the king. King Darius was very fond of Daniel and didn’t want to throw him in the lions’ den but in ancient Persia, once a decree was issued by the king, it could not be rescinded. So Darius, very sorrowfully and reluctantly, had Daniel thrown into the lions’ den.

Early the next morning, King Darius ran to the mouth of the lions’ den and called out to Daniel. He cried out, “Daniel, was your God able to rescue you from the lions?” When Daniel called out to say that God had sent an angel to close the mouths of the hungry lions, the king was overjoyed and had Daniel pulled out of the den. He then threw the men who had accused Daniel into the lions’ den and they suffered the harm that they intended for Daniel. The king then then began his words of praise for Daniel’s God, who we know as the only true God. Because of Daniel’s faith and trust in God, a heathen king learned about the loving, caring and all-powerful God of all gods that Daniel served. He was so moved by the whole thing that he even made a decree to the entire kingdom that everyone must fear and reverence Daniel’s God! What a victory and what an awesome testimony of what happens when you choose to honor God at all costs. He never fails and never lets you down. Ask the Lord to give you the faith and the boldness to trust him when trouble comes because when you do, not only will He deliver you, but the people around will get to see God’s love and power and perhaps learn to love Him and serve Him as well!