Daniel 1:8-21 How to keep from being pressed into the mold of the World

Introduction

We live in a constant pressure cooker of a world. People, the media pressure us as believers to conform to their ways of thinking about issues such as same sex marriage, transgenderism, homosexuality, sexual immorality of all sorts, even things like politics, socialism, social justice and many other things. What issues have you faced or have been brought to your attention and you said to yourself, “what does the Bible have to say about that?” With all the pressures put on Christians today in the workplace to conform to their idea of what is norm, what is a Christian to do? How can you resist the pressure to be squeezed into the mold of the world?

I think of

Romans 12:1–2 ESV

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

I love what Warren Wiersbe says, “conformers are people whose lives are controlled by pressure from without, but ‘transformers’ are people whose lives are controlled by power from within.”

When I became a believer I was in the Marine Corps. You’ll not meet a greater group of foul mouthed, ungodly people like the marines I served with. It is not that the marines are bad, I don’t mean that at all. In fact, after my transfer to Camp Lejeune I met alot Christian marines. They made up the church we attended. Nevertheless, it was challenging to be a Christian amid a military branch like that. How did Sharon and I do it? Well, we stayed connected to our church. I didn’t hang around the men in my unit after hours. We fellowshipped with other believers in the church. We kept in the Word, in prayer. I personally was totally committed to the Lord. In my mind there was no way that the marines were going to get inside me and move me away from the Lord. God was in me, transforming me. He had me.

Thankfully, we have a book like Daniel in which we see this problem played out for us. Here are four teenagers who are going to transform the world of a powerful ruler such as King Nebuchadnezzar and show a captive people how to live valiantly as God’s people amid a world steeped in cruel, ungodly, immorality, pagan ritual , ripe in greed and power and pride. This fits right into our problem. We can learn from these teens how to best honor God while at the same time not dishonoring those in the world around us.

Thankfully, we have a book like Daniel in which we see this problem played out for us. Here are four teenagers who are going to transform the world of a powerful ruler such as King Nebuchadnezzar and show a captive people how to live valiantly as God’s people amid a world steeped in cruel, ungodly, immorality, pagan ritual , ripe in greed and power and pride. This fits right into our problem. We can learn from these teens how to best honor God while at the same time not dishonoring those in the world around us.

I am utterly amazed that these four teens could turn this world upside down as they did. I mean this book is written for us to read and study. That should say something.

I. Their heart belonged to God, v.8a

II. They were humble before the authorities, v.8b-16

III. God gave them special abilities, v.17

IV. God exalted them before the king, v.18-21

I. Their heart belonged to God, v.8a

Daniel put into his heart to not defile himself. Daniel had committed himself to live for the Lord. He realized that he belonged to God and wanted to honor and glorify him. It is clear that he loved the Lord and trusted him. This doesn’t change as he grows older either, In we get a glimpse of Daniel’s heart once again as the angel testifies that he/Daniel had set his “heart to understand and to chasten thyself before thy God.” Daniel’s heart was bent toward the Lord determined to love the Lord with all his heart mind body and soul. He was a living model of what it means to live out the Shema of Israel, in

Deuteronomy 6:4–5 ESV

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

Because he knew he belonged to God he knew that he had to live a certain way in order to please the one who held his heart. And so he determined not to defile himself. As did his three companions.

The word defile - gael means to abhor or loathe in Aramaic, from the idea of being polluted The pollution specified by the verb is due to the blood of murder (; ), the blood of vengeance (), or by sin in general (; ). The word is used of the ceremonial pollution of imperfect sacrifices (, ), of the pagan king’s diet (), and of the uncertain lineage of the priests after the exile (; ). Thus the pollution specified is from any breach of moral or ceremonial law. 1

1 Harris, R. L. (1999). 301 גָּאַל. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 145). Chicago: Moody Press.

He sees eating the kings food as some sort defiling of him. It seems most likely due to the possibility that the meat would have been offered to idols whereas the vegetables would not have been. Thinking on Leviticus, for a Jew to eat meat it would have had to been offered to the Lord in a peace offering format. This would not have been possible here. As well as the idea of the fat and/or blood being part of the pagan diet. But that is just conjecture on my part.

Also forbade them from eating flesh offered to pagan idols.

The word delicacies/portion -patbag is a persian loan word that means to food delicacies, things that would have only made their way to the kings table.

The book itself provides the needed clue in 11:26, where the rare word pat bag recurs: ‘Even those who eat his rich food shall be his undoing.’ By eastern standards to share a meal was to commit oneself to friendship; it was of covenant significance (; ; ; cf. ). Those who had thus committed themselves to allegiance accepted an obligation of loyalty to the king. It would seem that Daniel rejected this symbol of dependence on the king because he wished to be free to fulfil his primary obligations to the God he served. The defilement he feared was not so much a ritual as a moral defilement, arising from the subtle flattery of gifts and favours which entailed hidden implications of loyal support, however dubious the king’s future policies might prove to be.1

1 Baldwin, J. G. (1978). Daniel: An Introduction and Commentary (Vol. 23, p. 92). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.

The wine for drink was part of that and whether the inebriating kind either way anything that was connected to the king’s menu apart from the vegetables was viewed by Daniel as defiling/loathsome/abhorrent to him.

Jew were not to drink “strong drink” ; speaks of woe to those who rise early to go after strong drink. Jews diluted their wine, Babylonians did not.

I find this very fascinating that these four teens were so committed to the Lord they were not going to allow themselves to even be tempted to turn away from the Lord.

They didn’t want the alcohol, nor the food they just didn’t want to go that route. I think the ultimate determiner here is that Daniel recognized the truth of “man does not live by bread alone but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord.” He determined to be faithful to the Lord, by obedience to the Law.

So determining in his heart that he did not want to be defiled he has to speak to the prince of the chamberlains/ashpenaz that he would not defile himself, (with the kings portion or wine).

IN other words, here is this teenage young man who is a captive in another country, under the authority of a probably much older man who had power over him to do good or bad, to make it easy or hard. He could probably have made it hard enough that he could have been killed or imprisoned. This was a courageous act: 1. danger of insulting the king; 2. pressure from peers as different than the rest; 3. could jeopardize their advancement; 4. the quality of the food would have been the best; 5. they were 900 miles from home the temptation to be unfaithful would have been strong; 6. the idea that God had abandoned them would have given reason to become bitter and turn away from God.

However, none of those possibilities registered with Daniel enough to compel him to cave in to the pagan lifestyle and defile himself. He was willing to risk his comfort, his very life in order to maintain his walk with the Lord. This as we know from reading the rest of Daniel was his way. it was also the way of his 3 friends. They prove it later on.

Their trust was in the Lord no matter what happened to them. They belonged to Him and were not going to let go of that.

This leads us to item. The fact that they knew God had them, they were willing to humble themselves before the Lord and His authorities.

II. They were humble before their authorities, v.8b-16

Notice what it says in v.9 This is key: God gave them favor and tender love. Those words are chesed loyal love, grace, lovingkindness and raham- which refers to compassion. Truly God worked this out, but it wasn’t that God just supernaturally did this against any conduct of the four. No, See how they approached and humbled themselves before those in authority? They didn’t say, ‘Now listen here, we are not going to eat this food and drink, period.’ No they took a gentle approach and wise approach. They weren’t making demands. First of all it would have taken much courage just to approach them with this as we already said.

Humility is able to see God and reality. Pride only sees oneself as the center. Look at the distinction between Jehoiakim-proud arrogant, rejecting God, probably even blaming and mocking God for getting them into this fix. or King Nebuchadnezzar we are about to see his pride come to fruition, but later on humbled. We even see Ashpenaz, and the Melzar who were over the youths. But Daniel and his friends are humble.

Compare how it turns out for all of them. Which one’s fare better? We see this sort of thing happen in Scripture more than once: look at Joseph and how it fared with him in the end. or the midwives before Pharoah, Or how about Peter and John before the Sanhedrin or even Jesus before the Sanhedrin and then before Pilate and the Romans soldiers who would nail Him to the cross.

The bible says in to live as much as possible at peace with all men. The Bible also says that when a man’s ways please God He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him.

So these teens propose a test duration of 10 days. I don’t know of any significance to the length. But surely one could see a difference after ten days if you were on a diet. And this was sort of a diet. It was vegetables, fruits, grains, breads made from the grains. It would be a health food diet for today. I guarantee if someone started Daniel’s diet and didn’t see results in ten days they would probably quit.

Because God had worked in the heart of the men over them, they let them do the test. Interestingly the word for test, nasa means to prove, has the idea of testing or proving the quality of someone or something, often through adversity or hardship (TWOT) The word can mean testing armor like David did with King Saul’s armor in . It usually has to do with testing someone or something through trial or difficult time. So Daniel says, ‘look, put us to the test. Put us through the adversity of eating only vegetables rather than the delicacies of the king and see how we look at the end of the ten days.”

1 Wilson, M. R. (1999). 1373 נָסָה. R. L. Harris, G. L. Archer Jr., & B. K. Waltke (Eds.), Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (electronic ed., p. 581). Chicago: Moody Press.

The word can mean testing armor like David did with King Saul’s armor in . It usually has to do with testing someone or something through trial or difficult time. So Daniel says, ‘look, put us to the test. Put us through the adversity of eating only vegetables rather than the delicacies of the king and see how we look at the end of the ten days.”

Even the way he is clothing this proposal shows their humility before the servants. So the Melzar permits the test and we seen that in v.15 it was a great success. They were fatter and fairer than all the others who had been eating the delicacies of the kings table. Now that would be a healthy diet to be on.

These four teen simply trusted God.

Now we need to move on to the third item;

“let them give us” this is a jussive which has the idea of a subjunctive, which is the concept of potentiality. In other words, by wording it this way, he is not making a demand, but humbly requesting, fully understanding that Melzar could say no. He has the prerogative.

III. God gave them special abilities, v.17

The words direct our attention back to v. 4 don’t they?

The king chose these youths

The Holy Bible: King James Version Chapter 1

well favoured, and skilful in all wisdom, and cunning in knowledge, and understanding science, and such as had ability in them to stand in the king’s palace, and whom they might teach the learning and the tongue of the Chaldeans.

And this is exactly what he gets. But it wasn’t because of the great educational system or their own cunning or innate intellectual abilities. No, this was God’s doing. God blessed them in a special way. He gifted them to do what He had before purposed they were to do. And they had now the divine ability to act wisely. The words here suggest that they were able to think through issues and comprehend or have insight that was far and above their peers. They will demonstrate that over the course of their lives as it is recorded here.

you can have the wisdom of this world and get buy in life. But to have the know how to navigate the pitfalls of this world and God’s wisdom well you are way above anyone else. We need to understand how the world operates, Moses was educated in the Egyptian system. And these four were educated in the Chaldean system. But they did not have to be part of it in terms of thinking that way. They were able to understand the system they lived in and how God wanted them to live in the midst of it.

We have the same problem don’t we? We are educated in public schools for the most even in higher education, if you can afford it you send your kids to Christian school if there is one close enough or home school, But then what happens when they go off to college miles from home and the are on their own. Will they hold fast to biblical teaching or cave to the pressures their peers and professors put on them. this is showing us how to be able to get through that without the fall.

It takes divine help. Trust in God. Love not the wisdom of this world. Daniel and his friends understood the mindset of the religion of Marduk, the way the magicians and astrologers thought and how they interpreted their world and made decisions. they understood what drove them, why they did what they did.

On top of that He gave Daniel special abilities with visions and dreams which we will be reading about in the next chapter. God is the one who gives true wisdom.

Proverbs 1:7 ESV

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Proverbs 9:10 ESV

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight.

Then we have the

IV. God exalted them before the king, v.18-21

What a marvelous examination. What a testament to the sovereignty of God, He gave them special intellectual gifts and now He gives them honor before the king. The king is overjoyed to say the least with his new prospects. He immediately puts them into his service. In fact, he is so impressed he concluded there was no one else in his entire kingdom like them. They were ten times better, literally “ten hands above’ which was hyperbole for way above the others. In fact, they were ‘In all matters” above the astrologers and magicians in all his kingdom. Don’t think of magicians like today’s cutting people in half doing card tricks, pulling rabbits out of hats and such. They dealt with the occult, they used incantations, sorcery, spells and such. These were the political advisors of the day who would consult the stars, tracking everything in order to be able to better interpret the future. Much like scientists track the economy, or weather patterns today and then give advice as to what to do with your money or vacation plans. These were powerful people in the kingdom. Now Daniel and these three teenage friends are ranked up there in the most powerful halls of the kingdom.

What got them there? I mean that is completely shocking don’t you think. It would be comparable to the president of the United States hiring four teenagers to be his advisor on everything from the economy, environment, military, social issues etc. It would be absurd to think such a thing could happen.

yet that is what happened here. the only answer is it is a God thing. The sovereignty of God over the affairs of men. And we see from v. 21 that Daniel has a long life of influence ahead of him. more than 70 years of ministry in a foreign government.

Conclusion

How will you keep from caving in to the pressure to conform to our world?

Make sure you belong to God. Make sure your heart is God’s.

Be humble, pride will get you nothing but trouble.

Trust God to give you the abilities you need to function in the purpose he has for you.

I never forget Jesus words on the sermon on the Mount : “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added to you.”Matt. 6:33