Our Hope Must Be in God

A powerful king loses sleep because he can’t undo his own law. Daniel is faithful, the verdict is sealed, and the lion’s den waits. That tension is exactly where we live when we realize the people we depend on can’t carry the weight we place on them. We walk through Daniel 6 on Palm Sunday and face a hard truth with surprising comfort: human leadership will fail us, but God will not.

We follow the story from Darius’ desperate attempts to rescue Daniel to the larger lesson for Christian hope in a fractured world. Politics matters, community matters, leadership matters, but none of them can save. We talk about the temptation to look to princes for security, the pain when church leaders fall, and the wounds many of us carry from imperfect parents. The call is not cynicism; it’s clarity. Engage wisely, honor rightly, and refuse to treat any person as your redeemer.

Then we push deeper: only God is always right. The “law of the Medes and Persians” becomes a mirror for modern pride, institutional stubbornness, and sunk cost fallacy, and it raises a practical question: do I leave room to repent? Finally, we land on the hope that changes regret itself: only God gets the last word. What looks sealed can be reopened, and what feels final can be overturned by a higher court.

If you need steadier footing than headlines, leaders, or your own track record, press play. Subscribe, share with a friend who feels disoriented, and leave a review so more people can find this hope centered on Daniel 6, God’s sovereignty, repentance, and Easter resurrection.

Transcript

Palm Sunday Setup And Scripture

SPEAKER_00 0:00

On this Palm Sunday, this will be our last Sunday in Daniel. Our aim was to, uh Daniel is really divided into two parts what Daniel did and what Daniel saw. And we're studying what Daniel did. What Daniel saw is great stuff. It's difficult to preach and it's difficult to understand. So I'm going to leave that to a better preacher. But next week we will be celebrating Easter Sunday. But on this final Sunday in the book of Daniel, I will invite us to stand for the reading of God's Word in Daniel chapter 6, beginning in verse 14, the word of God reads this way. Then the king, when he heard these words, was much distressed and set his mind to deliver Daniel. And he labored till the sun went down to rescue him. Then these men came by agreement to the king and said to the king, Know, O king, that it is a law of the Medes and Persians that no injunction or ordinance that the king establishes can be changed. Then the king commanded, and Daniel was brought and cast into the den of lions. The king declared to Daniel, May your God, whom you serve continually, deliver you. And a stone was brought and laid on the mouth of the den, and the king sealed it with his own signet and with the signet of his lords, that nothing might be changed concerning Daniel. Then the king went to his palace and spent the night fasting. No diversions were brought to him, and sleep fled from him. Then at break of day the king arose and went in haste to the den of lions. As he came near to the den where Daniel was, he cried out in a tone of anguish. The king declared to Daniel, O Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you serve continually, been able to deliver you from the lions? Then Daniel said to the king, O king, live forever. My God sent his angel and shut the lion's mouths, and they have not harmed me, because I was found blameless before him, and also before you, O king, I have done no harm. Then the king was exceedingly glad and commanded that Daniel be taken up out of the den. So Daniel was taken up out of the den, and no kind of harm was found on him because he had trusted in his God. And the king commanded, and those men who had maliciously accused Daniel were brought and cast into the den of lions, they, their children, and their wives. And before they reached the bottom of the den the lions overpowered them and broke all their bones in pieces. Then King Darius wrote to all the peoples, nations, and languages that dwell in all the earth, peace be multiplied to you. I make a decree that in all my royal dominion people are to tremble in fear before the God of Daniel, for he is the living God, enduring forever. His kingdom shall never be destroyed, and his dominion shall be to the end. He delivers and rescues, he works signs and wonders in heaven and on earth. He who has saved Daniel from the power of the lions. So this Daniel prospered during the reign of Darius and the reign of Cyrus the Persian. This is God's word. Thanks be to God, you may be seated, and may God bless this reading and preaching of his word. I recently heard a sermon from the book of Acts. It was a wonderful sermon. I sent it to some of you, so maybe you listened to it as well. But the preacher was preaching, and early in the book of Acts, the church in Jerusalem faces a wave of persecution. And during that wave, James is beheaded, and then Peter is imprisoned. And Peter, James, and John, if you remember, are the kind of the top three leaders of the early church, especially the church in Jerusalem. And in this particular dark moment in the book of Acts, the church is robbed of her most beloved leaders. James is dead. Peter may be next, he's in jail. And it forces a question on the church and upon us: what happens when the leaders that we depend on are taken away? How can the church survive without her leaders? And the answer from the book of Acts is this is that we should value good leaders, but our hope cannot rest in them. Our hope must be in God. Our hope must be in God, even when our leaders are taken away. And I want to take this opportunity this morning to make a very similar point from our story in Daniel. Daniel has been thrown to the lions, and the most powerful man in the world is desperately trying to save him, and he cannot. Daniel 6 is also teaching us that our hope must be in God. That at some point human leadership is going to fail us, and our hope must be in God. And why is this so important for us to understand? Well, I think that we tend to put a lot of hope in people. And we're very surprised when people let us down again and again. But we look to politicians to fix what's broken in our country or to increase my wages or to make my dollar more valuable. We feel disoriented when church leaders fail and fall, or we carry wounds from parents who should have done better. And again and again we discover the same thing that people let us down, and that a hope that is placed in men and women of dust is a hope misplaced. The message of Daniel 6 is important for us because in a world of failed human leadership, our hope must be in God. Daniel 6 shows us why. Only God can save, only God is always right, and only God gets the last word. Only God can save, only God is always right, and only God gets the last word. So first, only God can save. Put no trust in man who cannot save, hope in God who can save. There's some irony here as we come to the end of our study in Daniel. I started this series with uh one of my goals was uh to give us a model for how Christians should relate to political realities and how we ought to live in the world in which we live. Daniel is a very political book. He was in a political office, he worked under a pagan king, met several pagan kings. But one of the final messages of Daniel about politics, and this is the i this is the ironic part, is that politicians cannot save you. Politicians cannot save you. Psalm 146, 3 through 5 says this put not your trust in princes, in a son of man in whom there is no salvation. When his breath departs, he returns to the earth. On that very day, his plans perish. Blessed is he whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God. The story that we're looking at today is a wonderful illustration of exactly what Psalm 146 is saying. Do not put your trust in man who cannot save. The story matches the pattern of previous stories in Daniel with one huge difference. Here, when the king is informed of Daniel's failure to obey, he is not enraged, like Nebuchadnezzar would have been, but he's very concerned for Daniel's life. Look again at verse 14. It says, Then the king, when he heard these words, and there we might expect it to say he was enraged, as it previously did, but it says this he was much distressed and set his mind to deliver Daniel, and he labored till the sun went down to rescue him. And then also verse 18, it says, Then the king went to his palace and spent the night fasting. No diversions were brought to him, and sleep fled from him. It's clear that Darius is very pro-Daniel. He's in Daniel's corner, and he's the most powerful advocate that Daniel could have. Darius very much wants to save Daniel and to help him, but it's also clear that he cannot. He cannot do it. If anyone could have helped Daniel, it would have been Darius. Darius is the king of kings. There's no one above him other than God. He's the dictator of the largest empire on the planet at that time. And he likes Daniel and he desperately wants to save him. But even Darius cannot save him because the laws of the Medes and Persians are irrevocable. Darius' parting words to Daniel, as Daniel is thrown to the lions, are these in verse 16 May your God, whom you serve continually, deliver you. And there's multiple ways that that could be translated. Another rendering could be your God, whom you serve continually, he must deliver you. I can't do it. Your God, whom you serve, is the one who must deliver you. At the end of the day, even Darius is resigned to the fact that he is powerless to save. Only God can save. In the summer of 2018, I've shared this illustration before, but I think it's fitting here. In the summer of 2018, a boys' soccer team in Thailand went exploring in a massive cave system. And when they were inside, a monsoon hit, and the cave flooded, and the the boys' team was trapped in an inner deep inside the cave in an inner chamber. Once people realized what had happened, the response was immediate because they didn't have much time. The whole nation and really the whole world mobilized. There were Thai Navy SEALs, professional cave divers, engineers, even local villagers, everybody showed up to help in whatever way they could. But the situation was unbelievably complicated. To reach the boys, rescuers had to navigate miles of underwater narrow cave passages because it had flooded. And then came the real problem. Once they found them, which they did find them, even if you could get to them, how do you bring them out? Because they can't swim through all of that water. They're not scuba trained. That would be too unsafe. It was even unsafe for the professional cave divers. The boys would panic, and under those conditions, panic would be fatal. So despite all the effort, all the people, all the resources, they were powerless to save them. And what they needed was not just more help, but they needed a very specific kind of rescuer. There was a man named Richard Harris who was an expert cave diver, and he was also an anesthetist, which meant that he could do something that no one else in the world could do. He could get to the boys and he could help navigate them out as well, but he could also safely sedate them with anesthesia and have them carried through the flooded caves like precious cargo. And in the end, that's what it took, and they were all saved. In the end, it wasn't just effort or concern or resources, but someone uniquely able to do what the situation required. In Daniel's situation, he had an advocate in a very high place. The king cared, the king tried, the king used all that he could to try to save Daniel, and yet he was powerless to save. But God could go where Darius could not, and God could do what Darius could not. Only God can save. There are many places in our lives where we are tempted to put our hope in man, places where we look to people to do for us what only God can do. And I'll mention a few. First, politics. Be politically involved, care about your community, engage wisely, but do not put your hope in man who cannot save. We ask our elected officials to do far more for us than they could ever do. To fix the economy, to increase our income or our standard of living, to heal divisions in our country, even to protect the church. We look to elected officials to do these things. All of them promise change and promise these kinds of things. But they all disappoint us at some point every time. Only God can save. Secondly, church leaders, respect your leaders, receive, meekly receive the word of God from them, imitate them where they are faithful and where they are worthy of imitation, but do not put them on a pedestal. Don't put me on a pedestal, certainly. They are men just like you. I'm a man just like you. I know that you know that. But if they fall, if they should fall, God forbid, do not let your faith fall with them. Because this is not their church. They didn't build it. This is Jesus' church, and Jesus built it, and he can continue to build it, and he can build it with them, or he can build it without them. They're expendable. They're not needed in God's providence. He delights to use leaders, but none of them are necessary. Only God can save. Third, your parents. Honor your father and mother. That's the first commandment with a promise. But many of us carry wounds. None of us had perfect parents. None of us had parents who showed up in all the ways that they should have, and we all carry wounds from that. And you have a choice in that. You can hold on to bitterness and anger and unforgiveness, or you can strive to forgive and to release them, release them from the burden of being your Savior. They were never meant to be that. They never could or can occupy that role. And instead, look to look more and more to your heavenly Father, who will never leave you and never forsake you, and never fail you. Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man in whom there is no salvation. Only God can save. Point two, only God is always right. Human authority pretends to be infallible, but it isn't. The law of the Medes and the Persians has an interesting feature that shows up several times in the story. In verse 15, the conspirators remind Darius, know, O king, that it is a law of the Medes and the Persians, that no injunction or ordinance that the king establishes can be changed. Now, infamously, this was a feature of their law. Once the king signs a decree or issues an injunction, it cannot be undone. And why would this be? Because in the Persian system, the king's word is treated as absolute. The king is is as close to the gods as possible, and his decrees carry the weight of divine heavenly authority. So to reverse a law would be to admit that the king was maybe wrong or that he had made a mistake or that he hadn't fully thought it through, and that was unthinkable in the Persian mind. The king must always appear to be right. I don't think we have that problem in our political system, but that was uh that was the a Persian issue. But the problem is that Darius was wrong, and he does regret what he has done, and he didn't think through it very carefully or clearly. He uh he tries to fix it, he labors all day to rescue Daniel, but he can't, because the system that he rules actually now rules him. And that's the problem, is that any system that refuses to admit wrong or that it could be wrong eventually traps itself in its own errors and cannot escape its own, its own uh its own errors. Uh this kind of thinking was not unique to Persia. In the ancient world, kings often wanted to be seen as unquestionable or as always right. But the Bible is very different, and the kings of Israel are very different. The Bible is not afraid to show us the failures of even its greatest leaders. Take David, for example, who is continually celebrated throughout Scripture, the greatest king in Israel's history, and yet Scripture is not afraid to show us the worst things that he ever did, and it gives us Psalm 51, which is King David's confession and repentance and admission that he was wrong. That's very rare for the ancient world and perhaps even for the modern world, that a king or a politician or a leader would admit that they were wrong. But the Bible tells the truth. No man is always right, no leader is beyond correction or question, no authority, no human authority is infallible. As long as men and women are involved, mistakes will be made, wrong will be done, uh, we will fall short of the glory of God, things will be done imperfectly, we always could have done it better. There's always something to apologize for, and there must always be room for repentance because only God is always right. Only God is always right. In the late 90s, Blockbuster had over 9,000 stores worldwide. I wish we still lived in that world. They were the dominant force in home entertainment. Uh then, in the year 2000, a small startup called Netflix approached them, and Reed Hastings, the founder of Netflix, offered to partner with Blockbuster, and Blockbuster declined. They had built their entire business on physical stores and on late fees, and that was part of their model. They simply had too much invested in that model to do something different. Today there is only one Blockbuster left. Uh, it's in Bend, Oregon, and it's privately owned. I do hope to visit it one day. I'm gonna I'm gonna rent a video, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna return it. We have a name for this kind of thinking. It's called the sunk cost fallacy. Uh, it's when you keep going in the wrong direction because you've already gone so far in that direction. You've already gone, in your mind, too far to turn back. It's we cannot turn back. We've invested so much in this direction. That's exactly what we see in Daniel 6. Darius signs a decree, almost immediately he realizes it was a mistake, he tries to fix it, he labors day and night to rescue Daniel, but he can't. And because in his system, admitting that he was wrong or that he hadn't thought it through would undermine everything. And so he's forced to continue down a path that he knows is wrong. And all of us are prone to the same mistake. We double down, we justify, we refuse to admit error or to ask for directions because it feels too costly to say, I was wrong, I was wrong. We should rethink this. We must always leave room for repentance, even in the very best things that we've ever done. We must always leave room for repentance. It's always possible, it's always probable that we were wrong on some point, even if we've invested a lot in being wrong. Institutions almost never admit wrongdoing. A company will get sued and it may settle, but in that settlement, it will be very careful to admit no wrongdoing, even though it's paying out lots of money to resolve that issue. Politicians rarely admit wrongdoing because it feels like political suicide to do so. When is the last time you heard any politician on any side of the aisle apologize for anything or say that any position they ever took was ever wrong? Very, very rare. And this can even infect the church. Churches can begin to believe, especially Presbyterian churches like ours, we can begin to believe that if a decision was made by consensus, if all of the elders agreed, if all of us reviewed it together and took time and did the Presbyterian thing, then it cannot be wrong. It must be right if it was made by consensus. But no man is infallible, and no group of men or women is infallible. And this shows up in our homes too. Parents, how often do you admit wrongdoing to your children? Do your kids ever hear you say, I was wrong? I was totally wrong. Daddy screwed up. Will you forgive me? These are very important words for our children to hear from our lips. We need to model repentance for our children and not stubborn persistence in something that we all know is wrong. We must not only leave room for repentance, but we must be quick to repent. When we see that we've been wrong, when we realize that we've been investing in the wrong direction, we need to quickly turn. We need to recognize and turn quickly. We need to cut our losses, even if it's costly, even if it's humbling, and even if it means starting over. Because starting over in repentance and wisdom is far better than continuing in pride and error. Starting over in repentance and wisdom is far better than continuing in pride and error. Human authority pretends to be infallible, but it isn't. And that's why repentance is necessary for all of us. Only God is always right, and because he is always right, we must always be ready to admit when we are not. And then point three, only God gets the last word. God always gets the last word. Daniel was cast into the lion's den, and the entrance was sealed. Look at verse 17. It says, A stone was brought and laid on the mouth of the den, and the king sealed it with his own signet and with the signet of his lords that nothing might be changed concerning Daniel. Now this would entail some kind of wax or clay seal, and it's not done so that the stone is immovable, it's done so that it cannot be tampered with. So that if any of Daniel's friends or supporters were to try to go to him in the night and attempt to rescue him, it would be clear that the seal had been broken and tampered with. A seal like this meant that the decision was irreversible, and basically that Daniel's fate is sealed. This is the last word. It cannot be undone. It looks like the injunction of Darius has the last word. But the story doesn't end there, thankfully. The next day, Darius hurries to return, hoping against hope that Daniel's God has saved him. The king declared to Daniel, O Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you serve continually, been able to deliver you from the lions. In verse 21 and 22 is the first time that we hear anything from Daniel in the whole story. Most of the story is about the king's distress and the bad night that the king had. We don't know what it was like for Daniel in the lion's den. We're not given that information. But in verse 21, Daniel said to the king, O king, live forever. My God sent his angel and shut the lion's mouths, and they have not harmed me, because I was found blameless before him, and also before you, O king, I have done no harm. Though Daniel was innocent of any legitimate wrongdoing, he didn't harm anyone, he was condemned as a sinner, and the judgment was carried out, but God overturned the verdict. Psalm 30, verse 5 says, Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning. Daniel spent the night in the den. I couldn't imagine a darker, scarier place, but morning came, and with it salvation. Evil desperately tries to exert its will and to get the final word. But what man seals, God can open. And what man declares final and says this is the last word, God can overturn, our God always gets the last word. In 1961, a Florida man named Clarence Gideon, I think Ben is the only man in this room that recognizes that name. Clarence Gideon was accused of a crime, and he couldn't afford a lawyer. And although the Sixth Amendment guarantees the right to counsel at that time, states were not required to provide counsel. So Gideon stood in court alone. He represented himself, he was convicted, and he was sent to prison. And it looked like his story was over. But from his prison cell, Gideon wrote a handwritten petition to the Supreme Court of the United States. Very bold thing for him to do. The court receives thousands of petitions every year. Very few are taken, especially from unknown prisoners. But in an unusual turn of events, they took up his case and they appointed him a lawyer, and he was retried, and this time he was acquitted. And it didn't just change his life, but it changed your life as well, because it changed the law of the land. Because from that point forward, if you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Because when the Supreme Court takes up your case, the lower court rulings no longer have the last word. The Supreme Court gets the final word. Daniel was condemned by a lower court, but the king of heaven took up his case, and the lion's mouths were shut because the lion of the tribe of Judah was with Daniel. Daniel's verdict was overturned. God always gets the last word. Many times in life it can feel like your fate is sealed. Something happened, the damage has been done, you've done something, something has been done to you, you cannot go back, you've missed your chance, it's too late to have the life that you had envisioned or wanted, or for anything to be made right, and you live with regret. But don't forget that as a child of the great king, that there is a higher court. And God delights to take what looks like a lost cause and to turn it into a story of redemption that resounds with his glory and that shows how powerful and how good and how wise and how subtle our God is. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 7 10, he says, and I want you to remember this verse if you re if you remember nothing else from the sermon. For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret. That's an astounding thing to say. Astounding thing to say, leads to a salvation without regret. Even if you have failed deeply, it is never too late for God to redeem what you have done or what has been done to you, so that instead of living with regret, you can begin to live with gratitude and to decrease regret in your life and to fill it up instead with gratitude to God. Because regret says, I wish I hadn't done that, or I wish that hadn't happened, or I wish that that had never happened to me. My life would be far better. The life that I wanted, I could have if I had not done that, if that had not been done to me. But a redeemed sinner is able to look at these things and say, even that God has used for my salvation. Even that, God has turned to my blessing, and even that God has used for his glory, a salvation without regret. God wants to have the last word in your life. So don't settle for worldly grief that leads to death, but let godly grief lead you to repentance, and repentance to a salvation without regret. And all of this is possible because of what we're celebrating this week and next week, because there was another righteous man who was falsely accused. And though he was innocent, he was condemned as a sinner, and above his head hung the charge, Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. He was crucified, he was laid in a tomb, that tomb also was sealed, and it looked final. But three days later, God had the last word. And Jesus walked out of the grave, the guards didn't matter, the seal didn't matter, the tomb didn't matter, death itself didn't matter. And Jesus walked out not only vindicated and affecting his life, but also changing your life as well and securing vindication and salvation for all who belong to him. In a world of failed human leadership, our hope must be in God. Only God can save, only God is always right, and only God gets the last word. So won't you petition him to take up your cause? To that end, let us pray. Our Father, we give you thanks for this study in Daniel, and we thank you for all of the ways that it shows us Jesus Christ, and it shows us ourselves and the world that we live in and our only hope, which is in Jesus. We pray that you would help us to take these things to heart and to grow in faith in these ways. Lord, only you can save. So in all of our troubles, help us to look to you, to call upon you, to depend upon you, and ultimately to give thanks to you for your salvation. Lord, only you are always right. You never uh you never make a mistake, you never sin, you're never tempted to sin, you never do wrong. Everything that you do is just and righteous and good and wise and right. And Lord, we're not like that. We are we're fallen, we are sinful, and even the best things that we've ever done are as filthy rags compared to your righteousness. There's always room for improvement with us. So help us, Lord, to be ready to repent, quick to repent, eager to discover where we are wrong, so that we might repent and find even more grace. Lord, help us in that way as well. And Lord, we thank you that you get the last word. We thank you that you have the last word even over sin and death, where we are condemned because of our sin. But you have the last word. And you have taken up our case and become our advocate and become our justification through Jesus Christ our Lord. Lord, help us to lean on Him and to hope in Him this morning and this week. We ask all of this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Let's stand in worship.