“In the evening the men went together to the king and said, “Your Majesty, you know that according to the law of the Medes and the Persians, no law that the king signs can be changed.” So at last the king gave orders for Daniel to be arrested and thrown into the den of lions. The king said to him, “May your God, whom you serve so faithfully, rescue you.” Daniel 6:15-16
It was true that the King was bound by his own law; these men did not realize instead of fighting Daniel they were really fighting God. They would be caught in their own trap, for no man has the intelligence to fight God’s wisdom. No matter what law man makes, it cannot circumvent God’s law. The hammer of opposition beats upon the anvil of God’s Word. The hammer breaks and the anvil remains.
Their confidence in making this accusation was probably bolstered by the justification for the injunction in the first place. No doubt the Scriptures do not record all the conversation between King Darius and these officials. It is probable that they had justified the law as a means by which all the peoples in the kingdom would be forced to recognize Darius as their ruler and present their petitions to their deities in Darius’s name. There was little in this that would be offensive to a pagan who worshiped many gods, and it could have been a useful device to expose anyone who was rebellious against the king. Yet now that the trap was sprung on Daniel, the king immediately saw through the conspirators’ scheme. Instead of being angry with Daniel as Nebuchadnezzar had been with Daniel’s companions in chapter 3, the king realized that he himself had made a mistake and attempted in vain to find a legal loophole by which Daniel could be delivered. But those assembled before the king reminded Darius of what he already knew: the law could not be changed according to their customs.
No matter what his age, from teenager to senior citizen, Daniel continued constantly. Can you imagine what could happen if we developed such consistency in our lives that the enthusiasm and determination to follow the Lord developed and deepened, grew and blossomed so that from youth to old age we were always a valuable tool in the hand of God? That’s what I covet for my life. I want God to so mold and make me that as I grow older, I get better. I don’t want to be an angry, contentious, bitter old man.