The Consequences of an Uncompromising Life, Part 2
Daniel 1:10-21
I had an interesting experience this week when I saw a copy of the latest edition of Psychology Today, which is a magazine dealing with the professional area of psychology. And there was an article in that magazine about fast talking. Now, I remember when I first came to Grace Church, the people used to get on me a little bit about talking so fast...not too many people say much about that. I don't know whether I've slowed down or whether you've just sped up in your listening, one of the two has happened. But I used to hear - You're talking way too fast, you're talking way too fast. And I used to say to people - I have a lot of things that I need to say and I figure that I can't talk as fast as you can think, so I'm behind to begin with. And if I'm going to catch up with you, I've got to talk real fast or you'll get bored. And I just used to say that off the cuff, some of you may remember me saying that when you told me I talked too fast and...sort of a backhanded compliment to say I'm trying to speed up to catch up with your brain. But in the latest issue of Psychology Today, they have done some tests that literally prove that up to a certain point, the faster you talk the greater the interest and the higher the retention. So, with that we'll go on.
But I was really amazed to find that out. I'd always believed that and now they've tested and found out...in fact, you may be seeing that thirty-minute television programs, according to this article, will be done in fifteen minutes, they'll just speed it up and you'll lose nothing. And commercials, they say, now with a hundred thousand dollars per thirty seconds, they can now use a fifteen second one and they can double their income. It's amazing but when you cover a lot of ground rapidly, people stay interested and they retain the information. And so, I just really was excited about that. Now I have some support for the way I talk ... and that was kind of exciting.
Well, let's rapidly go through Daniel chapter 1 and hope you retain it. Daniel chapter 1...and we have been looking, beginning in our last study, at verses 8 to 21...Daniel 1:8 to 21. I'm going to read it to you to set the scene for our study tonight.
"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 and the prince of the eunuchs said unto Daniel, I fear my lord, the king, who hath appointed your food and your drink, for why should he see your faces worse looking than the youths who are of your age? Then shall ye make me endanger my head with the king. Then said Daniel to Melzar, whom the prince of the eunuchs had set over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah, Test thy servants, I beseech thee, ten days and let them give us vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then let our countenances looked upon before thee and the countenance of the youths that eat of the portion of the king's food and as thou seest, deal with thy servants. So, he consented to them in this matter and tested them ten days. And at the end of the ten days, their countenances appeared fairer and fatter in flesh than all the youths who did eat the portion of the king's food. Thus Melzar took away the portion of their food, and the wine that they should drink, and gave them vegetables. As for these four youths, God gave them knowledge and skill in all learning and wisdom and Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams. Now, at the end of the days that the king had said he should bring them in," that would be three years, "then the prince of the eunuchs brought them in before Nebuchadnezzar. And the king conversed with them and among them all was found none like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah: therefore stood they before the king. And in all matters of wisdom and understanding, that the king inquired of them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and astrologers that were in all his realm. And Daniel continued even unto the first year of king Cyrus."
Have you ever heard it said - Every man has his price? I'm sure you have. Your price is the point at which you sell out your claimed conviction, the point at which you abandon your moral standard for some personal gain.
I always think of the story of the lady at the banquet and the man sitting next to her noticed that she was very lovely and after having a rather non-descript conversation finally said to her: "Would you go to bed with me for $100,000?" And she kind of smiled and looked at him and said: "I think I would."
A little later he said to her: "Would you go to me...to bed with me for $10.00?" She said: "Huh, what do you think I am?" He said, "We've already established that, we're only negotiating the price."
Does every man have his price? Will everyone of us sell out at some point or another? Do all of us have moral standards that are only valid insofar as they accommodate our desires? Or, do we then when we have a greater desire, set it aside for the sake of those standards which we say we believe?
Martin Luther stood before the Diet of Worms. They demanded that he recant or lose his life. But he would not deny Christ.
Latimer and Ridley stood before the stakes where they were to be burned to death for their faith in Christ, and their executioners demanded that they deny the Lord Jesus Christ. They refused and were consumed in the flames.
People like that have no price. They can't be bought. There's no point at which they sell out. I mentioned to you some weeks ago that I had the occasion to meet a Dr. Hong who is the principal of the largest Christian school in the world of some 6,000 students in Seoul Korea. Dr. Hong told us that he had occasion when he was a boy to watch the Japanese infiltrate North Korea where he lived and they came to his house because his father was a leader in the church and they demanded that his father deny Jesus Christ or they would cut off his thumbs and they began with the first thumb and he wouldn't deny Christ and they cut off the second thumb and he still wouldn't deny Christ. Some people don't have a price. They don't sell out. There is no compromise no matter what the cost.
But, on the other hand, we often hear of people all the time who boast their moral standards, who extol their righteous character, who want to announce their great set of convictions, yet for expedient's sake, they sell out. They abandon those convictions when for some reason or another they feel themselves better suited to that.
Compromise is very subtle. Listen, people say they believe the Bible, but they stay in churches where the Bible isn't taught.
People claim convictions about sin and punishment until that sin is committed by their own children.
People say they must speak out about dishonesty and corruption until it refers to their boss and might cause the loss of their job.
People have high moral standards until their lusts are released from the bondage of a holy conscience by an unholy relationship and then they rationalize their compromise.
People are honest until just a little dishonesty will save them a lot of money.
People know something to be definitely wrong but for the sake of making peace, they cover up the truth.
People will do an act directly violating their claimed conviction if they are asked by someone they admire, someone they fear or someone from whom they seek a favor.
People won't say what ought to be said because they feel they might lose face.
And so go the compromises.
Adam compromised God's law, followed his wife's sin and lost paradise.
Abraham comprised the truth, lied about Sarah, and nearly lost his wife.
Sarah compromised God's Word, sent Abraham to Hagar who bore Ishmael and lost peace in the Middle East.
Esau compromised for a meal with Jacob and lost his birthright.
Saul compromised the divine word, kept the animals and lost the royal seed.
Aaron compromised his convictions about idolatry and he and the people lost the privilege of the Promised Land.
Samson compromised righteous devotion as a Nazarite with Delilah and lost his strength, his eyes and his life.
Israel compromised the commands of the Lord, lived in sin and when fighting the Philistines, lost the ark of God.
David compromised the moral and divine standard of God, adulterated Bathsheba, murdered Uriah and lost his child.
Solomon compromised convictions, married foreign wives and lost the United Kingdom.
Ahab compromised, married Jezebel and lost his throne.
Israel compromised the law of God with sin and idolatry and lost their homeland.
Peter compromised his conviction about Christ, denied Him and lost his joy. Later on, he compromised the truth of the one church for acceptance with the Judaizers and he lost his liberty.
Ananias and Sapphira compromised their word about giving, lied to the Holy Spirit and lost their lives.
Judas compromised his supposed love for Christ for 30 pieces of silver and lost his eternal soul.
Compromise...sad word. But, there are some people who don't compromise. There are some people who have no price, you can't buy them.
Moses before Pharaoh...David, several times in his life...Paul before Festus, Felix, and Agrippa...and Daniel before Nebuchadnezzar. Verse 8 of Daniel 1: "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."
And frankly, beloved, there's no better illustration of an undefiled, uncompromising man in the Bible than Daniel. Now, we're studying Daniel, for over 70 years he lived in this foreign land of Babylon, amidst the pagan Chaldeans and for those 70 years he never compromised his convictions. He couldn't be bought. There was no price. From the time that we pick up the story here, he's fourteen years of age until he is in his eighties, he does not compromise. He will not compromise.
And we have seen that when the Babylonians and the Chaldeans brought these young men in in the first deportation in 606 B.C., the first phase of the Babylonian captivity, when they brought these young men in, they were all of the noble house of the ruling class of Israel, or Judah, they were, some of them, from the very royal seed itself, they picked off, some historians estimate, between 50 and 75 of the prime young men, princely young men and they brought them in to brainwash them and to turn them into Chaldeans who, with a Jewish background, could help them rule in the process of leading Jewish affairs. They were going to take over the world, they were going to turn Judah into a chattel state and they wanted some young men who knew the Jewish situation who could be Babylonian rulers for them amidst the Jewish people and over them even while they were in captivity.
So, they wanted these young men brainwashed and first they decided to change their names to cut them off from their heritage. And then they, of course, removed them from their country so that they wouldn't have any roots or connections there. They then wanted them to be educated and learned in all the Chaldean information. They wanted them to be attacked from every angle with Chaldean identification. And the final thing was to brainwash them by feeding them the food of the king so that their life style would become adapted to that of the palace of the pagans in Babylon. And that, of course, is where Daniel drew the line. Why? The Old Testament didn't say anything about taking a foreign name and the Old Testament didn't say anything about learning information from foreign teachers, but the Old Testament said - Don't eat food offered to idols and don't eat food that isn't properly prepared according to God's dietary laws for His people. And the bottom line for Daniel was the Word of God. And when eating the king's food violated the Word of God, because all of the food that was offered in the palace was, at one point, offered before the gods, Daniel couldn't do it and that's where he drew the line. He drew the line at the Word of God. This is true conviction. This is the character that is so admirable in Daniel. At a young age, he and his three friends, out of all of the 50 or 75 young men, and we don't know how many, but we only know four who took a stand. And later on when all of them appeared before the king, down in verse 18 and following, there were only four that the king noticed as different. The rest of them in this three year education had bought the bag, had eaten the king's meat, had adapted the life style, had become Chaldean and in so doing they had lost that unique place that God would have given had they been obedient to His law. And so, Daniel is a tremendous illustration of conviction, especially in a young man.
You know, our...our country once had that. I was reading this week, and I found something very interesting. There is in West Point a prayer known as "The Cadet Prayer." It is repeated every Sunday in chapel services by the cadets at West Point. I don't know if you ever heard it, but this is what it says:
"Make us choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong and never to be contented with half truth when whole truth can be one. Endow us with courage that is borne of loyalty to all that is noble and worthy that scorns to compromise with vice and injustice and knows no fear when right and truth are in jeopardy. Amen."
A great prayer. An uncompromising prayer. We once knew in our own country the meaning of an uncompromising life. Even Aesop in his fables knew the price of compromise. Aesop speaks in one of his fables about the time when the beasts and the fowls were engaged in war. The bat tried to belong to both parties, says Aesop. And when the birds were victorious, the bat would wing around telling them he was a bird. And when the beasts won a fight, he would walk around among them assuring everyone that he was a beast. But soon his hypocrisy was discovered and he was rejected by both the beasts and the birds and consequently he had to hide himself all day long and could only appear at night. Compromise...
Daniel wouldn't compromise, neither would Mishael, Azariah or Hananiah. And what were the results of their uncompromising life? Let's go back and look at them. And we said there were some...some things that come out as characteristics and consequences of an uncompromising life. I'm just going to mention the ones we talked about last time and then we'll go on to the rest of them.
First of all, when you live a life that doesn't compromise, that doesn't fall prey to the life style of the world, that doesn't sell out at any price, you will find, number one, an unashamed boldness ... an unashamed boldness. In verse 8: "Daniel said to the prince of the eunuchs, Tell the king I can't eat his food it will defile me." And I told you last time there would have been a lot of other things he could have said that would have been easier. He didn't have to be so blatant about the fact that the king's food would defile him, but one of the characteristics of an uncompromising strong stand where someone has convictions is that that individual has an unashamed boldness to speak the truth. He could have hemmed and hawed about the fact that he wasn't use to the king's diet, or he was so use to Jewish food that it wasn't agreeing with his stomach and he was going to have an upset stomach and he could have wormed his way out of it, but no, there was a tremendous confrontation about the fact that it violated God's law and it would be a defilement to Him. And we find that he had this unashamed boldness. When they came to him later and said - You're not allowed to pray -he went to his window, threw the window wide open and prayed like he always did, just as boldly as ever because that's the character of uncompromising spirit.
Secondly, we saw last time that an uncompromising life not only has an unashamed boldness, but secondly, an uncommon standard ... an uncommon standard. It says, "He did not eat the king's food, nor the wine which the king drank." In verse 12: "He ate only vegetables and water," which means he didn't eat any meat from any source and he didn't drink any wine from any source. Now, that wasn't required, that was an uncommon standard, that was a cut above. And you re