‘In’ Or ‘Of’?

Daniel’s childhood

He had heard the voice of Jeremiah ring out in the courts of the LORD’s house warning the people that if they would not hear their God, God would make the Temple “like Shiloh,” and make Jerusalem “a curse to all the nations of the earth” (Jer 26:6).

But it was a confusing time. The extravagance of King Jehoiakim was unprecedented: while the people languished due to heavy taxation and extortion to pay off Egypt for protection, the king and his officials were enlarging and adorning their houses. Where Josiah, Jehoiakim’s father, covered himself in sackcloth before the word of the LORD, Jehoiakim clothed himself in pride, arrogantly consigning God’s word to the flames of a winter fire. “And it came to pass, that when Jehudi had read three or four leaves, he cut it with the penknife, and cast it into the fire that was on the hearth, until all the roll was consumed in the fire that was on the hearth” (Jer 36:23).

Daniel was born during the middle of the 31 ‘golden years’ of King Josiah, and would seemed to have been nurtured by godly parents. His parents, who would have endured the rampant idolatry and godlessness of Manasseh’s reign, must have rejoiced in Josiah’s godliness and devotion to Yahweh. His cleansing of the disgusting idolatry and reformation of the nation must have given them great relief, and, a wonderful environment in which to raise their son.

It is evident that Daniel did not forget his parents’ instruction and godly ways. When Nebuchadnezzar sent the Egyptians back home through a humiliating defeat at Carchemish, he then proceeded south towards Jerusalem to humble Judah and bring them under his yoke. During Jehoiakim’s fourth year, Nebuchadnezzar finally entered Jerusalem, made Jehoiakim his vassal, and took some of the vessels of Yahweh’s Temple captive, along with some of the youths from prominent families, from the king, and from his nobles. Like the Greeks of a later period, Nebuchadnezzar intended to ‘Babylonialize’ these Jewish youths so they would learn and appreciate the ways of Great Babylon.

So these were the experiences and this was the new world that confronted Daniel and his three friends as the first group of Jewish captives to be taken to Babylon (607-606 BC).

The test of Daniel

To instill in all these young Jewish men the ways and thinking of Babylon required three years of education and training. Accordingly, they were enrolled in the ‘college of Babylon’ where they received comfortable housing, daily food, from the king’s table no less (!), and daily instruction at the hands of the Babylonian priests and wise men.

Wow. What an opportunity! And then to serve in the courts of the king’s palace with all the privileges and status that would give? What’s not worth liking about this? Were there only 20 Jewish youths involved? 50? 100? We aren’t told and can’t really say, but we can be absolutely certain of one thing: Daniel and his three companions were not the only ones enrolled in this training.

The training did have a downside though: it involved some compromises for these Jewish youths. The food would have included the flesh of unclean animals, perhaps even prepared with the blood in them, or perhaps the blood was used in the sauces that accompanied the meat. Babylonians also regularly used both beer and wine as offerings to their gods. As this was from the king’s table, the wine would have been first offered to these Babylonian gods.

This was a compromise Daniel was not willing to accept:

“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; therefore he requested of the chief of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself” (Dan 1:8).

Instead of the king’s food, Daniel and his three companions asked to be fed grain and vegetables, with water to drink. Had it not been that “God had brought Daniel into the favor and good will of the chief of the eunuchs” (v. 9), this might have provoked some severe consequences for resisting the king’s order! But through the benevolence of this chief servant of Nebuchadnezzar, a ten-day test was arranged to see if this proposed alternative food would show the same results as the required food.

The faith of Daniel

Wow…again. Daniel had no way of knowing whether God would bless his desire to be faithful and true to Him. Which means, that if the alternative food did not nourish them successfully, Daniel and his companions probably faced harsh servitude in the Babylonian prison…or worse! This truly is a young, vibrant faith to be admired!

There is one vital principle displayed in this young man’s courageous determination to be faithful to the Living God of Israel; a principal we do well to learn — and emulate, because we may well face the very same challenge in our world today.

The Principle?

“Now I am no longer in the world, but these are in the world, and I come to you… While I was with them in the world, I kept them in your name. But now I am coming to you, and these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves. I have given them your word; and the world has hated them because they are not of the world, just as I am not of the world… They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world” (John 17:11-16).

There it is, in verse 16: the disciples of Jesus must be in the world, but they are not to be of the world. Daniel’s behavior illustrates powerfully what this means in tangible, human terms. Loyalty to God — to the One to whom we belong and to His ways — must take precedent over the commands of the world in which we find ourselves.

Compromise is so easy, so seductive. Nobody will know really. And does it really matter if I eat unclean food? After all, I am in a foreign land and I can’t expect them to respect my Jewish upbringing. Daniel could so easily have compromised his loyalty and devotion to God. But if he started here, with this compromise, what would be next? Maybe how he worshipped God, praying to Him three times a day? Perhaps he could drop this for a month so as not to antagonize the other administrators? Where do compromises stop? I suggest they stop when at last we have made a shipwreck of our faith and we have imperceptibly become part of the world we once turned away from.

In Abraham’s day this principle went by another name:

“By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to the place which he would receive as an inheritance. And he went out, not knowing where he was going. By faith he dwelt in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; for he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. … These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth” (Heb 11:8-10,13).

That’s it: “strangers and pilgrims” or sojourners. Living in the world, but claiming no part of it as their own. Rather, they earnestly and faithfully looked forward to the place, to the city, to the country, to the world God would establish — to the Kingdom of God on this earth!

Compromise would have been so easy for Abraham too. He could so easily have settled into this new country, found a nice home and raised his family. He didn’t need to wander around, living in a tent all his life. But Abraham didn’t see it that way. His decision to live the way he did was the Statement of his Faith.

The Statement of our Faith

It is on this principle that we do not participate in politics or voting, in serving on juries or in the military. It is not a Christadelphian rule; it is the Statement of our Faith! As Hebrews 13:14 says: “For here we have (like Abraham) no continuing city, but we seek the one to come.”

When we get caught up in the spirit of our age, proclaiming that we support a particular presidential contender or their party’s platform, what statement are we making about our faith? Have we not at our baptism already declared our support and allegiance to the only one who can truly rule this world in righteousness? Is it not to his ‘platform’ we ought to be declaring publically our allegiance? What an opportunity to witness has been afforded to us this year when asked who we will be voting for! To declare boldly that we have already cast our vote for the only candidate that can provide the kind of leadership and guidance this world needs will make a clear statement… and may just open the door to a receptive heart.

A note to young people

Where were the rest of the young Jewish men? Why were there no others that joined Daniel and his three friends in this? Here is one more lesson, a hard lesson, we must learn: exercising faith is often a lonely undertaking. Don’t expect even your Christadelphian friends to stand with you. They may not because compromise is so much easier, so much less painful, and you don’t have to give up anything. But who knows, maybe your courageous act of faith in not compromising will be the very thing that gives others the courage to follow the same path! Don’t be afraid to stand alone, because, as we see with Daniel, God will stand with you.

A final lesson

There exists today a counterpart to ancient Babylon that seeks just as diligently and fervently to dominate and ‘Baby lonialize’ the Western world of which we are a part. The face of this system can be found in the humanistic organization we call the United Nations. Here is a body that seeks to impose on all the world, the thoughts and ideas and principals of man. Our views of the rights and obligations of men, of women, of children, of nations and races, of what is moral and immoral, are being defined by this body. And its laws are being slowly imposed on our Western World.

Like the young Jewish men brought to Babylon of old, we too are faced with a very real choice: Will we choose to belong to this system? Or will we heed God’s warning and “come out of her”?

“And after these things I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory. And he cried mightily with a strong voice, saying, Babylon the great is fallen, is fallen, and is become the habitation of devils, and the hold of every foul spirit, and a cage of every unclean and hateful bird. For all nations have drunk of the wine of the wrath of her fornication, and the kings of the earth have committed fornication with her, and the merchants of the earth are waxed rich through the abundance of her delicacies. And I heard another voice from heaven, saying, Come out of her, my people, that ye be not partakers of her sins, and that ye receive not of her plagues. For her sins have reached unto heaven, and God hath remembered her iniquities” (Rev 18:1-5).

It is a question we each must answer, and in a real way, we are actually answering now in the things we say and do publicly and in our hearts.