YOU AND PAUL IN THE LIONS' DEN

 
Daniel 6:1-7 KJV  It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom an hundred and twenty princes, which should be over the whole kingdom;  (2)  And over these three presidents; of whom Daniel was first: that the princes might give accounts unto them, and the king should have no damage.  (3)  Then this Daniel was preferred above the presidents and princes, because an excellent spirit was in him; and the king thought to set him over the whole realm.  (4)  Then the presidents and princes sought to find occasion against Daniel concerning the kingdom; but they could find none occasion nor fault; forasmuch as he was faithful, neither was there any error or fault found in him.  (5)  Then said these men, We shall not find any occasion against this Daniel, except we find it against him concerning the law of his God.  (6)  Then these presidents and princes assembled together to the king, and said thus unto him, King Darius, live for ever.  (7)  All the presidents of the kingdom, the governors, and the princes, the counsellors, and the captains, have consulted together to establish a royal statute, and to make a firm decree, that whosoever shall ask a petition of any God or man for thirty days, save of thee, O king, he shall be cast into the den of lions.

Romans 7:8-10 KJV  But sin, taking occasion by the commandment, wrought in me all manner of concupiscence. For without the law sin was dead.  (9)  For I was alive without the law once: but when the commandment came, sin revived, and I died.  (10)  And the commandment, which was ordained to life, I found to be unto death. (11) For sin, taking occasion by the commandment, deceived me, and by it slew me.

 
There is nothing within our human power to be able to overcome sin or the devil.

• We are less than a worm in these things.
• Similarly, who was Daniel in comparison to a den of lions?
• How could Daniel overcome the peril of being thrown into a lions' den in his own power?
• We consider and say we are only human, and yet the bible says we can overcome supernatural enemies and obstacles.
• Daniel's story teaches us something in picture form that the New Testament explains in detail.

It is just because we are merely human that God has provided us with so many teachings in the Bible that deal with overcoming and understanding how the cross made up for that inadequacy.

Works of the flesh and sin are two entities that work in our lives and are against the law of God.

• In our story, these are represented by powers in Babylon that were as jealous of Daniel as Ishmael was jealous of Isaac.
• And they sought to rise up in power over Daniel like Ishmael was putting Isaac down.
• And these powers represent sin and the works of the flesh.

Princes (elements of POWER) saw Daniel over them and first above them, and something had to be done with them in order to destroy their influence.

• Sin and the works of the flesh must be defeated and conquered in our lives.

Paul stated something about coveting gifts of the Spirit, and showed a MORE PERFECT WAY --


The way to gain the gifts is to LOVE LOVE LOVE.

God's Supernatural Gifts of the Spirit were abounding in the Corinthians, while they were carnal and rendering all the gifts listed from chapter 12 to be nothing in their lives according to Chapter 13, since they had not love, NO FRUIT.

We should not even operate in the supernatural unless we have the fruit of the Spirit to make us SOMETHING.

• Paul said I AM NOTHING without love.
• God cannot use NOTHING to touch a world.

So we must be concerned about our attitudes and how we treat people and how much love of God we have.

You can see how perfect the picture is with New Testament teachings about overcoming sin by seeing so many details of the story correspond to the things Paul mentioned.

Just as the princes of Darius sought OCCASION in God's law to kill Daniel, sin takes occasion by the law of God to slay Paul.


Another law came into effect by the princes just as Daniel was following God's law.

• And this law was set to put Daniel to death.

Paul already spoke of the Law of God he tried to keep in Romans 7.

• Then we read:

The law of sin and death is just like the LAW of the princes.


Was Daniel's law of God wrong to have him pray just because Darius had a law that would sentence him to death for doing it?

• No.
• Similarly Paul said the law of God was not bad simply because sin used it to slay him spiritually.

Just as God showed us how evil sin was by making a law that sin could use to slay us -- taking a righteous thing God gave to Israel -- God was going to show how evil these princes were to Darius.

• Darius was going to deal with these princes before it was all over with!

God's law said Daniel must pray, but another law said Daniel must then die if he obeys that first law.


We need deliverance from the lions' den!

• We need deliverance from the Babylonian prince-like power of sin in our very own flesh!
• That miserable power that uses good things even like the law of God to slay us as we sincerely try to serve God.
• That's why Paul cried for DELIVERANCE.

Paul was trapped in his own body with lions of sin and works of the flesh.

• He wanted to be delivered from that captivity of a body just like Daniel from the lion's den.
• It was a body of death like a den of lions.

The KJV says THROUGH JESUS CHRIST

WHAT DOES THROUGH JESUS CHRIST MEAN?

• All of this can only bring deliverance through JESUS CHRIST in some manner.
• We need to learn what THROUGH JESUS CHRIST MEANS.

Jesus died to sin once in verse 10.

• Likewise we are dead to sin in verse 11.

Jesus now lives unto God in verse 10 after that death.

• We are LIKEWISE alive unto God in verse 11.
• And it is THROUGH JESUS CHRIST.

A backslider asked me recently how he could overcome something in his life like smoking when he was addicted to it and it was overcoming him.

• How can we claim power over something that is clearly overpowering us?
• He said he thought only the hierarchy of churches can do that.
• He was obviously thinking only people who really are living good and made themselves act so goo have the right to speak against sin.
• I immediately recognized that he was missing the whole point.
• No one has ever made themselves good enough, and above others, to be able to claim authority over sin.
• Sin is far more powerful than any of us.
• So we ALL have to appeal to the power of God, which is more powerful than anything.
• Our trust in the cross of Jesus saving us opens up the chance for us to be able to call on that power of God.
• We can never go in our goodness.

We must know that we believed in the cross and obeyed the gospel so that God allows us to use His power and His righteousness to overcome what overcomes us.

• That is what THROUGH Jesus Christ means.

When we accepted the gospel, we died with Jesus and we were buried with Jesus.

• That PUT US IN UNION WITH JESUS.
• So we can GO IN HIS NAME.
• In his power.
• We have to know that we are not dealing with the enemy in our weak, useless, human power when we go in Jesus' name.

God sees me as actually having died with Jesus when Jesus died.

"Through Jesus Christ" is phrase used in the New Testament to inform us that we must identify with Christ's death, burial and resurrection to the extent that we believe we actually died, as far as God is concerned, with Christ, and were buried and resurrected with Him when we were saved.

Christ died to sin ONCE and as a result was laid in a grave.

• We died WITH CHRIST to sin ONCE.
• And understanding that allows us to stand up when sin rises to defeat us and ENFORCE that truth.
• The cross did the work and WE ENFORCE IT.
• Just like the law of the land says something is a crime and should not occur, policemen ENFORCE that law.
• Just because a law exists does not mean people are not going to try and break that law and commit crime.
• Similarly, just because the cross gave you power over sin does not mean sin is not going to try and defeat you.
• YOU HAVE TO ENFORCE what the Cross did for you.

• And just as much as the government with all of its billions of dollars will back up the enforcement of a police officer and spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to track your hide down and imprison you for refusing to comply... THE POWER OF GOD THAT CREATED THE UNIVERSE AND IS OVER EVERYTHING THAT EXISTS WILL BACK YOU UP when you enforce the accomplishments of the cross against sin and satan.

Try to make up some fancy fairy tale law to get your way and then try to enforce it and see if the country will back it up.

• No way.
• But you can guarantee that if you learn what the cross did for us, and you enforce it against sin and the devil, you will watch God and his awesome power back you up!

You can tell the same sin that tries to make you stumble and commit error that you died with Jesus to it, and your faith in the work of the cross gave you the right to use God's power against sin to tell it to stop!




Any situation that finds you trapped and tempted with sin seeking to overcome you is another LIONS' DEN all over again.

• And it is also another TOMB OF JESUS CHRIST all over again!
• The reason Daniel's lions' den is so similar to Christ's tomb with a stone over the entrance and a seal on the stone is because God is trying to hint to us that when we get into situations like Daniel where SIN tries to overcome us, we can identify ourselves with the DEATH AND BURIAL OF JESUS that caused him to DIE TO SIN ONCE and resurrect out of that tomb!

Just think that any given situation where sin trying to come against you is like the tomb of Jesus where DEATH tried to lock Jesus away.

• But as much as Jesus had power over death and resurrected from that tomb, you are one with Him and have the same power.
• AND YOU ARE GOING TO RESURRECT WITH HIM OUT OF THIS SITUATION.
• IN other words, you can say, "JUST LIKE JESUS AROSE IN POWER OUT OF THAT TOMB, I AM ONE WITH JESUS BY MY FAITH IN THE CROSS AND I WILL RISE OUT OF THIS SITUATION BY THE POWER OF GOD!"

Look at every trial like a lions' den.

• Daniel's lions' den looked like the tomb of Jesus.
• And the reason every trial can look like the tomb of Jesus for you is because you have God's power on your side to rely upon, and you can resurrect from any trial just like he did from the tomb.

1. This situation has sin trying to defeat me.
2. Jesus defeated sin when it tried locking him in a tomb.
3. I had faith in the cross being my salvation from sin, so I need to understand that it's like I died and was put in Jesus' tomb with Jesus.
4. So every situation of sin trying to overcome me is like the tomb of Jesus FROM WHICH I CAN RESURRECT WITH JESUS.

If you carefully look at the victories of the old testament saints over their enemies, you will find something to do with the cross buried in the story.

• It might be a reference to three days.
• It might be the mention of a TREE.
• It might mention HANGING, which was done with the hands and not the neck in those days.
• It might mention bread or wine, or grain that makes bread, or grapes that make wine.
• It might mention, as in Daniel, a stone sealed to cover a den of lions.
• But all of that was done to help us understand through stories and pictures (which are easy to help relate a truth) the truths of the power we have over sin through the work of the cross.

We must realize that we have sin in our flesh like a den of lions.

• And we also have a human life-force in us.
• But that is not all.
• We have another life force in us other than human.
• We have JESUS INSIDE US AS WELL.

We might feel locked up inside our bodies like being inside a lions den, but SOMEONE ELSE IS INSIDE US WHO BROKE OUT OF A PRISON HOUSE VERY SIMILAR TO THE LIONS DEN and he is ONE WITH US - united with us.

The lions den was so similar to the tomb Jesus was buried in.

• And whenever JESUS gets inside something that is like a tomb a den or a prison, there's something about Him that can resurrect out of it!

We need to learn to do things BECAUSE WE ARE UNITED TO JESUS WHO OVERCAME THE TOMB OF DEATH!

• We need to stop resorting to our human life, but to Jesus' life in us.
• Not many churches ever taught their people to live by ANOTHER LIFE IN THEM.
• We did not need knowledge of good and evil to help us in these cases, BUT ANOTHER LIFE.
• God's people are supposed to be focused on ANOTHER LIFE.

WE CAN SAY WE ALREADY RESURRECTED FROM THIS SITUATION WHEN WE GOT SAVED.

• That means we have power over it.

When we find ourselves captive in a situation like Paul, which is so similar to Daniel's predicament, we need to realize JESUS IS INSIDE US, and we already overcame a lions den of a tomb when we were saved.

• Picture that predicament like Jesus' tomb.
• You are in Jesus' tomb all over again.
• It is not just your tomb, but Jesus' tomb.
• He is in you so you brought him into the predicament with you.
• He is in you so much that when you see yourself in any lion's den of a tomb, when your OWN BODY acts like a prison with lions of sin inside ready to devour you, HE WILL RESURRECT OUT OF IT WITH YOU all over again!
• The Last time Jesus was in a tomb, He resurrected out of it and you went with Him.
• He is also there in the tomb of your body of death, and HE RESURRECTS OUT OF SUCH SITUATIONS.

THREE LAWS:

Daniel had God's law that he obeyed.

• The princes of Babylon drew up another law to defeat Daniel if he tried to obey God;s law.
• BUT THERE IS SPIRITUAL LAW OF LIFE that NULLIFIES that Babylon law!

A greater law exists than the law of sin and death.


Jesus told us to LIVE BY HIM.


Paul did:



Stop living by your weak human life.

• Wake up tomorrow and realize you can decide to either live by your human life or by the divine life in you.
• We act like we have nothing besides human life in us.
• You can learn to live by Jesus' life in you if you can stop thinking you have to do things in human power to be a better Christian through will power.

Daniel won because he did not use will power, or human life force, BUT HE BELIEVED.

A NEW LAW:


Do you believe in your Christ within you to such an extent that you actually learn to live by Him, and stop trusting in your human life?


Note this:

    * God is the LIVING GOD!
    * He gives LIFE when old DEATH holds you down and out.
    * Do not fear sin's power!
    * Fear GOD MORE!
    * If you fear God more than sin, then you do not have the least worry over sin.
    * You simply trust God!
    * Only His kingdom goes past the realm of the point of DEATH.
    * Darius could only seal the stone over the den.
    * Law only has power over you until you DIE.
    * But the God of resurrection GOES FAR BEYOND DEATH... into eternity with resurrected spirits and souls!
    * So His kingdom shall never be destroyed!

Did not Paul said GOD DELIVERED HIM?

Who shall deliver me from the body of death?

    * I THANK.... none other than GOD!


He delivered me from the POWER OF SIN.