Daniel 1 | Pure Heart in a Defiled Land

Well, good morning to you and greetings from First Baptist Church of Hacienda Heights. My name is Jason Reette, and I'm one of the pastors there. It is a joy and a privilege to be with you this morning to open God's Word together. I am especially thankful to tell you that FBC Artesia is one of the churches that we regularly pray for as a part of our pastoral prayer. It brings me great joy because I want to bring at least once all of the pastors of the churches we pray for to preach to my congregation to encourage them. So I'm especially thankful that your pastor John is spending time with my flock in Hacienda Heights and gets to encourage them, and I hope that this time we spend together will be an encouragement to you as well.

I want to begin with a question that might make some people in this room a little bit uncomfortable. My question is this: What circumstances do you think for you personally would be difficult for you to live out your Christian life in? Can you imagine a scenario in which being a Christian would be most difficult for you personally? Maybe for you, it's something like living in a place where there are no other Christians, and so there are no other believers to encourage you or to be encouraged and follow their example, or to be reminded of what God's Word says. Maybe it is living in a place or working at a place in which others are hostile towards you as a Christian, where you're the object of ridicule and belittling.

Maybe it would be difficult for you to live in a place where people are trying to hunt you down physically and put an end to your life. Maybe it's experiencing what Job experienced, losing everything seemingly for no reason. Well, there have been, and there are, Christians who have lived through all of these different scenarios that I have explained and have done so faithfully. Now, there are those who have, even if we can just imagine for a moment, think of the very worst thing: being dragged off from your homeland in chains to a foreign place to be a slave for the rest of your life while your family members and friends are slaughtered. What would it be like to be a Christian in that kind of context? Well, it just so happens that that is exactly where Daniel finds himself from our sermon passage this morning.

Daniel and his three friends, as he is taken into captivity during his teenage years, and remains, as far as we know, all the way to the end of his life, in a pagan land. He's described merely as a youth. When his hometown is destroyed, many of his loved ones are no doubt killed or left for dead, and he is then placed under the power of a dictator. And for that reason, Daniel and his life give us a perfect example of how we as Christians are to live as sojourners here on earth, as citizens of heaven, not yet to our true eternal home, awaiting the return of King Jesus. We too are sojourners in a foreign land, though our circumstances, of course, are very different.

I'm going to use Daniel this morning as a kind of extreme contrast that I hope will be an encouragement to you, whether or not you feel your faith is strong this morning and life is good, or you feel like you're hanging on by a thread not knowing how you'll make it to the end of the week, believing that God is good. So, turn with me in your Bibles to Daniel chapter 1. Daniel chapter 1.

Daniel is considered one of the last major prophets in our English Bibles. So you've got Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and then Daniel, and then you have the book of the 12 Minor Prophets after that, to close out the Old Testament. Daniel's an amazing book, absolutely amazing, though it is notoriously difficult to understand. I'd encourage you to read through it sometime. The first six chapters are easier than the second half of the book. The first half of the book is essentially narrative, and then the second half is basically a recording of these fantastic visions that Daniel receives, similar to the apocalyptic type of literature that we think of as Revelation, the book of Revelation.

But we can find some great comfort here as readers when we read things that we don't understand or difficult in Scripture. Daniel is one of my favorite books to point to because twice in the book Daniel, who receives the vision and is given even an interpretation of that vision, says, 'I did not understand what these things meant.' So all Scripture is breathed out by God. It's equally inspired, but not all Scripture is equally clear. And that's okay. Some passages take a little more work and patience and are inevitably wrapped in a little bit more mystery, I think intentionally by the Holy Spirit for us. Still, while this is one of the narrative portions, it's no walk in the park either when it comes to interpretation. So, we're going to rely on the Holy Spirit this morning for understanding. My hope is that this passage will increase your confidence in God's sovereign power over all things, and that you would be inspired all the more to live a life set apart or holy unto God.

There are few people in the Bible that we can look to as shining examples on the whole, and Daniel is one of them. What do I mean by that? Well, Moses struck the rock; David committed adultery; Peter is a denier. But Daniel, we don't really read of any negative moments in his life from what I can tell, which doesn't mean he was without sin like Jesus. I assume he was, and he prays an amazing prayer of confession in chapter 9. But it simply means he stands out as far as character goes, especially as one who lived under a pagan government in a foreign land and was faithful to God. So, having said all of that, let me just take some time to read our passage together. I'm going to read it in full. It's a whole chapter. Listen to the story as I read along. Daniel chapter 1.

In the third year of the reign of King Jehoiakim of Judah, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon came to Jerusalem and laid siege to it. The Lord handed King Jehoiakim of Judah over to him, along with some of the vessels from the house of God. Nebuchadnezzar carried them to the land of Babylon, to the house of his god, and put the vessels in the treasury of his god. The king ordered Ashpenaz, his chief eunuch, to bring some of the Israelites from the royal family and from the nobility— young men without any physical defect, good-looking, suitable for instruction in all wisdom, knowledgeable, perceptive, and capable of serving in the king’s palace. He was to teach them the Chaldean language and literature. The king assigned them daily provisions from the royal food and from the wine that he drank. They were to be trained for three years, and at the end of that time they were to attend the king. Among them, from the Judahites, were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. The chief eunuch gave them names; he gave the name Belteshazzar to Daniel, Shadrach to Hananiah, Meshach to Mishael, and Abednego to Azariah. Daniel determined that he would not defile himself with the king’s food or with the wine he drank. So he asked permission from the chief eunuch not to defile himself. God had granted Daniel kindness and compassion from the chief eunuch, yet he said to Daniel, “I fear my lord the king, who assigned your food and drink. What if he sees your faces looking thinner than the other young men your age? You would endanger my life with the king.” So Daniel said to the guard whom the chief eunuch had assigned to Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, “Please test your servants for ten days. Let us be given vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then examine our appearance and the appearance of the young men who are eating the king’s food, and deal with your servants based on what you see.” He agreed with them about this and tested them for ten days. At the end of ten days they looked better and healthier than all the young men who were eating the king’s food. So the guard continued to remove their food and the wine they were to drink and gave them vegetables. God gave these four young men knowledge and understanding in every kind of literature and wisdom. Daniel also understood visions and dreams of every kind. At the end of the time that the king had said to present them, the chief eunuch presented them to Nebuchadnezzar. The king interviewed them, and among all of them, no one was found equal to Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. So they began to attend the king. In every matter of wisdom and understanding that the king consulted them about, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and mediums in his entire kingdom. Daniel remained there until the first year of King Cyrus. — Daniel 1:1-21 (CSB)

All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. — 2 Timothy 3:16-17 (CSB)

Now, I already mentioned that Daniel as a book has lots of different literary characteristics, but the main emphasis of the entire book, I would say, is not necessarily the future that it predicts at times or the morality of its characters. It is the demonstration that God is absolutely sovereign over everything. And that's the case with this first chapter as well. So, if you're taking notes, I would say the main idea of this passage is this: Because God is sovereign in all things, we can be faithful in all circumstances. Structurally, you can break this passage up into three main sections because three different times the passage declares that the Lord gives or grants something. And my three points this morning are going to be those three things that God gives in this narrative.

The Sovereignty of God and His Judgment

So, point one: judgment, verses 1-7. See, the book opens with the historical context from the first verse. It tells us the year of the reign of Jehoiakim, king of Judah. And this is, for the history buffs out there, the year 605 BC. And it happens to be the first of three separate sieges against Jerusalem from Babylon.

So, just to lay the groundwork, we know the beginning of Israel's history typically better than we know the end of it or the second half of it in the Bible. God brings the people out from slavery in Egypt. They travel through the wilderness. He delivers them into the promised land. There's a period of judges until eventually there's the United Kingdom under those three kings: Saul, David, and Solomon. After that point, the kingdom is split into two between Solomon's sons. So you have the Northern Kingdom that's referred to as Israel, and then you have the Southern Kingdom that's referred to as Judah. Well, the Northern Kingdom, if you read through the book of Kings and Chronicles, it's very clear that the Northern Kingdom just has no good kings. There are mixed reviews on Jehu, but for the most part, they're all bad. And as a result, the Lord judges them by sending the Assyrians in the year 722 BC to just wipe them out.

Well, the Southern Kingdom, on the other hand, does have a handful of decent kings. And so they last a little bit longer, but eventually they find themselves in a similar position to the Northern Kingdom. And that's exactly what happens. God uses another foreign superpower, in this case Babylon and King Nebuchadnezzar, to drag them off into exile. And that happens in three stages: first one 605, then 597, and then 586 BC. That's the year finally that the temple, Solomon's temple, is just razed to the ground. What we're reading here is that first stage. If you read 2 Kings 24, you'll read about how Ezekiel is one of the priests that is taken in chains to Babylon during the second siege. And that's where he prophesied to the people in exile. Well, Daniel and his three friends, they're in the first group of exiles just eight years earlier than that.

So, in his conquest to dominate Judah, King Nebuchadnezzar began by taking the most important people. And this is typical when a nation is taking over another nation. He takes the most important people in the land back to be his slaves. And most importantly, he took the most promising of the young that Judah had to offer. Daniel is one of them. He's the cream of Judah's crop, we can say, he and his three friends. So you read in verse 3 and 4, the author tells us that these exiles were young men, or youths, some translations say, which means likely teenagers, and that they are of the royal nobility, royal family. They were princes, in other words, of Judah with the greatest potential. They're skillful in wisdom and knowledge, and they're competent. And these are the slaves that the king wanted to control the most because if you get them on your side, then you have power over the people that you've just subjugated to yourself.

But the first thing we see in this chapter is that none of this would have happened if it were not for God's plan of judgment against his own people. The author is clear in verse 2 that 'the Lord handed King Jehoiakim of Judah over to him along with some of the vessels of the house of God.' The question we should all be asking ourselves is why? Why would God hand his own people in judgment over to their enemies? And why even the vessels of his own temple into their hands? Did Babylon simply just overpower Yahweh? If it were so, Daniel and the rest of the Scriptures would not have been so clear that it was God doing these things. Instead, Daniel speaks in a way that shows God is using King Nebuchadnezzar as his instrument of judgment.

When you look over Israel's history, you'll see that this judgment is warned over and over again from the very beginning of God's covenant with them at Mount Sinai. So in Deuteronomy 28, Moses records all the blessings that would come from the covenant for obedience and then the curses that would come about for disobedience. And this happens after the golden calf incident, after the wilderness grumbling, just before entering into the land. They renew their covenant. God warns them, saying this:

The Lord will bring a nation from far away, from the ends of the earth, to swoop down on you like an eagle, a nation whose language you won’t understand, a ruthless nation, showing no respect for the old and not sparing the young. They will eat the offspring of your livestock and your land’s produce until you are destroyed. They will leave you no grain, new wine, fresh oil, young of your herds, or newborn of your flocks until they cause you to perish. They will besiege you within all your city gates until your high and fortified walls, that you trust in, come down throughout your land. They will besiege you within all your city gates throughout the land the Lord your God has given you. — Deuteronomy 28:49-52 (CSB)

What God is articulating here is a kind of reverse exodus. He brought them out of slavery in Egypt into the land. And if they were to turn away from him and turn to idols, then he would take them out of the land and deliver them over into slavery again. Daniel's recording of these events wants the record to show that this was no accident, but God's very hand. 'The Lord gave Jehoiakim, king of Judah, into the hand of King Nebuchadnezzar.'

Brothers and sisters, what can we take from these details? What can we take from the fact that God delivered them over in judgment? First, I want you to look at verse 21, which says that 'Daniel remained there until the first year of King Cyrus.' Daniel shows us that God is sovereign over the superpowers of the world, that as nations rise and fall or come and go, God is the same, and his power extends far beyond the boundaries of the promised land. His temple cannot contain him. King Solomon knew this when he erected the temple in the beginning and prayed his prayer of dedication. Just listen to what he said:

But will God indeed live on earth? Even heaven, the highest heaven, cannot contain you, much less this temple I have built. — 1 Kings 8:27 (CSB)

And then listen to what else he says in his prayer:

When they sin against you— for there is no one who does not sin— and you are angry with them and hand them over to the enemy, and their captors deport them to the enemy’s country— whether distant or nearby— and when they come to their senses in the land where they were deported and repent and petition you in their captors’ land: “We have sinned and done wrong; we have been wicked,” and when they return to you with all their heart and all their soul in the land of their enemies who took them captive, and when they pray to you in the direction of their land that you gave their ancestors, the city you have chosen, and the temple I have built for your name, may you hear in heaven, your dwelling place, their prayer and petition and uphold their cause. May you forgive your people who sinned against you and all their rebellions against you, and may you grant them compassion before their captors, so that they may treat them compassionately. — 1 Kings 8:46-50 (CSB)

Brothers and sisters, it doesn't matter if Egypt or Babylon or Assyria are in power. God is sovereign over all of them. It doesn't matter if the US or if China or Russia or India are in power. The Lord is sovereign over all of them. The worldly powers at any given moment are not an indication of whether or not God is in control. When Jesus came to earth, the Romans were in control, and they crucified him. And God used that greatest of all evils to win or purchase our salvation as a sinless sacrifice. He laid down his life so that those who turn away from sin and believe in his name can be saved, forgiven of their sin, dwell with him in eternity.

So the Lord gives and the Lord takes away in this life. And we should not be historically naive to think that if Christianity is less popular or numbers are decreasing that we're on the wrong path. You might read the news and think, 'How can there be a God when there's so much evil, rampant wickedness in the world today?' Oh, if that's you this morning, then I would just say, 'Friend, open your eyes.' There has always been evil ever since the Garden of Eden and sin entered the world. And yet, the Lord sovereignly works in all of it.

Second, the Lord can use people without them knowing it. And this is clear when we think about King Nebuchadnezzar. He obviously believed himself to be in control as he's conquering these lands. He believed himself to be the most powerful being in the world. That's clear if you read chapters 2 and 3. Especially that's why verse 2 specifically mentions taking the vessels from the temple and placing them in the treasury of King Nebuchadnezzar's god. King Nebuchadnezzar did that because he believed his gods were more powerful and more dominant than Yahweh. But 'the Lord handed Jehoiakim into his hand.'

King Nebuchadnezzar will continue to believe he's in control. And that's why he's having the most influential Jews educated in the ways of Babylon. He wants to control them for his purposes. The way he attempts to do that is by wooing them with food and drink. Notice in verse 5, he assigns them a daily portion of the food he ate and the wine that he drank. Why would Daniel bother to point that out to us? I think because the king doesn't just eat basic, bland, regular food or drink cheap wine from the liquor store on the corner of the street. No, the king eats only the finest that Babylon would have to offer, likely from his own private herds of cattle or his own vineyards. The only reason he would share such a bounty with young prisoners is to win them over so that they are loyal to him while they are impressionable. They were to receive the best diet and the best education Babylon had to offer for three years in order to then stand in his service. And this is part of King Nebuchadnezzar's plan to build his own kingdom.

Taking the very best from the lands that he conquers, giving them a new identity by changing their names. So names signify a new identity. And in the Bible, sometimes names are a little more meaningful than they are for us today. Changing a name can be like a clean slate. But each of these four names listed—Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah—they all have a Hebrew word or abbreviation for God included. They either end with 'L' for Elohim, or they end with 'Yah,' short for Yahweh. So the name Daniel means 'God is judge.' Mishael means 'who is like God.' Hananiah means 'Yahweh is gracious.' And Azariah means 'Yahweh is my helper.' Do you see how names like that could be a problem for people serving in King Nebuchadnezzar's court? So instead, he gives them new names which include the names of his god, his gods, Aku and Neo. It was a way of saying these individuals, who used to be servants of Yahweh, they're now servants of Babylon's gods. You'll notice that for the remainder of the chapter, the author continues to use their Hebrew names. He'll change them to the popular names that we remember from chapter 3 for different reasons later in the book.

But you don't get into the position that King Nebuchadnezzar was in without a certain amount of wisdom. So I think that he is actually very clever in going about this way. He understood that if he could get them to eat like Babylonians, speak like Babylonians, and live like Babylonians, then they would see themselves as Babylonians. And friends, the same kind of thing can happen for us today as Christians. The desires of the flesh can tempt and woo us to wean off of God's Word and instead onto things like worldly reasoning and thinking and living. Is that not what the culture does when it redefines things like marriage or to declare life in the womb as not really alive yet, though science tells us the opposite? But if you speak like the world and immerse yourself in the world, spend time with worldly people, you'll find that over a certain amount of time that worldliness rubs off on you until one becomes worldly themselves. This is why Paul warns us not to be conformed to the world, but for our minds to be renewed by the Spirit. And he says, 'So that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God.'

Well, brothers and sisters, those same kind of allures of Babylon are all around us today as well, though they take different forms than the king's food and drink and education. But there is a kind of progression we see in this story. And I think Satan can use the same tactic to lure people away from God in the world today as well. Three stages of progression, I would just classify this way using 'I's: First, you have isolation, separating them from their people. Next, you have indoctrination, giving them a new education. And then thirdly, identification, new identity aligned with those secular values. And friends, the same thing can easily happen in the digital age where you can live a life online, be a part of whatever kind of community you want, listen to all the voices of the world until you begin to agree and then identify with those groups yourself. There's a danger. Are you aware of what voices you listen to in the world? Whose opinions are authoritative for you? Now, parents, there is a high calling for us to protect our children, especially the world seeks to lure them away from the influence of parents and indoctrinate them with different values. And we need to be aware of that.

One of the things that's so encouraging about this story is clearly Daniel and his three friends have been taught well even in their youth. Their theology is good; they stand firm in what they believe in. Well, the thing to emphasize in this point, this paragraph, is not just that God gives judgment and therefore ordains all circumstances. It's also that you and I as Christians can be faithful to God no matter what's going on in our lives. And God gives alongside of his judgment the grace needed to endure said judgment. In the case of Jesus, he grants us the grace to be saved from it.

So I wonder if you're experiencing trials in your life and you're wondering, 'Is God judging me for these things?' First, it might be a kind of Job-like situation where you can't determine if there's any kind of sin in your life. But I would encourage you to think and consider whether or not there is unrepented sin in your life and consider confessing that to God and turning away from it. The Lord disciplines the ones he loves, as it says in Hebrews. So, it's possible that he is trying to redirect your heart away from those sinful tendencies and toward himself. Oh, listen to the Spirit's prodding if that's the case. But this passage should also remind us that there is a fate far worse than exile in Babylon for those who have given themselves over to sin. When we die, we're not going to stand in front of King Nebuchadnezzar. We're going to stand in front of the King of the universe, the one who knows the secrets and the thoughts and what goes on in the hearts of men. And he will bring every thought and word and action into judgment. And the wages of sin is death. There is a punishment for sinners that far exceeds a 70-year exile in another land. And friends, that is the judgment that we should be concerned with. So, if you're here this morning and you have never given your life to Jesus or just consider what your sin has earned you, stored up wrath against a holy God. And yet, in hearing of this just and good punishment for sin, there is the extension of mercy in his son Jesus, his beloved Son that he sent into the world to be the sinless sacrifice so that those who believed in him would not perish but have eternal everlasting life. Life that never ends, where there is no death or pain any longer. Oh, consider giving your life over to him, turning away from sin and believing in Jesus, and you can have the comfort and assurance of being forgiven. Oh, you can have that this very day. Consider seriously doing that before leaving this building if you have not done so already.

God's Compassion and Daniel's Purity

That brings me to the second God gave in this passage, in verses 8-16: God gave compassion. So, Daniel finds himself in a situation where he has a decision to make. Does he partake of the king's food or just accept the indoctrination that is to take place? And instead, he builds up the courage to approach the chief of the eunuchs to ask for a different menu, which was daring, I think, to ask. Why? Because typically when you're a guest in someone's house, it's not polite to refuse the food that they offer. And if you happen to be in the court of the most powerful person in the land, just imagine being dragged off as a slave and then, as the Lord's fortune would have it, you have the opportunity to have the best food. And yet saying, 'No thanks. I don't want your food.' So much potential for insult to occur. For Daniel's request to be seen as insubordinate. The fact that it was the king's food not only means it was expensive but personal. And that's how God provides for Daniel.

Look again at verse 9: 'God had granted Daniel kindness and compassion from the chief eunuch.' Ashpenaz could have responded so many different ways in this situation. He could have just outright refused. He could have reeled in offense and sought the removal of his head. He could have reported immediately to King Nebuchadnezzar himself about the Jewish slave that refused the orders. But he doesn't do any of those things. Instead, God gives Daniel favor and compassion in his eyes. So, he sympathizes with Daniel and he explains why it's hard for him to grant Daniel's request. He essentially says, 'Look, I'm on the chopping block for your health. So if you're not healthy in three years, it's my head since I'm responsible to present you healthy before the king.' He fears how King Nebuchadnezzar will treat him. And that response, which is an initial decline, opens the door for Daniel to give a suggestion in verses 12 through 13.

He says, 'Please test your servants for 10 days. Let us be given vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then examine our appearance and the appearance of the young men who are eating the king's food, and deal with your servants based on what you see.' So Daniel proposes this simple test: 'We'll eat veggies for a week and a half and you can judge for yourself if we're less healthy than the others.' And what happens? God continues to give compassion and favor in this second request. And so the chief eunuch says, 'Okay, let's see.'

Now, I want to say a few things about this plan. First, this does not mean that Christians should only eat veggies or that it's wrong to eat meat or that veggies are superior to eating meat. You might happen to believe that's true, and maybe it is if you're one of the plant-based people. But that's a nutritional debate. That's not what the Lord is trying to teach us from his Holy Word in this circumstance. After all, the Jews were allowed to eat meat. We knew that to be true. They're also allowed to drink wine unless they had taken an oath not to. There's no indication that that's the case with Daniel. So why does he request this special diet? Some say perhaps maybe the meat was unclean. That's possible. But that doesn't really explain the wine or the other food that came out of King Nebuchadnezzar's kitchen. But whatever the reason was, it's clear that Daniel's conscience told him that partaking of this food and drink would defile him in some way. And we don't know why that's the case, but the point is that somehow partaking would defile him. So his desire was to abstain from it. I'm inclined to think it has something to do with the fact that it was the king's food and drink since that's emphasized throughout the chapter. Perhaps Daniel saw through his attempt to woo them and didn't want to allow himself to be won over by fancy foods. But God gives favor both in granting his request and also in the outcome. After the test, he and his friends were in better looking appearance than the others. And we can assume they were allowed to continue with their preferred diet.

So here we learn the lesson that even in times where we feel we have no option but to sin, God provides an alternative. Even in times we feel we have no other option but to sin, God provides an alternative. Daniel could have easily just assumed that he had no choice but to defile himself and given into the king's demands. But instead, he looks for an escape from defilement. Can't help but think of 1 Corinthians 10:13, which says:

No temptation has come upon you except what is common to humanity. But God is faithful; he will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to bear it. — 1 Corinthians 10:13 (CSB)

Friends, is your purity a priority when you go through difficult circumstances? Is your purity a priority when you go through difficult circumstances? Or are you merely concerned with improving your life? Or are you concerned with honoring God through or in the midst of your hardship? How easy it is to blame our sins and failures on our surroundings. It's easy, isn't it? 'Well, I wouldn't have lusted if my spouse paid more attention to me.' 'I had to speak harshly or else I wouldn't have gotten through to that person; someone had to tell them.' 'Well, if the Lord just gave me what I wanted in the first place, then I wouldn't idolize it.' Now, sometimes we blame God for our choices to sin, don't we? That's exactly what Adam did in the garden. When God asked Adam why he ate the fruit, he said, 'I only ate because of this woman you gave me. If you didn't give me to her, I wouldn't have done it.' Daniel could have said the same thing, 'God, you gave us into the hands of the Babylonians, so I had no choice but to eat.' But Daniel doesn't do that at all. Instead, he flees in a way. He looks for an alternative for the Lord, and the Lord provides him one, giving favor before the chief eunuch.

I think a secondary application, therefore, is that we should look for creative ways to free ourselves from the snares of Satan. Notice how Daniel had to create the opportunity for himself. In his persistence, he was able to do so. In other words, when receiving the initial decline, he didn't just accept the first thing Ashpenaz said. He gave a counter-offer. Holiness is hard work. Sometimes holiness takes persistence. There's a reason it's called discipline sometimes. Resisting the flesh is no small task. But the Lord not only gave Daniel favor before the chief eunuch, he also gave him favor through the results of the test as well. The Lord honored Daniel's desire to remain undefiled, opening a way for him to be faithful even while captive.

A third, just notice Daniel's temperament in all of this. He didn't appear to draw much attention to himself in the situation, nor did he take the opportunity to insult his taskmaster. First, he explored his options and then made his requests. This is a good way, I think, to live counter-culturally, to live as a Christian, to be 'wise as serpents and innocent as doves,' to seek to live a quiet and peaceful life. That's interesting that Daniel didn't wait until he had gotten a big platform to honor God and influence others. Nor was his intent from the beginning to uproot the whole system that Nebuchadnezzar had in place. I think sometimes we assume that we can and would stand up for Jesus if or when it really counts. You know, if we had a big platform or we're faced with a big moment like a government demanding us to bow down to it, kind of like what happens in chapter 3, that we tell ourselves we'd be willing to do great things for Jesus, to not compromise. But we sometimes shrink from little obediences. Daniel could have easily thought to himself, 'I'll win everybody over first, work my way up from the inside, then I'll be able to use my platform and be faithful to God.' But like Daniel, we don't have to compromise in order to be faithful to Jesus. Nor do we need to have a platform to honor him. Daniel feared the Lord more than he feared King Nebuchadnezzar. I think that's what it comes down to: the fear of the Lord rather than the fear of man. And his holy fear helped him be faithful to God.

Now, ironically, Daniel's faithfulness does lead eventually to him having a platform, much like Joseph in Egypt did. Remember the parable of the talents? How Jesus said to the good servant at the end, 'Well done. You have been faithful over little. I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.' So, friends, seek to be faithful in the little things and you may find opportunities will grow from there over time.

God's Honor and Sustained Faithfulness

And that brings me to the third and final thing that God gave in this passage: honor. In verses 17-21, honor. Initially, verse 17 says that God gave them knowledge and understanding in every kind of literature and wisdom. And Daniel has the bonus of having understanding of visions and dreams. And you can read about that in chapter 2 and later on in the book as well. He exercises that power. But ultimately, what that gets him is honor before King Nebuchadnezzar himself.

Verse 18 tells us that at the end of the time, meaning after the three-year long degree in Babylon University, all the youth stand before the king. And then just look at what's said in verse 19: 'The king interviewed them, and among all of them, no one was found equal to Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. So they began to attend the king. In every matter of wisdom and understanding that the king consulted them about, he found them 10 times better than all the magicians and mediums in his entire kingdom.' This is an astonishing thing that occurs. They stand before him and not only do Daniel and his friends stand out among their peers, but it says they stood out among all the magicians and enchanters of the kingdom. They weren't just a little better. In other words, they were obviously much better. In other words, they blew the tests out of the water. They passed with flying colors. What a testimony to the Lord, providing abundantly for their needs.

And what's emphasized in this chapter as a whole is that God sovereignly acts through the agency of man and that his people can be faithful to him in any scenario. It's worth pointing out as well that aside from the 10-day test, it appears God gave learning and skill in their studies over the course of those three years. And we can assume that he used their rigorous studies to accomplish that. In other words, it's not like they just sat back and relaxed and God made it all happen just like that. I assume that they were diligent, and the Lord used their hard work and their skill to grant them this success. God proves his faithfulness to us, in other words, not just by answering immediate prayer requests, but over long periods of time proves himself to be faithful. Consider how the Lord has been faithful to you over the last three years. Three years might be a long time to you. Three years might feel like it was last week. But you might be reminded that God sometimes uses longer periods than we would like. But at the end, God is always good, always faithful.

Three years is one thing. How about 70 years? Well, that's the length of time that Israel spent in exile. And look again at the last three, at the last verse of the chapter, verse 21: 'Daniel remained there until the first year of King Cyrus.' So easy to breeze over these words and assume they're just a kind of historical punctuation mark. It appears the author is just moving on to the next series of events. But the next four chapters continue with stories about the time under King Nebuchadnezzar and other kings before King Cyrus. By recording this detail, Daniel is telling us something more. He's telling us that from the time of God bringing Daniel to Babylon until the time King Cyrus of Persia takes over, Daniel is continually given favor from the beginning until the end of exile. In other words, God grants favor. And guess how long that period is? 70 years, which means that Daniel is likely in his 80s, maybe his 90s by the time Cyrus comes along. This is far from a historical punctuation. Verse 21 is telling us that Daniel was faithful and that God provided for him throughout his entire life, which was lived outside of the land in exile. But because God is sovereign over all things, we can be faithful in all circumstances. Daniel's a perfect example of that. Since his entire life is lived in captivity, the same God that gave Jehoiakim over in judgment also gave compassion and favor before the eunuchs and eventually honor to Daniel and his friends, brothers and sisters.

What do you think is getting in the way of your faithfulness to God? What do you think, or what are the things that get in the way of your faithfulness to God? Do you believe there are things in your life preventing you from being faithful? We can blame the details of our lives, but the reality is that God provides abundantly all we need to be faithful to him in any given situation. Now, ultimately, of course, we're not able to be perfectly holy and undefiled before God, no matter how hard we try. We have sinned against him and deserve exile every bit as much as Israel did. And yet in love, he sent Jesus to deliver us from our sin and to transfer us out of the kingdom of darkness and into his marvelous light. And it's because of his perfect work that we can, by the power of his Spirit, be faithful to him because he sustains us. He grants us grace. His sovereignty gives us the comfort to know that despite whatever current struggles we might have, God is in control and will ultimately have victory. Oh, so friends, do you believe and trust in God's goodness and his sovereignty over all situations? And are you committed to be faithful to him no matter what? Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, we bow our heads, knowing we need your help to be faithful to you. We are humbled in thinking about the example of Daniel. Would you increase our own desire to be pure because Christ himself, our Savior, is pure? Help us to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which we have been called for your glory and for our good. We pray in Christ's name. Amen.