God’s Word for You

Daniel 6:23 But what if I am not rescued from lions?

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Saturday, November 8, 2025

23 Then, delighted, the king commanded that Daniel be brought up out of the den. So Daniel was brought up out of the den, and no wound at all was found upon him, because he had trusted in his God.

This passage and others like it where a believer is rescued from harm or death on account of their faith, can confuse and even frustrate Christians who themselves face death or other perils. They rightly ask, “But I trust and believe in Jesus Christ. Why, then, am I suffering? Why am I going to die in such pain?” In our verse, Daniel is said to have been brought out of the lions’ den unharmed. “with no wound at all,” on account of his faith. And Daniel’s faith was certainly his trust in the promises of God. But we must distinguish God’s deliverance and his promises of deliverance. For delivering us from perils of the body (up to and including death) is something we pray for, but so is deliverance from sin and punishment in hell. They are not the same thing.

Luther’s morning prayer makes this distinction, on the one hand praying: “You have kept me this night from all harm and danger,” and on the other hand, asking: “Keep me this day also from sin and every evil.” So when we pray to be kept from harm and danger, we flee for refuge to God and the promise of his aid. When we pray for forgiveness, we trust in the promises of God and in the merits of Jesus Christ. When God spares us from harm, it is because this is his will for us, and he is gracious to us. But he may not spare us from certain harm, disease, accident, cancer, war, attacks, or other dreadful things, because according to his will he would have us be subjected to such things, and through them he may either test our faith in order to strengthen us through the gospel, or his will may be to bring an end to our earthly lives in order to rescue us from this valley of tears and to test the faith of others who may mourn.

Now, this is no place to address the skeptic. A skeptic has chosen doubt and embraced it by making God, his Son Jesus Christ, and the whole Christian Church on earth into a kind of hostile witness (as it were) to be badgered and attacked. But for the poor Christian who simply wonders, and who thinks that she or he doubts to some degree, there is comfort to be had in the word of God, and the word of God is the place we run to. The covers of the Holy Bible are the earthly arms of God that we embrace, for just as a mother and father love their children, so our heavenly Father loves us, and all of his love is there, between the outer sleeves, the title-page on the one arm and the usual “table of weights and measures” that is on the other arm. What lies between, from Genesis to Revelation, is all of God’s love on earth and all of his preaching and teaching and comfort for mankind: It is God’s word for us, for you.

For our salvation is not the result of human effort or of human ability—it is a divine gift and accomplishment. “The history of salvation” (wrote Professor Ylvisaker of the old Norwegian Synod) “must therefore be a miraculous history, of a unique and outstanding character. When we encounter problems which lie beyond any mere human comprehension, this should not in itself be a cause of doubt and hesitancy, but we should rather confess: if the history of salvation were not miraculous, it could not be a history of salvation” (The Gospels, p. 3).

So, the suffering that Christians endure in this lifetime, whether they are on account of their faith and of Jesus’ name, or simply because there is sin and corruption in the world and therefore we will suffer on account of it—these things are all crosses that Christians carry and have to bear up under. Scripture calls temptations crosses that we bear (1 Corinthians 10:13), but it also calls our crosses “discipline,” and “the Lord disciplines those he loves” (Hebrews 12:6). And again: “Endure hardships as discipline” (Hebrews 12:8). These things are different from punishment. And Hoenecke even says, “Sorrows are not a reason for being frightened, but for joy and celebration,” and he cites 1 Peter 4:13: “Rejoice that you participate in the sufferings of Christ.” And again: “Consider it pure joy, my sisters and brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds” (James 1:2). And still again: “We also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance, character and hope” (Romans 5:3-4).

So whatever happens to us, it is to the glory of God. It can bring us joy even when we suffer, even when we are in pain. With a quiet and gentle spirit we submit ourselves to his holy will. And if the devil fills the air with a hail of arrows and storm of disease, we entrust ourselves, soul and body, to God, to do with as he pleases. For he might have it in mind to rescue us for a few more years of this lifetime, to serve other Christians and to do our part to carry the gospel so that his angels can do their reaping, carrying the elect from the four winds (Mark 13:27). Or he might have it in mind to bring us home to him sooner, in a moment that will be “here and now” for us in a day of fear and pain. For when “now is the day” (2 Corinthians 6:2), it is a blessed and glorious day, a day more important than the night a Christian is conceived, for it is the day of planting a new seed in the earth, the seed of the body that will burst forth from the ground when Christ returns. Meanwhile the spirit goes at once, carried to heaven, to worship and celebrate, to rejoice and praise God: For a soul has been saved that can never be lost again. Our God’s hand is the hand of victory, and of freedom, and of forgiveness, forever.

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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