Daniel 6:27
He delivers and rescues; He performs signs and wonders in the heavens and on the earth, for He has rescued Daniel from the power of the lions."
Sermons
The Idea of God as Affected by ScienceDavid Ewing.Daniel 6:27
The Tables TurnedJ.D. Davies Daniel 6:19-28














My God hath sent his angel (ver. 22). "Are they not all ministering spirits?" (Hebrews 1:14). The text in Daniel suggests the whole doctrine of angel-ministration. That imperilled life guarded by a sentinel from heaven is no solitary spectacle. It has many parallels. There had been the ministration of angels before, as there has been a thousand times since. We cannot help looking upon the scene with memories charged with all that has been revealed of the relation of that higher world to the world of men. It was a remarkable instance of a universal fact in the experience of the Church of God - a fact not limited to particular ages, but existing from the beginning to the end of time. We suppose that the angel in this case may have been invisible to Daniel; Daniel having simply inferred his presence; and further, that the action of the angel may not have been strictly supernatural. The occasional supremacy of man over savage beasts may be an illustration of the dominance of the angel. The subject, then, is - The ministration of angels.

I. THEIR EXISTENCE. Say there are angels; and some would receive the statement with scepticism. But the evidence is:

1. The analogy of the case. The interdependence of material worlds points to a similar interdependence of moral worlds. The commerce of earth to a commerce between the varied worlds of God.

2. The craving of the human mind. There is a craving for the knowledge of creatures higher than ourselves. The craving universal. It points to an objective satisfaction.

3. The testimony of Scripture. Previous argument, only presumptive; this conclusive. Fulness of Scripture on the subject.

II. THEIR NATURE.

1. They are spiritual. "Are they not all spirits (πνεύματα)?"

2. But "clothed upon with some organization. Of a material kind, for it may become an object of sense; men may see the angel-form. Note:

(1) Angels appear in the human form. But:

(2) Glorified. (Daniel 10:6.)

(3) Men after the resurrection are to become like the angels. (Luke 20:36.)

We may infer that the organism of angels is well adapted to second the life abiding in it. Incorruptible, for the angel never dies; fit servant of high intelligence; offers no obstruction to their mighty power; no impediment to their swiftness; beautiful with immortal youth. The angels, like ourselves, are capable of everlasting intellectual and moral progress.

III. THEIR PUBLIC LIFE. Its essential characteristic is given in the question, Are they not all liturgic (λειτουργικὰ)?" But what is the meaning? We must go to Athens, the home of the Greek tongue, for the answer. A few words, then, on:

1. The Greek liturgy. It was a public service - a ministration of the citizens to the commonwealth. Certain citizens were bound to contribute money, labour, time, towards making Athens splendid at home, triumphant abroad. Such a contribution was a "liturgy;" it stood for the public service of the Athenian people.

2. The Hebrew liturgy. The word was transferred from things Greek to designate the public ministration of the priests in the temple. As the liturgy of the Athenians was for the glory of the Athenian commonwealth, so the liturgy of Hebrew priests was for the glory of the Hebrew commonwealth - a ministration to its awful King.

3. The heavenly liturgy. Here thought ascends to a higher state, to a grander temple, in which angels contribute to the public service. Their wealth, energy, time, are given for the glory of the Eternal, and for the majesty of his kingdom. "Are they not all liturgic? Do they not minister to God in the exalted service of the heavenly temple? Are they not employed in the administration of the celestial government? Do not ' thousand thousands minister to him, and ten thousand times ten stand before him '?" "The chariots of God are twenty thousand,"

IV. THEIR APOSTOLIC CHARACTER. "Are they not all... sent forth?" Where he appoints, they go. Describe their coming and going as recorded in Scripture. But all this mysterious appearing and disappearing was not at all of their own self-moved will; they were "sent forth." They came on embassage, and the love that sent them was the Lord of angels and ours.

V. THEIR MINISTRATION. They are "sent forth" to bring us help, to aid the otherwise helpess. Look at this:

1. Negatively. Their main object is not any of the following, though angels have been commissioned for them all.

(1) To glorify some great event; e.g. the incarnation.

(2) To answer prayer. (Daniel 9:21.)

(3) To terrify enemies. (Matthew 26:53.)

(4) To destroy the doomed; e.g. the Assyrian army.

(5) To advance their own knowledge. (1 Peter 1:12; Ephesians 3:10.)

2. Positively. To bring help. The lesson for us - not to live in the light that shines from superiors, not to enjoy the company of equals, but to minister to those below. (Why not include in this lesson from the angels, our duty of ministration to races of life below man?)

VI. THEIR RELATION TO REDEMPTION AND THE REDEEMED.

1. Their general attitude.

(1) With reference to redemption generally. The attitude is one of anxious interest, which was typified in the aspect of the cherubim over the ark, "towards the mercy-seat shall the faces," etc.; and declared in the New Testament (1 Peter 1:12).

(2) With reference to the redeemed particularly. Interested are they in the beginnings and developments of regenerated life (Luke 15:7, 10; 1 Corinthians 4:9).

2. Their critical services. Angels are prominent through all the great epochs of Divine revelation - in the patriarchal, legal, and prophetical dispensations. Keep watch and ward about the Person of Christ. (The annunciation to Zechariah, to Mary; the anthem at the birth; one in Gethsemane, twelve legions in waiting; two at the sepulchre.) They were active at the founding of the Church; are now agents in providence; will add to the glory of the last assize.

3. Their combined action. Militant action, we may call it. Much in the Bible to imply that the angels are ever exerting, on behalf of the saved, a moral influence, equal in extent, though opposite in kind and greater in degree, to that exerted by evil spirits. They are not idle spectators of the long-drawn-out moral conflict of this earth.

4. Their individual ministration. (See John 1:51; Matthew 18:10; Psalm 34:7; Psalm 91:12; 2 Kings 6:17; Daniel 6:22; Acts 27:23.) (The "Angel-god" passages not referred to, because his appearances were those of the Lord Jesus.)

CONCLUSIONS.

1. The majesty of their King. Christ the Lord. Such a retinue.

2. The greatness of the object of angel solicitude. Salvation.

3. The brightness of the Christian prospect. "Equal unto the angels." - R.

He worketh signs and wonders in heaven and in earth.
The picture formed of the Creator of the world has varied according to the strength or culture of the age through which the idea is passing. To the American Indian God is only a good spirit, the owner of a happy hunting ground larger than their own forests or plains To the Hindoo, God is a great, idle, luxurious prince, passing his time in pleasure or sleep. The Greek Zeus, or the Latin Jupiter, was only a great statesman, and warrior, and judge combined. The greater an age became in its mental and moral development, the richer its offerings to the character of its Deity. The idea of God is always the store-house in which each nation treasures up all its slow accumulations of the true, the beautiful, and the good. It does not follow from this that God is only an intellectual image, a shadow of man's mind seen externally, just as man may see the shadow of his body in a glass. There are those who declare the idea of God to be only this external projection of human thought. The ever-changing ideas which the human race cherishes as to its deity, prove only that man passes through many gradations of thought, a fact which no more blots out the Heavenly Father than it blots out the stars or the ocean. The modifications which the conceptions of the divine nature constantly undergo ought to be expected, and confessed aa perfectly legitimate, in a world where all truth is approached by gradual advances, and where nothing is seen to-day in the colours of yesterday. That each tribe has cherished a peculiar conception of God, and heaven and hell weighs no more against the absolute fact of these entities than the notion of Plutarch that the moon were a bunch of vapour, would destroy belief in the moon as an absolute external reality. The God is unchanging. Man passes from infancy to manhood in the search of the truth. Reflect then upon the wonderful works of God. It touched the spirit of Darius that there was a Being who could accomplish such strange things on earth or in heaven. In the classic ages there seems to have been little conception of divine power. The earth was the centre of a little system, and the stars not far away. So humble was the. public estimate of God, that one of the Roman emperors asked the people to declare him a god. It is possible that there was less atheism in early periods than in the present, resulting from the fact that the ideal of God lay nearer to the ideal of man. The gigantic studies of all science and inquiry of late centuries have widened the gulf between man and God by declaring that there is but one God, and that he is measureless, formless, unthinkable. Under the revelations of science the name of God becomes daily laden with power, and indeed has wholly outgrown the grasp, and even the highest imagination, of minds, either scientific or theological. If the universe is so measureless, equally measureless must be its Creator. He must be a God of wonderful work also in the world of spirit. To man, another life seems difficult; to many, it seems impossible. The mystery of futurity is no greater than the mystery of the past. For ages men have been trying to find how life came into the insensate world. The gateway to life is just as impossible as the gateway to a second existence. The Testament has given us a Heavenly Father, science has given us an Almighty. So far, all well. Now the result we fear is, that science is teaching us God is doing all his wonders in regions apart from the soul. Never did any age so need the Christ as our era now clamours for His life and teachings.

(David Ewing.)

People
Cyrus, Daniel, Darius, Persians
Places
Babylon, Jerusalem
Topics
Danger, Daniel, Delivered, Deliverer, Delivereth, Delivers, Doer, Free, Gives, Heaven, Heavens, Kept, Lions, Makes, Paw, Performs, Power, Rescued, Rescuer, Rescues, Rescueth, Safe, Salvation, Saved, Saves, Saveth, Signs, Wonders, Worketh, Works
Outline
1. Daniel is made chief of the presidents.
4. They, conspiring against him, obtain an idolatrous decree.
10. Daniel, accused of the breach thereof, is cast into the lion's den.
18. Daniel is saved;
24. his adversaries devoured;
25. and God magnified by a decree.

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Daniel 6:27

     1320   God, as Saviour
     1416   miracles, nature of
     6738   rescue

Daniel 6:19-28

     5931   resistance

Daniel 6:25-27

     8660   magnifying God

Daniel 6:26-27

     1205   God, titles of
     5454   power, God's saving

Library
A Tribute from Enemies
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.'--DANIEL vi. 5. Daniel was somewhere about ninety years old when he was cast to the lions. He had been for many years the real governor of the whole empire; and, of course, in such a position had incurred much hatred and jealousy. He was a foreigner and a worshipper of another God, and therefore was all the more unpopular, as a Brahmin would be in England if he were
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Faith Stopping the Mouths of Lions
'Then the king commanded, and they brought Daniel, and cast him into the den of lions. Now the king spake and said unto Daniel, Thy God whom thou servest continually, He will deliver thee. 17. And a stone was brought, and laid upon the mouth of the den; and the king sealed it with his own signet, and with the signet of his lords; that the purpose might not be changed concerning Daniel. 18. Then the king went to his palace, and passed the night fasting: neither were instruments of musick brought before
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Story of the Fiery Furnace
There was in the land of Judah a wicked king-named Jehoiakim, son of the good Josiah. While Jehoiakim was ruling over the land of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar, a great conqueror of the nations, came from Babylon with his army of Chaldean soldiers. He took the city of Jerusalem, and made Jehoiakim promise to submit to him as his master. And when he went back to his own land he took with him all the gold and silver that he could find in the Temple; and he carried away as captives very many of the princes
Logan Marshall—The Wonder Book of Bible Stories

The Jordan: the Decisive Start. Matthew 3:13-17. Mark 1:9-1Luke
3:21-22. The Anvil of Experience: knowledge only through experience--the Fourth, Daniel 3:25.--three Hebrews, Daniel 3.--Babylonian premier, Daniel 6:16-23.--George Mueller--Jesus made perfect through experience, Hebrews 2:10. 5:8, 9. 7:28, l.c.--all our experiences, Hebrews 2:14-18. Philippians 2:7. Hebrews 4:15, except through sin, Hebrews 4:15, l.c. 7:26. 2 Corinthians 5:21, f.c. 1 Peter 2:22. 1 John 3:5, l.c.--Jesus' suffering, Philippians 2:6-8. Hebrews 2:9, 17, 18. 4:15. His obedience, Luke
S. D. Gordon—Quiet Talks about Jesus

Appendix v. Rabbinic Theology and Literature
1. The Traditional Law. - The brief account given in vol. i. p. 100, of the character and authority claimed for the traditional law may here be supplemented by a chronological arrangement of the Halakhoth in the order of their supposed introduction or promulgation. In the first class, or Halakhoth of Moses from Sinai,' tradition enumerates fifty-five, [6370] which may be thus designated: religio-agrarian, four; [6371] ritual, including questions about clean and unclean,' twenty-three; [6372] concerning
Alfred Edersheim—The Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah

The Early Ministry in Judea
113. We owe to the fourth gospel our knowledge of the fact that Jesus began his general ministry in Jerusalem. The silence of the other records concerning this beginning cannot discredit the testimony of John. For these other records themselves indicate in various ways that Jesus had repeatedly sought to win Jerusalem before his final visit at the end of his life (compare Luke xiii. 34; Matt. xxiii. 37). Moreover, the fourth gospel is confirmed by the probability, rising almost to necessity, that
Rush Rhees—The Life of Jesus of Nazareth

I Will Pray with the Spirit and with the Understanding Also-
OR, A DISCOURSE TOUCHING PRAYER; WHEREIN IS BRIEFLY DISCOVERED, 1. WHAT PRAYER IS. 2. WHAT IT IS TO PRAY WITH THE SPIRIT. 3. WHAT IT IS TO PRAY WITH THE SPIRIT AND WITH THE UNDERSTANDING ALSO. WRITTEN IN PRISON, 1662. PUBLISHED, 1663. "For we know not what we should pray for as we ought:--the Spirit--helpeth our infirmities" (Rom 8:26). ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. There is no subject of more solemn importance to human happiness than prayer. It is the only medium of intercourse with heaven. "It is
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

Of Antichrist, and his Ruin: and of the Slaying the Witnesses.
BY JOHN BUNYAN PREFATORY REMARKS BY THE EDITOR This important treatise was prepared for the press, and left by the author, at his decease, to the care of his surviving friend for publication. It first appeared in a collection of his works in folio, 1692; and although a subject of universal interest; most admirably elucidated; no edition has been published in a separate form. Antichrist has agitated the Christian world from the earliest ages; and his craft has been to mislead the thoughtless, by
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

A Cloud of Witnesses.
"By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau, even concerning things to come. By faith Jacob, when he was a-dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph; and worshipped, leaning upon the top of his staff. By faith Joseph, when his end was nigh, made mention of the departure of the children of Israel; and gave commandment concerning his bones.... By faith the walls of Jericho fell down, after they had been compassed about for seven days. By faith Rahab the harlot perished not with them that were disobedient,
Thomas Charles Edwards—The Expositor's Bible: The Epistle to the Hebrews

Divine Support and Protection
[What shall we say then to these things?] If God be for us, who can be against us? T he passions of joy or grief, of admiration or gratitude, are moderate when we are able to find words which fully describe their emotions. When they rise very high, language is too faint to express them; and the person is either lost in silence, or feels something which, after his most laboured efforts, is too big for utterance. We may often observe the Apostle Paul under this difficulty, when attempting to excite
John Newton—Messiah Vol. 2

Daniel
Daniel is called a prophet in the New Testament (Matt. xxiv. 15). In the Hebrew Bible, however, the book called by his name appears not among the prophets, but among "the writings," between Esther and Ezra. The Greek version placed it between the major and the minor prophets, and this has determined its position in modern versions. The book is both like and unlike the prophetic books. It is like them in its passionate belief in the overruling Providence of God and in the sure consummation of His
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

Links
Daniel 6:27 NIV
Daniel 6:27 NLT
Daniel 6:27 ESV
Daniel 6:27 NASB
Daniel 6:27 KJV

Daniel 6:27 Bible Apps
Daniel 6:27 Parallel
Daniel 6:27 Biblia Paralela
Daniel 6:27 Chinese Bible
Daniel 6:27 French Bible
Daniel 6:27 German Bible

Daniel 6:27 Commentaries

Bible Hub
Daniel 6:26
Top of Page
Top of Page