Not EVERY Man Has His Price

Daniel 1

They say that every man has his price. You may love a certain car a lot, but you probably would have SOME price that would get your attention.  But how about your faith in God?  We ought to be able to say that nothing could get us to deny Him.  Would you die for Him?  It’s probably not wise to proudly state that you would.  We would hope that we would.  But can we really know?  And yet there’s one way to know for sure that you wouldn’t, and that is if you aren’t living for Him.  We start now a new series from the book of Daniel.  We will see that indeed, not EVERY man has his price.

     Martin Luther, before the Diet of Worms, they demanded him to recant or lose his life, and so he lost his life. He would not recant what he believed. There was Latimer and Ridley standing before the stakes where they were to be burned to death. Their executioners demanding that they deny the Lord Jesus Christ. They refused and were consumed in those flames. Fox’s Book of Martyrs records the tales of many who died for their faith, and some who recanted.

    There are those who have been tortured and paid immense prices to stand their ground and not compromise no matter what the cost.

     We hear all the time on the other hand about people who talk a good game, and yet for some expedient purpose they sell out – compromise. People say they believe the Bible but stay in churches where it’s not taught. People claim convictions about sin and convictions about just punishment…until that sin is committed by their children. People say they must speak out about dishonesty, and they must speak out about corruption until it refers to their boss and they might lose their job. People have high moral standards until their lusts take over and they enter into an unholy relationship, and then begin to rationalize their compromise. People are honest until just a little dishonesty might save them a lot of money or gain for them some great advantage. People know something to be definitely wrong, but for the sake of peace they will cover it. People will do something usually against their convictions when asked by someone they admire or fear or from whom they seek a favor.

     Adam compromised God’s law, followed his wife’s sin, and lost paradise. Abraham compromised 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 ever since. 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, lost his strength, lost his eyes, and lost his life.

    David compromised morality, adulterated Bathsheba, murdered Uriah, and lost his child. Solomon compromised his convictions, married foreign wives, and lost the whole kingdom. Ahab compromised, married Jezebel, and lost his throne. Israel compromised the law of God, and lost their homeland. Peter compromised his convictions about Christ, denied him, and lost his joy. Ananias and Sapphira compromised in their giving, and lost their lives. Judas compromised for 30 pieces of silver and forever lost his soul.

     There are some, we remember them well, who didn’t compromise. Moses before Pharaoh; David many times; Paul before Felix, Festus, and Agrippa, but no one is a better illustration of an uncompromising life than Daniel. He provides for us the clearest illustration of what it is to live without compromise. Let’s look at Daniel chapter 1, and glimpse the uncompromising life of this amazing young man.

     Daniel was in Babylon, and Babylon was a pagan society in every sense. No regard for the true God as evidence by the fact that they had attacked the land of Israel, desecrated the true God and taken all the people captive who weren’t killed. And while Daniel was living in the breakers as it were, the crashing waves and the shifting sand of the surf, his soul was anchored on the rock. And so he was unshakable and indestructible. He was absolutely unwilling to compromise the absolutes that he knew were the law of God. And that is what anchored him to the rock of confidence even in the storms of captivity and the world’s efforts to brainwash him.

     When the Babylonians had taken the Jews captive and when they had hauled them away – 586 BC, they were determined that they were going to have to be able to control this captive people. And they knew that in order to do that, they needed to commandeer some of the Jews’ own leaders.

     They started by taking some young men.

v. 3  Among those young men was Daniel. And not just Daniel, but he had three friends. They are mentioned in verse six as Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. Now those names may be unfamiliar to you, but those are their Jewish names, and importantly they link them with their Jewish heritage. You will notice of course that the first thing that the Babylonians did was change their names to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They wanted to give them names that identified them with Chaldean culture and help to brainwash these young men.

     Next, they wanted to change their beliefs. They wanted to change their convictions, their values. And so they put them through an educational process.

     The third thing that they did to them was change their lifestyle.

v. 5 

     Interestingly enough, these four young men accepted the first, that is they accepted the new names; they accepted the second, there’s no indication that they fought against the education; but when it came to the third thing, changing their lifestyle, they refused it - because that was the potentially devastating issue. The name change is merely an external modification. The educational process can be filtered through the law of God which they knew very well. They could change their names, but they couldn’t change their hearts.

    If they had given in to the lifestyle of the Chaldeans, they would have flatly denied the Word of God, and they would have denied, in effect, the identity that they bore as the covenant people. Why? Well first of all, because the king’s food was offered to idols before it was offered to be eaten. Eating and drinking was the major social event in ancient times. The lavishness, the drunkenness, the rest of the wildness that went with such events would be against the simple purity that the Word of God demanded. And beyond that, the law of God had very strict dietary laws. It was to keep the Jews separated from the influences of pagan society, that God had given those laws in the first place. And the Jewish dietary laws were not primarily for health reasons. They were for separation reasons. Because most of the exchange of lifestyle occurred around the eating table, around feasts and festivals where food was consumed. So that’s where they drew the line.

     v. 8     Another reason he didn’t want to engage in that was that the lifestyle of the king and the king’s food and the king’s wine would be the grandest and the most lavish in all the land if not all the world at that ancient time, since that was the supreme kingdom of the world. They would have taken him to a level of materialism and self-indulgence way beyond what would have honored God. So the Chaldeans attempted to melt down these four young men and reform them into their image, and then use them to lead the Jews and keep them peaceful.

    I suppose what is initially amazing about his stand is that he was 14 or 15 years old. He was separated from his home and family and separated frankly from all personal accountability. There wasn’t anybody there to watch him, from his past. He could have lived any kind of life he wanted.

So if you want to understand the character of Daniel, you have to see him in a totally foreign environment, under tremendous pressure as a very young man, taking an uncompromising firm stand on the absolutes of the Word of God. And all of the enticements and all of the education, all the encouragement, all the bribes, all the pressures, all the ambitions and glories of the King’s court could not make him compromise what he knew to be true and right.

    It was that failure to adopt their lifestyle that got Daniel in the den of lions. And it got Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego thrown into a fiery furnace.

    Proverbs 4:23

"Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life."      

The first thing I see about Daniel is an unashamed boldness. Now there was a man assigned to take care of these young men, because this was a very, very important project. And what is wonderful about Daniel is when he goes to Ashpenaz to say, “Look, we can’t eat this food,” he displays a tremendous amount of boldness. He doesn’t say, “You guys have different seasoning and my stomach just doesn’t handle it well.” He didn’t say, you know I haven’t been feeling well. I have a chronic ulcer. He didn’t say that. What he said was, I can’t eat this stuff because it’ll defile me.

    Daniel was not ashamed of his God; he was not ashamed of his faith in God; he was not ashamed of his obedience. Even in pagan Babylon, he said, I won’t do it and here’s why I won’t do it, because it will defile me.

     The king had the right to kill him for disobedience and rebellion. For normal people the fear of man brings a snare, but not Daniel. People who have an uncompromising character have an unabashed boldness. It just goes with it. They don’t equivocate; they don’t waffle.

Psalm 119:46

I will speak of thy testimonies also before kings, and will not be ashamed.    

Jeremiah called it being valiant for the truth. Ezekiel said it was like setting your face like flint. I Chronicles 12:8 says it’s setting your face like a lion.

He had a standard. Leaders are the pace setters; they set the pattern for others; they live on the highest plain. Uncompromising people like Daniel go past the crowd; they do more than the minimum. They set standards for themselves that exceed the norm. They live at the highest level. They stand above the crowd. They don’t just choose the good; they choose the best. Their ministries are a cut above the rest, because they choose to live at a level of commitment that is beyond the rest, to have a more faithful prayer life than the rest and a deeper study of the Word then the rest.

     “Wine is not for kings.” Remember that in Proverb 31? It’s not for rulers. Why? Because you have too much responsibility to have your thinking clouded if you’re in a leadership position. You need every brain cell you can spare.

     Timothy lived at that level and Paul had to say to him, due to his ailments, take a little wine for your stomach’s sake [it was medicine back then] because if you didn’t tell him to do that Timothy wouldn’t have done it. Timothy, too, wanted to live at the level of devotion that was above the norm. And Daniel for certain wanted to be distinguished from the gluttons and drunkards of Babylon. One thing about drunkards if you’re in a group of drunkards and you’re sober, they’re not going to know it.

     Daniel didn’t even want an association with it and so he wanted water only. Great men have certainly fallen to the power of drink. Belshazzar lost the whole Babylonian empire because he was in a drunken stupor. Alexander the Great died at the age of 33 in drunkenness. But when the Iron Duke of England, Duke Wellington, was marching his army across the Iberian Peninsula, word was brought to his headquarters that ahead of him was a vast stock of Spanish wine. He stopped his army at that point, sent some of his men ahead, and they blew it up. Then he marched on.

Next, he had God’s protection.

Verse 9 – you say, if you live like that you’re going to be under a lot of heat from men. But from God you’ll be under a lot of protection. I would rather take the uncompromising stand, and have society against me, and have God on my side. And that’s the point. Even if people disagree with your convictions, they admire you when you stick by them. But more than that, God is on your side.

God predisposed Ashpenaz to like Daniel. Isn’t it great to know that God works in the lives of unbelievers? You say, if I take a strong stand, what’s going to happen to me at work? Try it and see. Put yourself in God’s hands. You don’t have to compromise to save yourself.

     I always think of David. David was in the cave of Adullam hiding. He’s the greatest king in the world with tremendous power and influence. And he’s in the cave of Adullam. What is he doing there? He’s sulking; he did a lot of that. He was kind of a melancholy guy. And why was he sulking? Because he had just gotten back from Philistia, and he’d done a stupid thing. He got in the court of the Philistines, and he began to fear for his life. And you know what he did? He pretended like he was crazy, like he was a maniac. And he started to foam at the mouth, slobber and drool in his beard which is an indication of great disrespect in the Middle East.

     Then he started scratching the walls like he was totally bereft of his senses. To which the King replied we got enough idiots around here, get rid of this one. And they threw him out. And in effect it worked. His life was spared. But when he got to the cave of Adullam, he realized that his denigration of his own dignity and his failure to trust in God was and offence against his God, who would have delivered, and perhaps in a wonderfully glorious way, without him playing the fool.

Sometimes people will say, aren’t you worried when you take a strong stand on something? No, I’m worried when I don’t. Aren’t you worried when you speak boldly on something? No, I’m worried when I don’t. Aren’t you afraid what people might think? Not at all. What I am afraid of is what God might think. That’s the issue.

     Proverb 16:7 says when a man’s ways please the Lord, he makes even his enemies to be at peace with him. The hearts of all men are in the hands of God. Don’t ever compromise to gain something with men and lose something with God. Be true to God; He controls men.

If you think about Joseph and Daniel, they were similar, weren’t they? They both rose in a foreign kingdom to the same high rank of prime minister through their endowment by God. Both Daniel and Joseph came under God’s protection, were spared and lifted and elevated.

     v. 10   Ashpenaz has second thoughts on behalf of his own survival.  Daniel could have gone back and said to his buddies, you know, I think we pushed this deal as far as we can push it. Just eat one egg roll.

V. 12       “Please sir, just test us.” I like his persistence. If you give up the first time, you don’t have Daniel’s character. Every man has his – what? – price. And the price is at whatever point you compromise your convictions. Daniel had no price, so there was never any end to his persistence.

    On the other hand, sin produces doubt, fear, questioning, hesitancy. Righteousness produces confidence and security. And Daniel in a sense is saying, I’ll put my life on the line because I believe that if I obey God, He will honor that obedience. That’s his faith. And people who have that kind of faith have it from a vantage point of purity. Because if there had been sin in Daniel’s life, he would never have confidently and boldly put himself in that position. He would have had a very normal fear that if he got himself too far extended, God might saw the limb off because of iniquity in his life.

v. 13     You can operate in any trial in total confidence when you know your heart is pure. He says, at the end of the 10 days, you pick who looks healthier.

vv. 14-15         “Fatter” doesn’t mean plump.  It means healthy and well nutritioned.  Can I have an amen?

v. 17        This prepares Daniel, of course, for the prophecies that unfold in this book.

vv. 18-20         What is the path to a privileged position in a pagan culture? It’s the path of an uncompromising life. How do you reach a position of significance? God will put you in the highest position that He deems for you when you’re the most uncompromising person. You don’t have to find your way there through making deals. That’s why I hate politics. Because politics is a craft of compromise, and you get there because you sell your soul wherever you need to in order to achieve what you want, and what you end up with then at the pinnacle of the process is a whole bunch of compromisers. But if you want to be where God wants you to be, you don’t compromise and let Him lift you up.

     v. 21, “And Daniel continued even unto the first year of king Cyrus.” Seventy years. He was appointed prime minister – and his last great achievement was to negotiate the release of the captives, so they could return to their land and rebuild their temple. When you read Ezra chapter 1 about them coming back to their land, you feel Daniel in the background.

We see that indeed…not every man has his price.