An Uncompromising Life

Daniel 1:1-8

      We go, I trust, with a great sense of anticipation to the book of Daniel. I want to read the first nine verses as the setting for our message tonight. Chapter 1:

"In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah came Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon unto Jerusalem and besieged it. And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with part of the vessels of the house of God: which he carried into the land of Shinar to the house of his god; and he brought the vessels into the treasure house of his god. And the king spoke unto Ashpenaz the master of his eunuchs, that he should bring certain of the children of Israel and of the king's seed and of the princes; youths in whom was no blemish, but well favored and skillful in all wisdom and gifted 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 the king appointed them a daily provision of the king's food and of the wine which he drank: so nourishing them three years, that at the end of them they might stand before the king. Now among these were the children of Judah, Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah: unto whom the prince of the eunuchs gave names: for he gave unto Daniel the name of Belteshazzar; and to Hananiah, of Shadrach; and to Alishael, of Mishach; and to Azariah, of Abednego. But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's food, nor with the wine which he drank: therefore he requested of the prince of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself. Now God had brought Daniel into favor and compassion with the prince of the eunuchs."

      We'll stop there. That's not the end of the story, that's only the beginning, but for the end you'll have to come back next time.

      We live in a day of compromise. In fact, I believe that from the time we begin our life in the world, we pretty well learn the art of compromise. All the way along our life, we go the line of least resistance. We hold a conviction until it gets in the way of our comfort or our ease. We have a standard as long as it doesn't violate something we wish to do. If we can get by with a little less than our best, we'll do it. If we can cheat a little on the divine principles, or even the principles we say we believe, we'll do that too, in many cases if it accomplishes our goals. And that is a very personal approach to life that finds itself a very world perspective on life because all of us as individuals living that way make a whole world of compromise.

      Frankly, expedience is the ruling standard of human life. We worship the great god pragmatism. I suppose our motto today could be - If it works for you; do it. We are pragmatists more than anything else. And since in our society today we have abandoned any moral standard, we have cut ourselves completely loose from Christian principle, we no longer are concerned for a biblical morality; we could care less about what God has to say, at least for the most part. We are left with only the philosophy of expedience, or pragmatism. Whatever works, whatever accomplishes your goal, whatever gains your end, that's what you do. And so, we easily give up our consciences, we easily give up our convictions, we easily let go of our standards, to gain some practical end. And the amazing part of it is that our society seems to have little conscience left, little sense of guilt or remorse at all.

      We find out that politicians, who seem to have such high standards, who at the time when they are to be elected, hail from one end of the country these great standards, but when they find themselves in office, are eager to compromise those standards if it gains their ends.

      We find the same thing true in business practices. As corporate executives all the way down to people who are salespeople do the same things.

      Lawyers, who should be the conscience of any society, will compromise their own consciences if it gains a certain end in many cases.

      Leaders in all walks of life, and in all areas of human concourse, will do the same thing, very often. As individuals of all shapes and sizes, we learn to lie and we learn to cheat and we learn to steal and we learn to shade the truth and we learn to do whatever is necessary to get what we want. So that compromise becomes a way of life. And when we get into a confrontive situation, sometimes our greatest principles are shoved into the background because we don't want to offend somebody, or we don't want to be obtrusive, or we're afraid to really speak what we believe. Perhaps in the life of a Christian, it's nowhere more obvious than when you stand in the midst of conversation where you know you should speak of Christ, but rather than be thought evil of, or be thought less of, you keep your mouth closed and you are silent about Christ when He should be brought up. That in itself is a compromise. For the salvation of our own ego, for the sake of our own goals, we readily compromise.

      And compromising standards and compromising truths has found its way into the church. In fact, we have compromised with the world so repeatedly, we have compromised with the world so often that frankly, folks, I think we don't even understand what the compromises are anymore. Whenever the world comes up with something, we invariably will follow along. If the world wants to have a kind of a hippie movement, we'll have a Jesus-hippie movement. If the world wants to have a rock-music movement, just give us time and we'll have it too. If the world decides to have a Woman's Lib. movement, just wait and we'll have one. We have so long compromised with the world; we have become so engulfed in its materialistic viewpoint, in its economics and its style of life that there is little possibility that we can even understand what an uncompromising life really means. We fight to be separated from the world and yet we are unable to define what that separation means because we've been so brainwashed by the system. We have accepted the world's thought patterns. We have accepted the world's Value systems. We have accepted the world's attitudes. In so many cases, we have accepted its economics. We are indulging ourselves. We have accepted its morality. And again, we are indulging ourselves. And even though we know the Bible teaches something, if we feel we want to do it, we go ahead and do it anyway.

      Recently we had an occasion to have some people come in for counseling who desired to be married. And we found no biblical justification for their marriage, counseled them that they really had no right to get married, which didn't faze them in the least. They simply went down the street, got married, and showed up here again the next week.

      Compromise...an inability to deal with the biblical data as God intends us to deal because we are overwhelmed with our own personal desires. And so we substitute ourselves as the one to be pleased rather than God and we learn well the art of compromise.

      We indulge ourselves in the world's priorities. We take stock of the world's entertainment and on and on it goes.

      Scripture calls upon us to do just the very opposite. And we could spend a lot of time just studying this from a theological perspective. We could go through the Old Testament and we could study the very call of God to be separate from the world. We could go into the gospels and see what Jesus said. We could go into the epistles and we could study it there. But it doesn't really need to be done, other than to simply say from one end of the Bible to the other the whole approach of God to His people is that we are to live apart from the world. It's just the whole message of God to His people. When God designed the nation Israel, He built right into their very daily living...the way they dressed and the way they ate and the way they conducted themselves in a daily routine. And the calendar for the year, He built in safeguards to...to prevent them from intermingling, as it were, with pagans. He's done the same for all of His people.

      We have a standard that really can't be compatible with the world. And yet, how easily do we compromise ... how easily do we abandon our absolutes ... how easily do we allow our character qualities to become faulty as we seek to please ourselves under the pressure of the system in which we live.

      It might be well to remind ourselves at the very beginning, that God is the uncompromising God. God never compromises an absolute. God never compromises a principle. God never sets aside a truth for expediency purposes. God always lives according to His Word. In fact, He said, "I have exalted My Word above all My name." In other words, He says - I Myself, as to My nature, make Myself submissive to My Word.

      We were preaching this morning on the subject of prayer. And prayer is important. But I'll tell you something that's more important than prayer and that is the study of the Word. Because if you do not study the Word of God, you will not know how to pray because you will not know what is God's will. The study of the Word is more important than prayer someone told me this morning that an old saint of God said if he had to live his life all over again, he would pray less and study more because it would filter out needless prayers.

      The Word is the basis of the integrity of the life of a believer. And God as the Holy One has exalted His Word above all of His name and brings Himself into commitment to that very Word. And as His children, we are to do the same.

      I want to just share with you one passage from 2 Corinthians chapter 6 before we look at Daniel...and then another one from Hebrews, to give you an insight into this. In 2 Corinthians chapter 6 and verse 17, I think you have a summary of New Testament teaching relative to this kind of separation. It says: "Wherefore come out from among them," them referring to idolatrous people, people connected with Satan, infidels, unrighteous, people in darkness, the unregenerate world, "come out from among them and be ye separate, saith the Lord. And do not touch the unclean and I will receive you and will be a Father unto you and you shall be My sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty."

      Now listen, God is the separated uncompromising one and He says His people, to truly manifest that they are His people, must also be the separated uncompromising people.

      When we compromise with the world, it has devastating effects in two areas. First of all, it effects our worship, Hebrews chapter 13. When we compromise and accept the standard of the world and set God's standards aside, it destroys our worship. Let me show you this, Hebrews 13, verse 12, a tremendous passage. "Wherefore," Hebrews 13:12 says, "Jesus also that He might set apart," or separate, that's what sanctify means, "that He might separate the people with His own blood," that is to separate them from sin, "suffered outside the gate."

      In other words, you remember that in the sacrificial system of Israel, when it was time to slay the lamb for the sins of the people, those sins were symbolically placed upon another animal and that other animal was taken outside the city, outside the gates, separated from the people. And Jesus is simply drawing on the simple idea of separation. When He died, He died separated from the city, outside the walls, outside the concourse of human society. He died separated "In order that He might purchase a separated people." That's the whole point.

      Then in 13 it says: "If Christ separated Himself to purchase a separated people, let us then go forth therefore unto Him outside the camp and bear His reproach." In other words, let's then live separated lives. If He died separated to purchase a separated people, then let us live a separated life. "For we have no continuing city here, but we seek one to come. And when we've done that, by Him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually." In other words, you can't even worship unless you are living a separated life. Don't come to God with your praise and with the fruit of your lips saying thanks and with your good deeds and your sharing and your sacrifices unto Him unless you come out of a separated life. That's the whole point. We are called to be separated.

      John put it this way, "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him."

      James put it this way: "Don't you know that friendship with the world is enmity against God?" You cannot be the friend of the world and the friend of God. We are called, then, to a separated life. And if we are not separated it destroys our...our worship.

      Secondly, it destroys our service...it destroys our service. We can't serve the Lord. We become useless. In 2 Timothy chapter 2 and verse 20, it says, "In a great house there are not only vessels of gold and silver but of wood and earth, some to honor and some to dishonor." That's probably true in your house, isn't it? You've got the old stuff, you know, the stuff with the chipped apples on it and the plastic stuff and all the mix and match stuff that everybody in your family gets? And then when somebody important comes over, you pull out the good stuff and all the kids say - You know, how come we never get that? That's typical...we all have that. And we have, you know, the everyday stuff that we eat with, the utensils and then we have the very fine silver that is only for special occasions. Well, so it is with God. In God's treasure house of utensils...skeuos, it's a word meaning any kind of utensil, there are things unto honor and some unto dishonor. Now, if you want to be a utensil that God can use, then purge yourself from these...from what?...false teachers, false teaching, and the false kind of living of their lives. Separate yourself from unholiness, flee youthful lusts, avoid the foolish and unlearned questions that breed strife. In other words, separate yourself from false teaching and false standards and false ways of living or you cannot be a vessel fit for the Master's use.

      Now, beloved, what I'm saying is this, God calls us to separation and unless we are living a separated life, we are destroying our worship and we are destroying our service to Him. There must be a purging and a purification in our lives.

      A yacht was sitting at anchor one time on the Niagara River. And all of a sudden, because the water was rushing rather rapidly and the wind was blowing and there was a small kind of a little upheaval on the river, the rope holding the boat to the dock broke and it began to drift in the current. And it happened that there were people on board the small yacht. They became panic stricken as it went rapidly toward Niagara Falls. Some of them were accusing each other and screaming at each other about the fact that who was to blame and why did you get me on this boat, and on and on it went. They could hear the thundering sound of the falls immediately ahead of them. What was the skipper to do? Well, he was a man of action. And according to the chronicle, he had a piece of dynamite in his boat. He simply embedded it in the hull and lit it and blew a huge hole in the middle of the boat which proceeded immediately to sink the boat. Once the boat was sunk and no longer moving, the people were readily rescued as they clung to it in rather shallow water.

      I suppose that's what has to happen in our lives too. Somewhere along the line, as believers, we have to scuttle the ship of compromise. We have to sink the vessel of worldliness or we're going to find ourselves rapidly moving toward a disaster.

      That's what God calls us to. That's the standard by which we are to live. And none other than the Lord Jesus Christ is our pattern. In chapter 7 of Hebrews and verse 26, it says, "He was a high priest who was fitting," listen, "because He was holy, He was harmless, He was undefiled," now listen to this, "He was separated from sinners." He is the pattern: holy, harmless, undefiled; separated from sinners. God calls us to such a life. God calls us to such a commitment.

      Moses, you know, made that commitment to a separated life. In Hebrews 11:26, it says of Moses: "Choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season, esteeming the reproach of Christ, greater riches than the treasures in Egypt, for he had respect unto the recompense of reward, by faith Moses forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king for he endured as seeing one who was invisible." In other words, Moses chose God over Pharaoh. He chose heaven over earth. He chose poverty in God's will over riches out of God's will. He chose the will of God rather than the treasure of Egypt.

      Ruth made a commitment like that. "And they lifted up their voice and wept again and Orpha kissed her mother-in-law; but Ruth clave unto her. And she said, Behold, thy sister-in-law has gone back unto her people and unto her gods: return thou after thy sister-in-law." In other words, Ruth clinging is told - Go back to your former life; go back to the pagan gods. "And Ruth said, Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee, for whither thou goest, I will go and where thou lodgest, I will lodge. Thy people shall be my people, and thy God, my God. Where thou diest, will I die and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me and more also, if aught but death part thee and me. And when she saw that she was steadfastly minded to go with her, then she left speaking unto her."

      Ruth said - I will not return to a former life, I am committed to God and since you represent Him, I am committed to you.

      David made the same commitment. In Psalm 119, David said, "I have sworn and I will perform it, I will keep Thy righteous judgments." In verse 115, he said, "Depart from me, ye evil doers, get away for I will keep the commandments of my God.'"

      Moses wouldn't compromise, Ruth wouldn't compromise and neither would David. Barnabas, that lovely man of God who we see in the New Testament, so instrumental in the life of the early church, in Acts 11:23 says of him, "When he came and had seen the grace of God, he was glad and he exhorted them all that with purpose of heart they would cleave unto the Lord." Barnabas told the early church to be uncompromising and to cleave to the Lord.

      But, there's no better example of the character of an uncompromising spirit than Daniel...so let's look at him. And by the way, Ezekiel who was a contemporary of Daniel must have felt the same way because when Ezekiel wanted to give a list of the great men of righteousness in history, in Ezekiel 14:14 he said they were: Noah, Daniel and Job. And he put Daniel right in the middle even though the other two were long dead...and Daniel was alive. Rarely does a living man receive that kind of honor that usually must await his death. Daniel was a great man, a righteous man. We're going to see why in the first eight verses as we look at it tonight. Beginning in verse 1 and 2 we find the plight...the plight. And we've already looked at these verses so we don't need to spend a lot of time on them, just to briefly read them and make a comment or two.

      "In the third year in the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah," Judah was the southern kingdom, "Came Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon unto Jerusalem and besieged it. And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand with part of the vessels of the house of God which he carried into the land of Shinar to the house of his god; and he brought the vessels into the treasure house of his god."

      Now, we spent two lessons, two hours of teaching, at least, on those two verses. I simply want to remind you that the book begins on a very sorrowful note. What we find there is the first of three movements in the Babylonian captivity. The northern kingdom is long gone into captivity and now Judah, the remaining people of Israel, have been unfaithful, disobedient and so their judgment has arrived. Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon who now, for all intents and purposes, rules that whole part of the world, comes against Israel or Judah, besieges it and takes away the captives. So, in this series of three deportations, the first one occurring during the time of Jehoiakim, the captives are taken off to Babylon. And so the book begins with a sorrowful note.

      And you can't help but think back how many times God had warned the people. God, I told you, warned them in three ways. Number one He warned them through the prophets, constantly preaching if they didn't repent they'd be judged. Secondly, He warned them by the Assyrians who invaded their country and put tremendous pressure and each time God delivered them, but they got a little taste of what it would be like to be under foreign oppression. But they never heard the prophets and they never learned from the Assyrians.

      And finally, God warned them by taking the northern kingdom into captivity. They should have learned when they saw what happened to the north. But they didn't learn from any of those things. And so, they continued in their sin and God was patient and merciful and gracious as long as He could be. And the same God who said in Genesis 6, "My Spirit shall not always strive with man," stopped striving with Judah and brought judgment. And they were taken to captivity.

      Now, in the first deportation came Daniel, his friends, and another whole group of young men that are indicated in the passage. We meet them down in verse seven, six and seven, and we'll get to that in just a moment.

      But, the whole idea here is to set the scene. Daniel is taken captive. The whole nation hasn't gone into captivity yet because God wants Daniel there to get him set up for when the rest of the people show up. Now verse 2 tells us just an interesting note that when Nebuchadnezzar did this first siege and actually defeated Joya...Jehoiakim, and it might be interesting to add this point, that when he defeated Jehoiakim, he never dethroned him. He had seen that in the past, Jehoiakim had been a willing vassal to Pharaoh in Egypt, so, he figured Jehoiakim was a weak enough person to just leave him there. And that he would be intimidated enough not to do anything. So, he just left Jehoiakim alone, let him kind of sit it out. But in order to prove his power, he stole all of the vessels of value out of the house of God. He literally robbed the temple, took all the things of value. Why? Because if you could steal things from the god, or gods, of a foreign power, you could prove your greatness. If their god couldn't defend them any better than to hang on to the stuff in his own temple, you didn't have to worry about him. So, conquerors that conquered nations invariably gathered all the riches of the temple of the gods of that nation and hauled them back to their own country to affirm their power over false gods...foreign gods.

      And so, Nebuchadnezzar gathered all of this up. And it says he took it into the house of his god. There are so many names for who his god was that it's almost impossible to know, but it seems as though the main gods are related to the god Bel, which is also related to Baal. He comes...sometimes comes under the name of Merodach, and sometimes under the name of Marduk and sometimes under the name of Akku, and sometimes it's Enlil, and sometimes it's Ai, and it just goes on and on. They could never get their theology straight and they were always scrambling everybody up anyway. Whoever his god was, into the treasure house of his own god, he took the vessels of the temple.

      Now, the reason I think this is indicated to us is to show how total the coming doom was going to be. God wasn't even defending Judah anymore. God's own temple could be robbed and God didn't put up a fuss. The defense of Judah was over. God had defended them against the Assyrians; God was no longer defending them at all.

      You know, this must have been a hard time for Daniel, too. Even oh, seventy years later, after Daniel's deportation, seventy years later, in the sixth chapter and the tenth verse when Daniel prayed, he faced Jerusalem. Seventy years later, his heart still longed for the city of Jerusalem. You can imagine what must have gone on in his heart at the very time he was taken captive. So, the plight...a captive people in a foreign land.

Now, let's look secondly at the plot...the plot. From the plight to the plot, verses 3 to 7. This is absolutely one of the most fascinating parts of the book and it sets the stage for everything that's going to come to pass in Daniel's life there. Now, I told you a moment ago, and you want to get this, this is historical background, that when Nebuchadnezzar first besieged Jerusalem, right in the middle of his operation, he got word that his father was dying. So, he just left it as far as it had gone and he had to go back to Babylon to take care of the situation in the death of his father. He therefore left Jehoiakim in power. Now mark this. He left him in power. But in order to be sure of his loyalty, in order to be confident that Jehoiakim wouldn't pull off some kind of a rebellion and overthrow whatever minimal force Nebuchadnezzar left, he did a very smart thing. He took hostages. The first deportation, then, was not really a mass deportation of the people of Judah, he was simply taking hostages until he could get back in 597 and do a whole thing on them and finally in 586 and wipe out the whole nation. Verse 3 tells us what he did.

      "And the king spoke unto Ashpenaz the master of his eunuchs that he should bring certain of the children of Israel and of the king's seed and of the princes." Now, he wanted hostages and he wanted hostages right out of the royal family...and hostages right out of the princely nobility of the land of Judah. By the way, the word spoke, "And the king spoke," in Hebrew is actually the word commanded. The word Ashpenaz some people feel is a proper name and this is a man named Ashpenaz. Other people feel that this term means a title, referring to somebody who is a master, or somebody who is a leader, or somebody who is an overseer. Whether it is a title or a name is not really important, for our sake we'll just accept the fact that it's a name. It's a lot easier to deal with him in those terms. So, the king commands this person Ashpenaz. And it tells us that he is the master of his eunuchs.

      Now every king had people who worked for him or served him. In the court of a king there were eunuchs. Basically, a eunuch was a person of whom Isaiah says...it could be said that he was a dry tree. In other words, he had gone through a surgical emasculation to render him a eunuch. Those kinds of people were then placed in the control of harems in specific duties within the royal setting. It also is true, and we want to stress this so that you'll understand it clearly, that because commonly eunuchs served the king, the term eunuch became used for a lot of people who served the king who were not necessarily surgically made into eunuchs. The word then could refer to somebody who had had that physical operation or it could refer to someone who just served the king. In fact, Potiphar is indicated as a eunuch in Egypt and we know that he was married and had a wife because we happen to have an encounter with Joseph and Potiphar's wife, so, in the case of Potiphar, he may have been designated as a eunuch who was not really a eunuch physically. But Isaiah's definition does indicate the physical part of being a eunuch. Now, whether Daniel was actually a eunuch physically or not is difficult to know. It would seem to me, and I think I mentioned this in the past, that it's very likely that the king would render these young men eunuchs when they enter into his service and that might explain in some fashion why Daniel never married, there's never an identification with a family, all his life he finds himself serving the king.

      Whatever the case, this man Ashpenaz was the master of the people associated with the king...eunuchs in a physical sense, eunuchs in the sense of service to the king. So, this man then is told...and we want to get straight who he is cause we're going to meet him again, this man has an important office. The word master literally equals the word prince. He is to collect these young men. Now, some historians have indicated that there were somewhere between 50 and 75 of them at least. There happens to be, apparently, some data that they can put their finger on to indicate that it was a relatively large group, 50 to 75 maybe, a good guess...young men. Notice, they were the children of Israel, that doesn't mean the northern kingdom because by now those in the north, some of them, had migrated to the south from the ten tribes before the holocaust in the north so that all of Judah really embodied the seed of Israel. So, some of the children of Israel who are of the king's seed and the princes...royal family and nobility. He wanted the best for hostages in order to make sure Jehoiakim didn't do anything he shouldn't do.

      Secondly, now watch this, Nebuchadnezzar also wanted to train these young men in his courts, in his palace, to assist him in administering Jewish affairs because already in his mind he had concluded that he would be making Judah a vassal state to Babylon. He was going to capture the world. And he was going to have to know how to handle these Jewish people and so he wanted some well-trained Jewish boys that he could literally melt down and reform into Chaldeans but who had a Jewish background so that he could use them in the manipulations he felt would be necessary to administer his rule among the Jews.

      Look at verse 4. It says not only were they to be of the king's seed, and that would be the royal family itself, and the princes, that would be the nobility in the court, but they were to be youths...yeladim in Hebrew. And it's very hard to define this word exactly but most commentators agree that they could be no older than 17 years old and probably no younger than 13 or 14. And so, Daniel, at this time, is a teenager. We know that 70 years later he is still ruling. He is still leading in Babylon and so he must have been very young at this time. These are young men then...somewhere between the ages of 13 and 17 or so and it's likely that Daniel maybe was either 14 or 15 years old. No older than that. Hang on to that because that's a fantastic thought. This is just a kid, just a teenager.

      Plato