Daniel and His Test (Part 2)

Let's take our Bibles and open them to the book of Daniel.

We're going to finish up chapter 1 here tonight. Started kind of looking at what I call Daniel and his test. We started out looking at Daniel, the first seven verses, under kind of the heading of Daniel and his times, and kind of coming to a place where we understand what's going on in not just the life of Daniel, but also the life of Israel, specifically the southern kingdom, and going into captivity, understanding all about that, and then these young men being brought in as part of the captivity, brought into Nebuchadnezzar's palace, his household, and these are choice young men.

So we started with Daniel and his times, and then last week, maybe the week before, I'm not sure when I started on this second part of it, Daniel and his test.

That's chapter 1, verses 8, all the way to the end of the chapter. And again, let me explain. When I use the word test, I think two things are being conveyed here.

First of all, God's testing of Daniel. That's not what we see necessarily on the surface, but we know that this is going on behind the scenes, that God is testing Daniel's faith.

We know that because he does that with us all the time, even if we don't recognize it or acknowledge it. God is always testing our faith, proving our faith, of course, for the purpose of maturing our faith.

And so God's at work here behind the scenes, and we can see that, really, testing Daniel's faith. And so what's he doing? He's preparing a prophet, really a great prophet, who is going to be used by God, selected by God, to bring some very significant prophecies in relation to future events.

Well, all prophecies are, but I mean even our future. So God is preparing, proving, preparing his prophet Daniel. And God is testing Daniel's faith here, his faith in Yahweh God.

Is Yahweh the one true God? And is God's word true? That is, if you obey it, does it bring blessing? So this is being tested in Daniel's faith. But the second kind of usage of the word test is to Daniel testing himself.

Now this is what we see kind of on the surface, on the top, the obvious. Daniel is testing himself. You get to verse 11, so Daniel said to the steward, whom the chief of the eunuchs had said over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, please test your servants.

So this is Daniel's request. And so this is not Nebuchadnezzar's test, King Nebuchadnezzar's test. He's not testing Daniel. He's brought Daniel into his household and others into his household, some of the choicest of the young men of Israel, to train them in the ways of the Babylonians and to eventually put them in places of service, places of leadership.

So this is not a test. This is something Nebuchadnezzar wants to do. So Nebuchadnezzar's not testing him. And Ashpenaz, who's been kind of the, what we would call the prince or chief of the eunuchs, it's not his test.

And the guy right under him, we don't know his name, but the steward of the eunuchs of Ashpenaz, this is not his test. This is Daniel's test.

He's testing, testing his faith. In a sense, he's proving it, proving it to be true, not only to himself, but to all those who are observing the results of the test that he's calling for, he's asking for.

All right, so the test then of Daniel's, a substance of Daniel's faith for himself and for others around who are observing. Is Yahweh God true?

I mean, is he the one true God? Now, that's going to be proved by this test. Is Yahweh's word true? Are Yahweh's laws binding?

This is what Daniel is being tested on here, testing himself on. We go a step further. Are Yahweh's promises of blessings for those who obey his law, is that valid?

Can we count on that? Can we believe in that promise? And so this is Daniel and his test. Now, last Wednesday, we considered what the text says about Daniel's heart.

And we spent all of our time talking about that, really from verse 8, first part of verse 8. But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's delicacies, nor with the wine which he drank.

So he purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself. All right. So it all begins then, began with Daniel. And for us, it begins with the purpose of our heart, that we purpose in our heart.

Not when we are tested, not when the trial begins, or not when the temptation suddenly is there. We don't purpose in our heart at that point. Now, if we have to, I mean, if that's, if we've not done it before, we need to at least do it then.

But the point is to purpose in our heart before the challenges come, before the temptations come, the tests in life, and so forth. So he purposed in his heart.

So Daniel's heart. The second one, and this is where we want to begin tonight, Daniel's humility. Daniel's humility is rather interesting. I think when you read the text here, you know, I've mentioned the word humility.

I think when we read this, you'll say, well, you know, that's right. It's pretty clear to see. Starting with verse 8. But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's delicacies, nor with the wine which he drank.

We covered that last week. Therefore, what? He requested of the chief of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself. Now, God had brought Daniel into favor and goodwill of the chief of the eunuchs.

And the chief of the eunuchs said to Daniel, I fear my lord, the king, who has appointed your food and drink. For why should he see your faces looking worse than the young men who are your age?

Then you would endanger my head before the king. So Daniel said to the steward whom the chief of the eunuchs had sent over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, please test your servants for ten days and let them give us vegetables to eat and water to drink.

Then let our appearance be examined before you and the appearance of the young men who eat the portion of the king's delicacies. And as you see fit, so deal with your servants.

So he consented with them in this matter, this test, and tested them ten days. And at the end of ten days their features appeared better and fatter in flesh than all the young men who ate the portion of the king's delicacies.

Thus the steward took away their portion of delicacies and the wine that they were to drink and gave them vegetables. All right, so here we see in this not only the request of a test, but we see the way in which it is requested.

The humility of Daniel. You know, Daniel is a pretty unusual man, actually. Unusual young man. Because you don't usually see these two things together in young men.

That is, young or youthfulness and humbleness. You don't usually see both of those things together. And if you think about it, Daniel, he's not only young.

All right, Daniel's a very young man, as I've said before. Probably early teen. But Daniel is of noble birth, too. Right?

Now remember that. He's young and all that goes along with the ego of a young man. He's of noble birth. All right, so we could say, in a sense, he grew up with a silver spoon.

But added to that, we understand that Daniel is wholly committed to his faith in Yahweh. I mean, he is committed to Yahweh God and Yahweh's word. And so Daniel is a young man full of strong convictions.

And yet, Daniel is humble. Daniel is humble. Now, I don't know about you, but I think that's pretty rare to find. Find all those qualities together in one young man.

Especially all of those things on one side, and yet also humble on the other side. So he's quite a unique man. Daniel is humble. Now, notice the humble way that Daniel approaches his captors with his requests.

All right, so first of all, with humility, Daniel requested abstinence. Abstinence. That's what verse 8, the latter part of verse 8 says.

He requested. Now, note that word, request. In fact, in your notes, you might just underline that word, requested. He requested of the chief of eunuchs that he might not defile himself.

Notice, not demanded, but requested. There's no suggestion here of a spirit of rebellion in this.

Do you see that? No spirit of rebellion. I mean, he's a young guy, full of conviction, and you might expect him to be kind of rebellious toward this whole notion of being in the king's palace.

There's no suggestion of that. There's no indication of being obnoxious in any way, or rebellious, or belligerent. Daniel is not being contentious.

You know, you don't read between the lines and find that. He's not hostile toward Ashpenaz, or even Nebuchadnezzar. He's not combative. No, Daniel is very humble.

Very gracious. Now, we ought to notice several things here when we think about the humility of this request. Daniel does not want to be defiled by the king's diet, all right?

Clearly. I mean, it says it twice. He had purpose in his heart not to be defiled, and so he requests of Ashpenaz, the chief of the eunuchs, that he not be defiled by the king's diet.

Now, we talked about this last week. The food, you see, the food that's offered here, because you might read this and think, well, what's the big deal? It's just food. I mean, what's wrong with that?

But you have to understand the time period. We have to understand we're in the Old Testament. Under the Old Testament economy, the Jews are under the Mosaic Law, which not only included the Ten Commandments, but many other laws that, like ceremonial laws and civil laws and food laws and such that were for the Jews only.

Many of them were foreshadowings of Jesus' coming, the coming of the Messiah. And so, understanding that, that the food that was offered here, and in particular the meat, because it would include meat, would have been unclean to a Jew.

We covered this last week. The meat would have been leftovers from pagan temple sacrifices. The wines would also have been associated with pagan rituals and their pagan worship.

On top of that, most of the meats that would have been part of the king's diet would have been in violation of God's food laws for the Jews, the kind of meat that it was.

Possibly pork and things like that. Unclean animals according to Jewish food laws. Not only the kind of meat, but how the animals were killed.

There were certain specifications for how that was to be done. Not only that, but how the meats were prepared. And was the blood drained out. And all those things that were part of the food laws given by God through Moses to his people Israel.

All right, so to eat that meat and to drink that wine that would have been part of this diet commanded by Nebuchadnezzar would have defiled Daniel as a Jew.

It would have defiled him and made him ceremonially unclean according to God's law. All right, so Daniel does not want to be defiled by the king's diet.

So that we understand. Notice something else here. God, at the same time, was involved in making it possible for Daniel to obey his food laws.

You see that in verse 9. Verse 9 says, Now God had brought Daniel into the favor and goodwill of the chief of the eunuchs. See, God is working here.

It all began with Daniel purposing in his heart to obey God's word, God's law. And then God is also working kind of behind the scenes, working to bring Daniel into favor with this Babylonian, this chief of the eunuchs.

So those are good instructions for us. Because first comes the purpose of our hearts to obey God's word. And then comes God's provision to enable us to obey his word.

We need to get the purpose in our hearts on the front end. I've counseled people in regard to this a number of times. There are different scenarios. The principle is like this.

The purpose in your heart. And then there's the provision to obey. God works. You know, I've had even some who are in divorce situations where one spouse doesn't know what to do.

And my counsel is purpose in your heart to obey God's word concerning forgiveness, concerning all those things that relate to relationship. You trust God to provide a way for this to work out.

I've had people come to me and say, you know, Pastor, I don't really want to work on Sunday, but I can't find any other job. And I say, well, just purpose in your heart that you're going to commit the Lord's Day for worship and trust God to provide a job for that or an opening in your job for that.

See, the idea is not that we don't have somehow automatically not going to have these challenges. But the idea is that our problem is we don't purpose in our heart until we get to that wall or get to that problem or get to that challenge or whatever it may be or temptation.

We need to purpose in our hearts on the front end and then trust God to open those doors for us to obey and follow our convictions according to his word.

All right. So Daniel then did not openly rebel when Ashpenaz, the chief of the eunuchs, refused. He didn't openly rebel. You don't read anything about that here.

In verse 10, it says, And the chief of the eunuchs said to Daniel, I fear my lord, the king, who has appointed your food and drink. For why should he see your faces looking worse than the young men who are your age?

Then you would endanger my head before the king. So Daniel said to the steward whom the chief of the eunuchs had said over Daniel. So here's how it worked. First, he goes to Ashpenaz.

And he's the chief of the eunuchs. And he makes his request very humbly. I do not want to be defiled. Would you make it possible? Grant me the request not to eat of the king's diet, king's delicacies, as the scripture said.

Now, Ashpenaz refused, didn't he? He fears his own life. Even though God has brought Daniel into favor with Ashpenaz, he still is reluctant to grant that.

Now, what did Daniel do? Did he get mad and go on a hunger strike? Well, we don't read anything like that. Even between the lines, we don't read anything like that. He was respectful. And so what does Daniel do?

He just quietly accepts Ashpenaz's answer. And then he goes to the next one down under Ashpenaz, his second in command, so to speak.

The steward, and doesn't ask the same question, but asks for, well, let's just maybe have a trial. Just a test for 10 days and see what happens.

All right, so he's being very respectful, very humble. And so he goes now to the steward. Now, you know, in the king, I think it's the NIV actually that says guard, but it's not a guard.

And in the King James, it even has a proper name there. Meltzar, Meltzar. But it's not a name of a person. The word Meltzar just means overseer or guardian.

Not guard, but guardian. And it's just one who has been assigned to watch over Daniel and his friends and care for their needs. All right, so here, Daniel first goes to Ashpenaz very respectfully and asks him if he could have a different diet.

One that is according to his God's laws and so they would not be defiled. Ashpenaz is afraid and doesn't grant it. So he goes to the second command and says, well, can we at least have a test?

Just test this for 10 days. And though it doesn't say this, but apparently God had been working in the steward as well, bringing Daniel into favor with a steward along with Ashpenaz.

But the thing we want to see is Daniel's humility. And yet, let's not make the mistake and think that Daniel is just a humble kind of guy and that somehow he's not strong in his convictions.

He certainly is, firm in his convictions. It doesn't negate, see, Daniel's humility does not negate his uncompromising conviction to obey God's word.

It doesn't negate that. It just, he just handles it in a humble way. And we know this is true of Daniel because later Daniel proves the boldness of his faith, doesn't he?

In the lion's den, you know, where he's commanded, you know, they kind of bring up this trumped up little law that you can't pray for so many days, can't pray to any god or any other king.

Must pray only to Darius at this time. And so they catch him praying and he's going to pray anyway. Even though he knew of this new law, he still prays. So he's very bold and he ends up in the lion's den, doesn't he?

We know the rest of that story. So, on the one hand, he's very gentle, very humble. And yet on the other side, when it comes to his faith, he's bold.

Bold as a lion, yet gentle as a lamb. Proverbs chapter 28, verse 1, the righteous are bold as a lion. But in Matthew chapter 10, verse 16, Jesus said, Behold, I send you out of sheep in the midst of wolves.

Therefore, be wise as serpents, harmless as doves. It's just a kind of a, maybe a spirit about us.

Where we stand firm in our convictions, but we are humble. Some of you have seen this on Fox News and other news channels and outlets and such about Starbucks and their red cups.

Have you seen that? All right, you know, and this pastor in South Carolina someplace, ranting about it. And, you know, when I first heard that report, I thought, well, you know, I understand the point about this attack on Christmas and, you know, getting rid of Christmas in our culture, at least the real significant, real true meaning of Christmas.

Then I heard one report that last year, Starbucks had their Christmas cups and they were red and they had snowflakes on them.

And so this year they're just plain red. And so that equates into Starbucks is against Christmas. And now they may be against it. I'm not saying they're not.

But, you know, hey, sometimes Christians will make them appear so stupid and so, so, oh, what's the term? You know, just belligerent and obnoxious.

That instead of accomplishing something good, they actually shoot themselves in the foot. And we're kind of lumped in there with them.

That's just one example. Now, I'm not trying to promote Starbucks, a Christian business by any shape at all. And certainly there is this very premeditated, very deliberate desire to remove all vestiges of the spiritual, the true meaning of Christmas.

Certainly we see that all the time and every year it gets worse and worse. And yet, let's make sure that we don't make ourselves out to be idiots, fools, and really cause reproach to the cause of Christ rather than to serve his purposes.

And I think this is an example here, or Daniel gives us an example here, that he can be very bold in his faith and yet at the same time be very humble. He's not compromising his convictions, but he's approaching it in a humble way.

And if you study the life of Christ, when he walked the planet, his approach was always very humble. You know, the only exception would be when the name of God was dishonored in the temple and he was pretty bold about driving the money changers out of the temple.

And when he was confronting the Pharisees who were very dangerous, really spoiling the true faith, he was very bold about that, but he was very meek, very humble, very mild, and yet he didn't compromise.

And we can use that same, I think, method as believers today. All right, so, with humility, Daniel requested abstinence. Next, with humility, Daniel suggested alternatives.

Verse 12, please, there's another obvious indication of humility. Please test your servants for 10 days. All right, so, Ashpenaz was afraid to grant Daniel his request for permanent change in their diet.

And so, he asked the next in command under Ashpenaz, that would be the steward, to at least grant a trial period of 10 days to change the diet for that 10 days.

But again, he humbly requests this alternative. So, Daniel's alternative is to be fed pulse, P-U-L-S-E.

That's the King James word, and I have no idea from the 1600s, you know, what that, I mean, I know what it meant to them, but it's not a word that we use today.

I thought I'd throw that in there because there is some confusion about, well, just what was this diet, what did this diet consist of that Daniel was requesting? He said the alternative was to be fed pulse and to drink water.

Now, the New King James version and other versions, about everyone that I consulted, those that anybody know anything about, translates it vegetables. Vegetables.

So, he was asking for a vegetable diet plus water. But even that word is limited, the English word is, limited, limits the Hebrew word that's used.

The Hebrew word is zeroa, and it means any food that is grown from seed or comes from seed, like vegetables, certainly, fruits, grains of different kinds, especially breads that are made from grain.

So, you know, it wasn't just simply green beans that he was asking for, or whatever vegetable you like. All right, so this did not mean, by the way, that the eating of meat was somehow against God's law.

So, if you're a vegetarian and you want to be, don't be that because you think God's word has commanded that. Because, certainly, in fact, in some cases, meat was required in the diet, like Passover and so forth.

So, you're not saying that meat was against God's food law. The problem was the king's meat, and we've already covered, discussed that.

Also, there's nothing in the law, the law, the food laws for Israel, that prohibited the drinking of wine. All right, and I don't drink wine.

I think there's a problem with any alcoholic beverage. But there was no law. Daniel is not responding to this diet because somehow God had prohibited wine in his diet.

The problem, again, was the king's wine that we've already discussed. It was used in pagan worship and also had a level of fermentation that would have been also a violation of God's law.

Now, the alternative that Daniel requests was for a trial period of ten days. And with his request granted, and it was granted, what was the result of the trial?

Well, the truth of God's word was proved in just ten short days. Now, you know, I've got to think about it. I've never really thought about this before. You know, so Daniel says, let's just put this to a test, see if this works.

And I'm just thinking, is ten days long enough to really prove the validity of God's food laws and that God would bless Daniel and his friends if they would obey it?

Ten days seems like a pretty short time. I can't imagine that any diet necessarily would show obvious results after ten days. And yet it did, didn't it?

And we read that in verses 13 through 16. You know, their features were better and fatter in the flesh than all the young men who ate the portion of the king's delicacies. All right, so it had had great results.

And I'm just suggesting to you that this was a miracle. That best that Daniel could get from his Babylonian captors was this ten-day test.

That's about as far as they could go, they would go. And even that was dangerous because of King Nebuchadnezzar. But just ten days. God blessed that and it was proved that his word was true.

All right, so we're looking at Daniel and his test. There's Daniel's heart. Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself. There's Daniel's humility. Daniel requested of the chief of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself.

Daniel said to the steward, Please test your servant for ten days. So his humility. Third and finally, Daniel's honor. Daniel's honor starting with verse 17.

And when I say honor, I'm using honor in the sense of honor given to Daniel. God honored Daniel. It was given to him from God. So there are three points of honor revealed in the text.

First of all, Daniel was honored with spiritual revelation. Spiritual revelation. Or we could say supernatural revelation.

Now, how did God honor Daniel and his three friends? Well, verse 17. As for these four young men, that's Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.

God gave them knowledge and skill in all literature and wisdom. And Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams.

All right. So what can we say about this? Well, Daniel and his friends, first of all, were given the best education the Babylonians had to offer. And it was a pretty good education.

Knowledge and skill. Knowledge and skill. Or intelligence, literally. In what? In all literature. All literature.

Everything written. That would be a lot. Can you imagine being, you know, going down here to, I don't know, the biggest library probably that we have. One of the universities in Tulsa, you know.

And can you imagine being knowledgeable and intelligent in all of that literature out there? Science, history, all subjects, all genres of books.

All right. So God honored them with this. Now that would be a lot because the Babylonian civilization was quite old. Quite old.

But they received more than just a secular education. Because God gave Daniel and his friends wisdom. Or discernment, literally.

Discernment is not something that you can get by studying a book. Or this wisdom we're talking about. I mean, there's nothing wrong with a secular education.

Nothing wrong with learning science and history and some of these secular subjects. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing wrong with going to a secular university. I didn't happen to go to one.

But, you know, I've known many very strong believers and people strong in their faith who their education comes from a secular institution. Nothing inherently wrong about that.

The only problem is it's limited. In fact, any institution of education is limited. Because a secular education can teach a person, say, how to build a building.

But they can't teach a person how to live right in that building. A secular education can teach a person how to have a healthy body. I mean, you can go to, you know, one of these universities, medical, and get a medical degree in summer.

You can learn everything there is to know about how to have a healthy body and keep it healthy. But it cannot teach you how to live right in that body. That takes wisdom, discernment.

A secular education can fill a person's head full of facts. But it cannot fill a person's heart with God's word or with peace, with truth.

But God gave them, honored them, not only with all of the education that the Babylonians had to offer, which in that day was a lot.

Wealth of knowledge. I'm thinking of a similar example would be with Moses. God brought Moses into Egypt and Moses was trained in all of the knowledge of the Egyptians, which in that day was something else, probably the best in the world.

And this is what God honored Daniel and his friends with. But you notice that God gave to Daniel spiritual revelation.

He gave to Daniel something a little extra. Daniel had understanding in all visions and dreams. That's what the Bible says here. Now, I don't want to throw cold water on some of you who have a certain idea about dreams, but it's not just any and all dreams that any person has.

You know, not every dream has some, you know, purpose of God. We're talking here about dreams and visions given by God to certain individuals to reveal his purposes in the near and also distant future.

And we see how that plays out in the entire book of Daniel. His interpretation of dreams. He wasn't just simply telling these people like Nebuchadnezzar and others, you know, what their dream meant to them.

He was actually interpreting the dream that God had given them. This is God's word, God's special revelation that Daniel was allowed to discern.

God had given him a gift to do that. Now, what about today? I mean, does God still use dreams today? I don't think so. Now, you can argue with me if you want to. No need for dreams and visions anymore because God's word is complete.

It's finished. His full revelation is right here. And so, you know, some of the, I think, the tendency to be attracted to this whole notion that God speaks through dreams and visions today is because we're just not satisfied with his word.

Or we don't understand the all-sufficiency of his word. Don't be looking for dreams and visions. Just look to God's word and it's complete and it's sufficient.

If God has to give you a dream and if it is a dream of some future event or something, then that puts it on the same par with scripture and then you have a big problem at that point.

All right. So, anyway, we're talking about Daniel and God had given him, honored him with a spiritual revelation. Next, Daniel was honored with royal elevation.

Royal elevation. The Hebrew boys must be examined by the king. All right. So, they're going to be examined by king. Who's that? That's Nebuchadnezzar, right?

See, these Hebrew boys have been forced enrolled into the U of B. That's University of Babylon. And the day finally came.

We're not sure about the period of time, but finally came for final exams. I mean, that's what you do when you go to a university. You have exams at some point. In their case, it included oral exams.

The king himself was going to be asking the questions. All right. So, they're going to be standing before the king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar. That's what happened.

Verse 18. Now, at the end of the days, when the king had said that they should be brought in, so he gave a specified period of time, the chief of the eunuchs brought them in before Nebuchadnezzar.

Then the king interviewed them. All right. So, this is an oral exam. And what happened? Well, God honored Daniel and his friends before the king.

Verse 20. And in all matters of wisdom and understanding about which the king examined them, he found them ten times better, we could say smarter, than all the Egyptians and astrologers who were in all his realms.

All right. So, they passed the test. Flying color. And the king did the interview. By the way, the magicians and astrologers, they were considered among the most intelligent of the kingdom.

The magicians and astrologers would be the king's advisors and counselors. All right. Daniel and his friends were given then official positions in the imperial government of Babylon.

That's what it means in the latter part of verse 19. None was found like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. Therefore, they served before the king.

Some versions use stood before the king. That is, they entered the king's personal service. They were given positions of leadership. Very significant places of leadership.

God honored them with a royal elevation. Then finally, Daniel was honored with personal continuation. Verse 21.

Thus, Daniel continued until the first year of King Cyrus. Now, it just kind of says that, and we don't really get the significance of that, but this is pretty amazing, really.

At the very least, it means that Daniel lived a long time. God granted Daniel a long life. Probably 90 years. It was a long time in those days. Daniel outlived the Babylonian Empire and lived on into at least the third year of the Persian Empire.

Daniel 10.1 says, In the third year of Cyrus, king of Persia, a message was revealed to Daniel. So, in the third year of King Cyrus, Daniel's still alive. So, he lived a long time.

But I think it means more than that. It was Cyrus, by the way, who ordered the decree that released the Jews from bondage and allowed them to return to their own land.

And there's been some pretty significant speculation, untrustworthy speculation, that Daniel's last official act, perhaps, was to prepare the papers, write up the papers, this decree given by the king that would release his own people from bondage.

Pretty interesting. So, that's Daniel and his test. Thank you.