Introduction

“The ends justify the means”

Up on the screen is a statement of philosophy. How many of you have heard this before? What do people mean when they say this? (The results are what matter; it’s sometimes OK, even necessary, to do morally questionable things in order to achieve a greater good.)

Any system of ethics is going to wrestle with this question: Do the ends justify the means? And, undeniably I think, there are extreme examples where choosing the lesser of two evils is justified. Few would argue against the position that it was acceptable—even commendable—for persons during World War II to lie to Nazi soldiers in order to protect Jews from the Holocaust. The preservation of innocent life would seem to justify the moral evil of deceit.

That is an extreme situation, but the reality is that you and I face decisions all the time where we need to wrestle with this tension, and typically the stakes aren’t so high. We have an idea of how we want things to play out; what are we willing to do to realize those goals? I think this story in Daniel helps informs us as to how God wants us to think about these things.

Faith is lived out in all areas

Hopefully you all had a chance to read through this account in Daniel 6 in your small groups, but just a quick recap:

You have a new king, and he has appointed 120 “satraps”, or governors, to rule over the kingdom, with three “administrators” over them. Daniel has really distinguished himself, and the rumor is flying about that he’s about to be appointed head over all of the officials. The others are jealous, and so they start doing what any good politician would do in that situation—they look for ways to discredit Daniel. They’re looking for dirt on Daniel.

And what’s amazing and convicting is that they can’t find anything. Verse 4 tells us that all they found was that “he was trustworthy and neither corrupt nor negligent.” He was honorable and he was diligent at his job.

That’s a really significant point that’s being made there about how Daniel applied his faith to his work. I hope you had a chance to talk about that tonight in your groups, and how that plays out in school or your job or volunteer opportunities. I’m not going to dwell on that now because I wanted to focus our attention elsewhere during this time, but there’s a lot there to challenge us.

Faith is unchanging in the face of adversity

The conspirators can’t find any dirt, so they hatch a plot. They succeed in tricking the king into signing a law that condemns anyone to death who prays to anyone except for the king, which is of course exactly what they know was Daniel’s practice. We know from this that Daniel’s faith wasn’t hidden.

And right here for Daniel is the moment of decision. This is the part of the story, as I was studying through the passage, which really gripped my imagination. Stop and think for a moment about what’s at stake here. Try to put yourself in the story. Daniel is on the cusp on becoming the leading governing official in the greatest empire of this age. There’s no direct comparison because we live under a different form of government, but for our purposes think of this as becoming the President of the United States. It’s a very influential position. Think about the good you could accomplish as president. You could support legislation that protects the poor. You could punish corruption. You could get rid of Daylight Savings Time. This is what we call having a platform. That’s a really good thing, right?

That’s what’s behind door #1: unbelievable influence for good. And behind door #2 is death by lion. What would you do?

I asked myself that question and my first response, because I’m a prideful Pharisee, was to think, “Yeah, I’d be just like Daniel.” But then I thought some more and I realized I know exactly what I’d do because I do it all the time. It’s called rationalizing. I think my thoughts would be something like this: “I love God, so I’m not going to deny the faith or anything like that, but—whew … this is an amazing opportunity—I think I just need to soften things a bit. How about I just close the windows while I’m praying? That’s not that big a deal, is it? And look, it’s only for 30 days while the law is in effect. Then I’ll go back to normal. Because if I don’t do this, they are going to kill me, and then I lose my platform for God.”

That’s what I would probably do, to my shame.

What does Daniel change about how he lives? Absolutely nothing. Nothing changes. Look at verse 10: “When Daniel learned that the decree had been published he went home to his upstairs room where the windows opened toward Jerusalem.” And he prayed. Just like normal.

In the face of adversity, Daniel wasn’t willing to compromise, even in “little ways”. The ends—unbelievable platform for God—did not justify the means that he would need to get there, even small, temporary compromise.

This is an extreme situation, but there are a myriad of ways we face the same moments of decision in our own life. We have our goals—good goals; what are we willing to do, or not do, to pursue those goals?

Many of you have plans that involve college, possibly graduate school, and then hope for a rewarding career, being able to provide for a family, etc. And those are good goals, and we should pursue them with diligence—we’ve already talked about that. But what if we’re convinced that we need to cheat on a quiz or test so we don’t jeopardize that goal? Is that worth it? Do the ends justify the means?

Or say there’s someone being teased or harassed at school or social media. You know what the right thing to do is—to intervene. But if you do that, if you associate with that person, you may lose some popularity among your friends. And if that happens, you’ve lost your platform for influencing them for good, you rationalize. Is it worth it? Do the ends justify the means?

These can be hard situations. I worked for many years for a Christian non-profit. And the organization relied on donations to support our work—much like the church. And as staff got larger and programs more expansive, the financial needs grew larger. And I started to see a tendency to rationalize certain fundraising strategies that we wouldn’t have considered in the earlier days. Things I would consider marginally manipulative, or showing favoritism to those with deeper pockets. That was one of the factors that eventually led our family to move on, but I am sympathetic to the tension. It was someone’s job to do fundraising. If insufficient funds are generated, programs will have to be scaled back, and people will lose their jobs. There’s a real cost. Do the ends justify the means?

And I think what Daniel is telling us is that we are called to be faithful, and the results are up to God. And that’s hard.

Sometimes, the lions are allowed to tear the faithful to pieces.

See, we know how this story plays out. Daniel is thrown to the lions, but God miraculously delivers him.

And for some of us, that’s exactly the message we need to hear. We’re doubting if God is powerful enough to rescue us in a hard situation. And this story reminds us, clearly, that yes—yes he is. He is powerful enough to shut the mouths of hungry lions; he’s powerful enough to help us in our time of need.

But for some of us, an amazing story like this, with such a positive outcome, can actually be a little discouraging. “That’s great for Daniel and all, but you know what? I’ve prayed for a situation for a long, long time, and nothing’s happening.” Or you have prayed earnestly for something, pleading for a righteous outcome, or for healing, and the exact opposite happened. Or you’ve been striving to live faithfully to God, but you’re lonely because you have a really hard time making close friendships. “Why doesn’t God work the same way in my life that He did in Daniel’s life?”

Turn to the book of Hebrews. This is in the New Testament, near the back. And turn to chapter 11. This chapter is called the hall of faith. Kind of skim through it; you will see many of the characters we’ve been talking about this year: Abel, Noah, Abraham, Joseph, Moses, and Rahab. Pick it up at verse 32:

And what more shall I say? I do not have time to tell about Gideon, Barak, Samson and Jephthah, about David and Samuel and the prophets, who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions [there’s our story for tonight with Daniel], quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. Women received back their dead, raised to life again.

This is kind of what we’ve seen so far tonight. But then the passage takes a sharp, dark turn:

There were others who were tortured, refusing to be released so that they might gain an even better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were put to death by stoning; they were sawed in two; they were killed 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, living in caves and in holes in the ground.

That’s a really important balance to what we read in Daniel. Sometimes God shuts the mouths of the lions, and sometimes the person is sawn in two. Sometimes things don’t work out so well, humanly speaking, for the person who is faithful. You stand up for the person being ridiculed at school, and now you become the object of abuse. You resolve not to cheat, and you don’t get the grade you want, others who are cheating never get caught, and you don’t get into your college of first choice.

Here’s why this emphasis is so important. If your expectation is that if you follow Jesus, everything is unicorns and rainbows, what happens in the moment of crisis? You believe in Jesus; you are studying the Bible; you are praying and worshipping faithfully; you’re cutting things out of your life that are causing you to stumble. And then a friend betrays you; you get passed over for an opportunity in school that you deserve; your job isn’t very satisfying; your children are rebellious. What happens then? One, we become embittered against God. But two, we begin to rationalize and compromise and do things that we know aren’t right to get out of those situations. “This isn’t right,” we rationalize, “Surely God doesn’t want me to be unhappy.”

Compared with Daniel, we have something better

What God is calling us to is faith. Look at those last two verses of Hebrews 11. “These were all commended for their faith…” Those who had “positive” outcomes and those who had “negative” outcomes, all are commended for their faith.

These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, since God had planned something better for us so that only together with us would they be made perfect.

This is an amazing passage, and one I wish we had tons more time to talk about. But one point I want to mention as we close tonight. This passage is saying that you, today, in this room, in 2018, have something better available to you than Daniel had.

Think about it this way. Deliverance from the lion’s den was awesome, but guess what? Daniel still died. Later. And when he did, he had a far greater need for deliverance—he needed somehow to be saved from the punishment for his own rebellion against God’s perfect standard of righteousness.

We have something better because we know how history plays out. The lions’ den is a picture of salvation. The whole Old Testament is pointing ahead to this coming ultimate deliverance. And we know beyond a shadow of doubt that’s what God accomplished in Jesus. So hear the Gospel again, for the 200th time this year. Jesus came and lived a life of perfect faithfulness, and then was killed, not to pay the penalty for his disobedience, but for ours. And if we believe that message, we experience the greatest deliverance. Not from lions, but from our own sin.

I close with that, not only because it’s the greatest news you could ever hear, but because it is so relevant to what we’ve talked about tonight. That’s the anchor for our faith. To know that God loves you, and that Jesus dies for you, and that your hope is secure no matter what happens in this life. We all—as adults who love you deeply, pray that that would be the foundation upon which you built your hope, so that you are sustained through both times of happiness and times of trial. Let’s pray…

Discussion questions for leaders

Read Daniel 6:1–28.

Why do you think the other governing officials conspired to discredit Daniel? What does this say about what they valued most?
What did they find when they tried to “dig up dirt” on Daniel? What relevance does this have to how we pursue our “non-religious” vocations? How is this relevant to our students?
When Daniel heard that the law was passed, what did he change about the way he lived? What does this say about what Daniel valued most?
In what ways are we tempted to compromise in the face of adversity to avoid jeopardizing our comfort or personal goals? How do we see this played out in our students’ lives?
What was the outcome of the situation for Daniel, his accusers, Darius, and the kingdom? How does this speak to us when we are facing a difficult trial?

Read Hebrews 11:32–40.

What balance is being brought forth in this passage that can help us apply the text of Daniel 6?
What does this tell us about the relationship between the authenticity of our faith and the outcome?
What false ideas might we or our students have without this balance? What are the consequences of those lies?

Discussion questions for students

Where do you hope to be in 10 years? What are some of the goals you have for yourself? (career, marriage, family, travel, etc.)

Read Daniel 6:1–5.

Why do you think the other governing officials conspired to discredit Daniel?
What did they find when they tried to “dig up dirt” on Daniel? What do you think motivated Daniel to live this way?
What does this say about how you are to pursue your “non-religious” vocations? (School, jobs, volunteer opportunities, etc.)

Read Daniel 6:6–10.

When Daniel heard that the law was passed, what did he change about the way he lived?
In what ways are we tempted to compromise in the face of adversity to avoid jeopardizing our comfort or personal goals? (Bring this back to the things mentioned in the opening question.)

Read Daniel 6:16–23.

Can you think of a time when God clearly blessed you as a result of obedience? Or you prayed for something specific and God answered according to your prayer?
Do things always work out in such a positive way for faithful believers? Can you think of examples from the Bible where the outcome was less positive?
Do you have any examples from your own life where you were faithful but didn’t get the outcome you were hoping for?
What does this tell us about the relationship between the authenticity of our faith and the actual results? Why is this important to understand?