Episode Transcript
Now if you take God's precious word and turn to the book of Daniel chapter 6, studying Daniel verse by verse, and we've learned that Daniel being thrown into the lion's den was a fingerprint of Jesus Christ in the Old Testament.
A picture of his death, his burial, and his resurrection.
King Darius the Mede had been tricked and bullied by his fellow politicians into signing a law that ultimately caused Daniel, the prophet of God, to be cast into the lion's den.
The king tried to free Daniel.
Oh, they weren't having it.
They stood against him, and he could not legally prevail.
So he reluctantly signed the order to cast him to the lion's den, and then he mournfully went to his house and fasted through the night without sleep.
And then early the next morning, the king got up and went to the lion's den to see if God had spared Daniel's life.
And in verse 20, we read, And when he came to the din, he cried with a lamentable voice unto Daniel.
And the king spake and said to Daniel, O Daniel, Servant of the living God, is thy God, whom thou servest continually, able to deliver thee from the lions?
The king was hoping to hear a reply from Daniel, looking down into that dark pit.
He cries out to him.
Verse 21: Then said Daniel unto the king, O king, live forever.
My God has sent his angel, and has 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.
And this is where we left off last week.
Much to the king's delight, he found Daniel, a man who had been condemned to die, to be very much alive.
Now the question is this, what effect will Daniel's victory over death have on the people of Persia?
What will it have on the people of that time?
What will it have on the king?
Because Daniel, if you'll remember, is a book of prophecy.
And as we've learned in the past couple of weeks, his being cast into the lion's den is a prophetic picture of the death and resurrection of Jesus.
So, the effect that Daniel has coming out of the grave.
Is also going to be a picture of the overcoming power of Jesus and the effect that his resurrection will have upon the world.
Now there are five effects that Daniel's victory over death had in his day upon the people in his time.
And those same five effects Jesus' victory over death had as well.
And these are pictured in Daniel's Amazing resurrection from the dead, typified.
The first is Jesus' resurrection.
Makes us exceeding joyous.
But before we get look in verse 23, let's pray.
Father, we come to you this morning.
And Lord, we look to you and we pray your Holy Spirit will teach your word to your people.
Father, I pray you'll strengthen my voice enough, Father, to make it through the morning.
And I pray you'll give it full restoration eventually.
But, Lord, I pray all eyes will be upon you.
And we yield ourselves to you in Jesus' name.
Amen.
Jesus' resurrection makes us exceeding joyous.
Look down in verse 23 with me.
Then was the king exceeding. glad for him.
Listen, there is nothing like the feeling of discovering that your hero has defeated the enemy.
Your people have won.
All the hopes and dreams that your enemy sought to destroy are actually alive and well.
Had the fallen kingdoms of this world defeated Jesus, we would have all perished in our sins.
Had sin and death been able to keep Jesus down in the grave, we would have lost everything.
For neither we nor our loved ones could have escaped the grave ourselves.
But because Jesus overcame the grave for us, We shall overcome the grave in him.
And this is an exceeding joyous truth that the exceeding gladness of King Darius represents.
Upon learning that Daniel was indeed alive.
Speaking of Jesus, the book of Jude, verse 24 says, Now unto Him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy.
Listen, I don't care what is on your shoulders today.
I don't care what trouble is burning your heart today.
The resurrection of Jesus Christ one day is going to wipe every sorrow away, every burden will be lifted, and we will stand in the presence of God forever and forever.
And every day we will have exceeding joy.
Never again, Brother Doug, will say, How are you this morning?
We'll all know.
And if we do, we'll answer back.
Exceeding joy.
Thank you.
How about you?
Exceeding joy.
Thank you.
That's what it's going to be.
The Apostle Peter in 1 Peter 1, verse 8, says, Speaking of Jesus, whom having not seen, ye love.
In whom, though now ye see him not yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable.
And full of glory.
Joy unspeakable.
Listen, I've never seen Jesus.
But you know what?
I love Jesus.
And because I believe in Jesus and I believe the truth of what he's done for me, and I believe that he has, in fact, overcome that grave.
Listen, this body is going to be made new one day.
And because of that, I have joy unspeakable and full of glory unspeakable.
I can tell you about my joy, but there is no way in the world that you can sit here and look at a lost person.
And in any way describe the joy that you have, they don't get it.
It's joy unspeakable, meaning it goes beyond the limits of our language.
Now, church, let me remind you of the circumstances of that joyful day in Daniel's time.
The king had a very stressful job leading a kingdom full of fallen men.
The king was worn out, for he hadn't slept or eaten since the day before.
The king had a political cabinet full of frauds and backstabbers.
The man the king chose to lead the kingdom was hated by those in power.
Listen, it was not a good day for the king in all of those regards.
But everything that made the king miserable last night was the same this morning He still had the same crummy job with the same wicked political cabinet.
He was still hungry.
He was still sleepy.
They still hated the man he wanted to put into power.
Everything was the same except one thing.
That was Daniel was alive.
This and everything that happened When Jesus came out of the tomb was the same.
Pilate was still in charge.
There was still a wicked world.
The Jews still rejected Jesus as their Savior.
Man still got to die.
Everything was the same, but one thing changed.
Jesus Christ was alive.
And it's the same not only in that day, but that carries over to this day.
We got communists that are going into Congress, leading the nation in many areas, in many cities.
We've got lying, corrupt political figures.
We've got people dying.
You can't believe half what you hear in the news media.
We've got people wanting to kill us on the left hand and on the right hand, and we're battling disease.
And death and human suffering at every turn.
Everything is the same except for one thing, and that is, Jesus is alive.
And that makes all the difference.
Because as He lives forever, and as He is today, so one day we also shall be.
Everything that made this world a rotten place when they nailed Jesus to the cross is the same today.
The world still hates the man God chose to rule his kingdom, just like they hated Daniel, the one that was chosen to rule the kingdom.
The world's still full of a bunch of uh of fallen men.
But listen, this one glorious truth of Jesus makes all the difference for us.
Jesus' resurrection makes us exceeding joyous.
Number two.
Jesus' resurrection gives us exceeding boldness.
Exceeding boldness.
Look now in verse 23.
Then was the king exceeding glad for him and commanded That they should take Daniel up out of the den.
Listen, the king wasn't messing around with these politicians anymore.
He's not worried about what they think or want anymore.
After seeing the power of the God of all creation.
He doesn't care what the laws of the Medes and Persians say anymore.
So instead of waiting for them to gather and have another convention, To hear what the politicians had to say.
The king stands in the power of the position that God had put him in, and commanded that they should take Daniel up out of the den.
And that's the kind of boldness that the resurrection of Christ gives us as well.
After the apostles saw Jesus raised from the dead, listen, they weren't worried about the politicians in their day anymore.
Peter wasn't standing.
And following Jesus far off anymore.
He wasn't denying Jesus anymore.
For what could they do to them that they hadn't already done to Jesus?
And he overcame it.
After Jesus rose from the dead, they healed a sick man one day in the name of Jesus just to prove that Jesus was still alive.
And when they did, the politicians of their day, the religious leaders, they tried to intimidate those apostles.
They tried to bully them into no longer preaching in the name of Jesus Christ.
But you can't intimidate a man who's seen death overcome.
You can't Acts 4, verse 8 through 13 records the circumstance to us.
It says, Then Peter, filled with the Holy Ghost, said unto them, Ye rulers of the people and elders of Israel, if we this day be examined of the good deed done to the impotent man, by what means he is made whole, be it known unto you all.
And to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole.
This is the stone speaking of Jesus, which was set at naught of you builders, which has become the head of the corner.
Neither is there salvation in any other.
For there is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.
Now, when they saw the boldness Of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marveled and they took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus.
Folks, when you've been with Jesus, when you have had communion with the resurrected Savior It gives you boldness to speak in his name.
It gives you boldness to live in his name because you know, as he is, so are you in the world.
That's the way it goes.
Jesus' resurrection makes us exceeding joyous.
Jesus' resurrection gives us exceeding boldness.
There may be a day coming.
In our lives, and if not in our generation, in the future generation, it may be coming a day.
If these Muslims get their way and they start taking over and they start being able to get Sharia law, there's a whole bunch of those rascals.
They've been having babies.
We've been killing ours.
That's just a fact.
They come in, they take over.
There may be a day when Christians here in the United States have to stand and have their heads cut off like what we've seen in other countries them doing to people.
There may be a day when they come marching in these doors here like they do with our brethren in Nigeria now and murder people and take children captive.
And when that time comes, that's when people of God are going to have to be able to stand the boldness of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
Knowing that death, which is the only thing, the greatest thing that they can threaten upon a believer in Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ has overcome.
And we'll have to stand in that boldness.
Not just now when we celebrate 250 years of liberty, but even then, when that liberty may, God forbid, be eroded.
Jesus Christ's resurrection makes us exceeding joyous.
His resurrection gives us exceeding boldness.
Number three, Jesus' resurrection makes us exceeding victorious.
After Daniel was found to be alive and had overcome the sentence of death, there was only one thing that could be done.
He's not going to stay down in that pit.
Right now, they're having a dialogue.
Daniel, you down there?
King, I'm here.
What's the next thing?
Well, son, come on up.
Let's get him out of there.
That's the only thing left to do is bring him up out of that pit.
Look back in your text.
So Daniel was.
Underscore these words, taken up out taken up Out of the den.
Oh man.
Brother Doug, one day every believer in Christ is sleeping in those graves.
They're going to be taken up and they're going to be taken out of here.
Every one of us.
Daniel is taken up, Daniel's taken out.
You know what happened to Jesus?
He was taken up, he was taken out.
He came out of the grave, and he was taken up to heaven.
Daniel was taken up, Daniel was taken out.
Death could not conquer him, and the law was powerless to condemn him.
So the only thing left to do was to release him, because the living don't belong among the dead.
That is why the angel said to those who came looking for Jesus, Why seek ye the living among the dead?
Now look closely in this verse.
He was taken out.
Thank God he was taken up.
When Daniel came victoriously out of that den, it was a picture of us.
Coming victoriously out of the tomb and then going up with Jesus.
Death is the universal plague that covers all nations.
In the gospel, there's a universal victory that God's provided.
Listen to what God said Jesus would do for us in Isaiah chapter 25.
Verses 8 and 9.
Isaiah 25, verses 8 and 9.
Speaking of the promised Savior to come, the prophet Isaiah said, He will swallow up death in victory.
And the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces, and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off all the earth.
The rebuke of his people.
Do you know what that means?
That means the shame.
That means the guilt.
That means everything that God's righteous law can point a holy finger at and say wrong, wrong, wrong.
And death is our rebuke.
Death is our shame because death is the elephant in the room that spells out to the world that we're all sinners waiting to die.
And Isaiah the prophet said, He will swallow up death in victory.
O victory in Jesus, my Saviour, forever And the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces, and the rebuke of his people shall he take away from off All the earth.
There won't be a corner of the globe you can go to and find any more sin, any more death. any more sorrow, it's all going to be gone because Jesus would swallow up death in victory.
And then he says, For the Lord hath spoken it, and it shall Be set in that day, Lo, this is our God.
We have waited for Him.
You know what we're doing right now?
We're waiting for Him.
You see, back in the day they were waiting on Jesus to come and to do what Isaiah said: the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.
That's been done now.
But now the apostles said, We're waiting on his son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, to deliver us from the wrath to come.
And so Isaiah is talking about that time.
You see, death has not been swallowed up in victory yet because we all still die.
And our forefathers are still in the grave.
Even the apostles are in the grave.
Now, of course, their soul is with Jesus, but their body is still in the grave.
So, death has not yet been swallowed up in victory.
We are waiting for him to come.
And do that and accomplish that promise, and to pull up every child of God out of that grave, or whatever has happened to their body, whether they've been burned to the stake.
Scattered across the earth into ashes.
However, Sir Brother Richard, how can God take somebody who was eaten by a fish, eaten by a shark?
Then becomes some kind of food for a crust station down there, then becomes some kind of dirt, and then turns into sea.
How does God take that person?
Same way God took a man out of the earth that wasn't there before.
He formed man from the dust of the earth.
Listen, he can form everybody else back too, and he will.
There's going to be a new heaven and a new earth, and we're going to be new creatures and new bodies.
And so Isaiah said, And it shall be said in that day, this is what people are going to say when Jesus comes again.
Lo!
This is our God.
We have waited for Him, and He will save us.
This is the Lord.
We have waited for him.
We will be glad and rejoice in his salvation.
Like Isaiah said, we have waited for him.
And we will be glad.
And we will rejoice in His salvation one day.
When Jesus comes back, we're going to be raised from the dead in the power of His victorious resurrection.
And that's when God will swallow up Death in victory.
Write down in your margin, 1 Corinthians chapter 15.
1 Corinthians chapter 15, verse 54.
The Apostle Paul explains, So when this corruptible, now this is the corruptible right here.
Your body's corruptible.
I can't talk right because my body is corruptible.
It's breaking down.
It's wearing out.
It can't do what it used to in its youth.
Your bodies are breaking down.
They are wearing out.
This precious young woman here is in a wheelchair because her flesh is corruptible.
This woman here has that walker she's having to walk with because her flesh is corruptible.
But one day this corruptible will put on incorruption.
Man, I'm excited about that.
Listen to what he says now.
He says, When this corruptible Shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal, meaning that which can die, shall have put on immortality, that which cannot die.
Then Shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.
We're waiting on it.
How are y'all waiting on that right now?
I'm waiting on it.
Do you know why we're waiting?
We're believers.
We believe the promise, so we're waiting on it to come.
Jesus' resurrection makes us exceeding joyous.
Jesus' resurrection gives us a good job. us exceeding boldness.
Jesus' resurrection makes us exceeding victorious and now Jesus' resurrection declares us exceeding righteous Exceeding righteous.
Look back in verse 23.
So Daniel was taken up out of the den, just like we're going to go up to.
Watch this now.
Watch this.
This is prophecy, remember?
And sit with me: no manner of hurt was found upon him.
No manner of hurt was found upon him.
Listen, there won't be one scratch.
Remaining on any person as a result of Adam's fall in the Garden of Eden.
But they looked Daniel over.
Now understand, because boy, they're scratching their head at this.
They've thrown people to these lines before.
They probably had names for them.
Well, that's old Thundertooth down there.
Boy, he'll get them before they even get down to the bottom.
They knew these lines.
These lines were hungry.
They were angry, had them all stirred up.
And to think that that man could have stayed down there all night long with those lions.
And and be alive was something in and of itself.
When they brought him up, they looked them all over.
Well, there's not a scratch on him.
No manner of hurt, not even a bruise from falling down.
He didn't even scrape his knee on the way down.
No manner of hurt was upon him.
Now on Passover night Do you know what they had to do before Passover ever come around?
Do you know what they had to do before that goat on the Day of Atonement was slain?
Do you know what they had to do?
They had to examine those sacrifices.
They had to look them over head to toe.
And there couldn't be a flaw on those sacrifices.
Do you know why?
Because any flaw, any kind of sower, Any kind of cut or abrasion, any kind of deformity, physical deformity on that sacrifice. disqualified it because it represented the righteousness of Jesus Christ That there would be no fault found in him, there would be no sin found in him, there would be nothing that the law could point to and say he is guilty of.
And when they brought Daniel out and they looked him over coming up out of that pit, do you know what that's a picture of?
That is a picture of God's holy law.
That is a picture of man's law that is righteous and ordained under God.
That is a picture of God Himself being able to look us over after we are raised from the dead and son.
As the Pilate did, I find no fault in this man, nothing.
This is a picture of you, church.
A picture of you.
We were reading this morning in the Genesis to Jesus class.
Same prophet.
Isaiah says, For unto us a child is born.
Unto us a son is given.
Not unto them, Brother Doug.
Unto us.
See, Brother Richard, that was the Jews.
Oh, no.
Because the very first Jew was a man named Abraham, who the Bible says is the father of us all.
And God said that I'm going to make you a blessing.
In thee shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.
So when God is sending His covenant promise to us, it is to us who belong to all nations of people.
To every tribe, every tongue, every kindred, which is how the book of the Revelation goes on to explain it.
Basically, what Revelation is saying is to all the nations God promised through Abraham.
When you're reading about Daniel coming up and them looking him over and finding no manner of hurt, that is you.
Who believe in Jesus Christ after death has been swallowed up in victory, and this sermon and sermons like it are finally over forever.
And you'll be able to be looked upon, and there'll be no manner of hurt found in you who have trusted in Christ as your Savior.
Because of Jesus' resurrection of the dead, back in Jude 24, again, listen.
Jude says Jesus, quote, is able to keep you from falling.
That means if you have put your faith in Jesus now, you'll never fall back out of grace.
Not because you can keep yourself from falling.
But because he keeps you from falling, not only does he keep us from falling, he was able to keep you from falling and to present you.
Say that word with me: faultless.
Faultless before the presence of his glory in the eyes of the most holy, righteous.
God, the God who thundered from Mount Sinai, who made the earth quake at his holy presence, and caused the mountain to be on smoke, the God who thundered those Ten Commandments out and the people.
Had to stand afar off.
The same God who said, Put borders around that mountain so those unclean people can't get to me or they're going to die.
Don't even let them try to come look at me.
It is that same God because death will be swallowed up in the victory of Jesus' death and resurrection for us when we stand before that same God.
Who thundered on Mount Sinai, he's going to look at us and find us faultless.
Faultless.
I find no fault.
In this man is what Pilate said about Jesus, and that's what God's going to say about us.
As God looked at Jesus.
When he came up, John the Baptist said, You're going to come to me to be baptized?
What's this all about?
Jesus said, just do it.
Just do it.
Okay.
He puts Jesus down that water.
He brings him back up.
And God says, Let me make sure everyone knows he didn't need any baptizing.
He doesn't need any washing.
He needs no repentance.
He's not confessing his sins.
This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.
I find no fault in this man.
Everybody going to John the Baptist that day were confessing their faults.
Jesus had none to confess.
And now we who have fault confess him.
One day we're going to stand before God, before men, before the holy angels.
In the righteousness of Jesus Christ, having looked us over from head to toe, no manner of hurt.
From Adam's fall will be found upon us.
Why did Jesus die and rise again?
Colossians chapter 1, verses 21 and 22 say, and you that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled in the body of his flesh through death to present you holy and unblamable and unreprovable in his sight.
No manner of hurt for our sins went to the grave and only Jesus came out.
Now, this exceeding great joy This exceeding great boldness, this exceeding great victory, and this exceeding great righteousness that we've spoken of this morning.
It belongs to us for only one reason, and that's also shown to us here in this picture as well.
And that is because we believe in the great salvation God has promised to us in Christ.
It is not because you come down to an aisle and say a prayer, it is not because you get in the baptismal waters, it is not.
Because, as John Wesley said, you find your heart strangely warmed one day.
It is because of our faith in God's promise of what His Son would do.
Is how they were saved, and is now our faith in God's promise of what He had done and what He will do when He comes again, by which we are now saved.
And so we have to understand that was the only reason Daniel was delivered from the lion's den.
Daniel was saved by grace.
Through faith in his God alone.
Now look at the end of this verse in verse 23.
And you will see plainly that Daniel was saved.
Say it with me, because he believed in his God.
Because he believed.
That word believe.
Now, Daniel believed there was a God before he was ever thrown in the lion's den, but when he was put in the lion's den, he believed in his God.
That word believe means to put your confidence in, to put your trust in, to put your hope in.
And Daniel put his hope and trust in the salvation that his God would provide.
And that is how we're saved: by believing in our God.
Once again, Isaiah, the same prophet, said, For unto us a child is born.
Unto us a son is given.
And then he said, In his name shall be called the mighty God.
The everlasting Father.
So when you believe in Jesus Christ, death, burial, and resurrection from you, you are believing in your God.
He is God who came in the flesh, was born as a son, lived the perfect life for you and me that we could not live, and then took on our sin and paid the penalty we could not pay.
He, because he believed in his God, listen, when all of this is said and done.
And when death is swallowed up in victory, there will be only one reason that every one of us Will be saved.
The scripture will speak the same forever of every one of us Because Mike Downs believed in his God.
Because Larry Colvin believed in his God.
Because his sweet visitor Becky believed in her God.
And that God was Jesus Christ, who came and bled and died as a man for our sins.
And that's why Jesus said in John 3, 16, referring back to Daniel, For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever Believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
Father, we thank you so much for your precious word.
It is true.
It is real.
And it is still in the process of being fulfilled today.
As the prophet said, we are waiting on you.
And we will be delivered by your great salvation.
As Daniel believed in his God, that he would be raised up from the lion's den, Father.
So we believe in our God that will be raised up, Father, from our very own dens, from the grave plots that we prepaid, or that one day will be put in.
From the oceans, Father, that believers have died in, from the caves that they have been buried in, from the ashes that they've been burned into.
Father, because we believe in our God who came in the form of man.
And overcame death, our death one day will be swallowed up in victory, and we look forward to it.
In Jesus' precious name, amen.
Now, I tell you this morning, before we close, if there's anyone here this morning that does not have that great joy, Does not experience that great boldness, does not yet know that great victory.
Let me tell you, I'll be glad to meet with you after church anytime.
So would Brother Doug or Brother Shepherd, all there's a number of people who could share the gospel with you.
But I'll be glad to meet with you after any time and walk you step by step through God's Word and bring you up to the place where all men are saved.
And that is a place called the cross of Jesus Christ.
And there you will find your victory.
There you will find your sins forgiven.
And then we'll walk you to the empty tomb.
And there you'll find everything that we've spoken about this morning.
He did it for you.
And it can be yours if you'll simply put your trust in him as well.
Thank you
