An Uncompromising Life B

Where there is a specific biblical mandate, you draw the line. If there is a clear word from God, that is the character of an uncompromising life. He would not defile Himself. He would not be stained.

He would not be polluted by disobeying Scripture. Welcome to Grace to You with John MacArthur. I'm your host, Phil Johnson. A. W. Tozer once said, We are not diplomats, but prophets, and our message is not a compromise, but an ultimatum. So who are the prophets?

Who is Tozer talking about? He's talking about you if you're a Christian. And what is it you cannot compromise? Biblical truth. With that said, what is it that tempts you to compromise on truth?

And when you are tempted, how do you respond the right way? Questions to keep in mind as John MacArthur shows you the amazing blessing that comes from an uncompromising life. That's the title of our current study here on Grace to You. And if you have your Bible, turn to the book of Daniel, and here's John.

When the world looks for people to fill its bill, it looks at their physical, their mental, and their social definition. That's it, because that's all they can understand. They didn't know anything about character. They didn't know anything about spiritual quality. They didn't know anything about virtue.

They didn't know anything about morality. They said, Get us the smartest and the best looking and the most suave young guys you can find, and we're going to melt them down and remake them into Chaldeans. That was the whole plan. It was a plot, folks. Listen, to brainwash these young Jews. It was a brainwashing plot, clear and simple. They were going to do a number on them.

What was their purpose? At the end of verse 4, that they might teach them the learning and the tongue of the Chaldeans. Now the Chaldeans is a term used interchangeably with Babylonians.

Originally the Chaldeans were a separate group, but as the Babylonian Empire grew and the Chaldean astrologies and the Chaldean learning and the Chaldean sciences dominated the Babylonian Empire, the term Chaldean became synonymous to Babylonian. And so they were going to make them full-fledged Babylonians or Chaldeans. They wanted them to learn the learning of the Chaldeans.

What is the learning? By the way, the tongue or the language of the Chaldeans was a very, very powerful and important language in that day and the Jewish people would not know it and so they would have to learn it, but it would give them intercourse around that part of the whole world because the language dominated that part of the world. Beyond that, the learning of the Chaldeans is very interesting. In the International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, it tells us that the learning of the Chaldeans comprised the old languages of Babylonian, the two dialects of Sumerian and a certain knowledge of Kassite, which seems to have been allied to the Hittite language, and there were other languages of the immediate neighborhood.

In other words, they would literally become linguistic experts. Further, the Chaldeans had knowledge of astronomy and astrology. They had a sophisticated mathematical system involving a sexagesimal system of numeration. They had a certain amount of natural history. They had a huge store of mythological learning, including legends of the creation and the flood. They had likewise a tremendous plurality and plethora of gods, a whole pantheon of deities. They had a tremendous knowledge of agriculture. They were perhaps the finest architects in the whole world, as many of the celebrated buildings of Babylon show.

You might be interested to know that in the building of the hanging gardens of Babylon and in the building of the palaces, they had a sophisticated air conditioning system at that time, which they had developed. So these young men were going to be exposed to all of this learning, whether it was architectural or agricultural or linguistic or theological or historical, they were going to become erudite Chaldeans. The Chaldeans were also expert in magic, in sorcery, in certain enchantments, in omens and incantations, in prayers and hymns and myths and legends and science skills.

They were expert in glassmaking, we know that, and on and on and on. And these young men were going to learn all of that. This was a brainwashing process.

You know something? It's not unlike what universities and colleges are set to do to young people today, take away their faith, rob their heritage, reform them with the godless, atheistic, humanistic, socialistic information that so fills their books and the minds of their teachers. Sending your young person today to a college or a university is not always doing him any favor at all, but exposing him to a brainwashing process. Sadly, even the seminaries in our country that once held up the Word of God, who now have abandoned it as the authority, are brainwashing people to believe that human answers tell us that we can't trust God. His word isn't true. Another brainwashing process.

Moses, you remember, when he was in Egypt in Acts 7, 22, it says he was taught in all the wisdom and all the arts of the Egyptians. But you know something? There are some people that you just can't corrupt.

You just can't do it. The universities and the seminaries of the Chaldeans were going to destroy everything that Daniel and all of his friends knew of God and of the heritage that God had placed among their people. They wanted them to forget God, forget the truth of God, wipe out everything of the past. Believe me, people, this is the effort of modern education.

From the time your child goes off to school, except for God-fearing teachers and people that love Christ that intersect with your children, they will get a humanistic, godless, atheistic system of values that is geared by Satan to whitewash God out of the picture and to render those minds brainwashed to serve Satan. That's the plot. The plot thickens in verse 5. And the king appointed them a daily provision of the king's dainties, delicacies, meat, food. The word here means delicacies.

It isn't just the average stuff. I think the RSV rightly translates it rich food. So they were to get a portion of the king's rich food. Now why? Why feed him the king's food?

Man, I know I lived in a dorm for a while. Any king that ate that stuff would have abdicated his throne long before. What are they feeding them that for? Is that a part of the education? Listen, one of the most basic elements of brainwashing is a sense of obligation, is to make them feel obligated, is to provide for them a provision that is lavish so that their sustenance is dependent on you and you build a dependency for provision, you build a perspective on life where they demand what you're giving them and then you've got them locked in. You know, how are you going to keep them down on the farm after they've seen Peri? Feed them the Chaldean food and just see if they'll ever eat the crummy vegetables and the water they're used to. Seduce them by the appetites and make them feel obligated because of the provision and lift their standard of living up to where you want it to be so they can never go back to that other kind of approach.

All part of the brainwashing. The king himself was a smart man. Nebuchadnezzar was a brilliant man and he appointed this situation and he gives Ashpenaz a command to feed those people, the king's delicacies, and give him the wine the king drinks. Now they drank wine of all kinds, but the king's wine would be the very best wine, the best for three years it says, so that at the end of the three years they would stand before the king. They'd come in and say, oh king, man are you a good guy.

Wow! Look at us, king. We are so healthy. We've been eating all that good stuff for three years.

We've had a terrific time. And the term stand before the king has reference to serving the king. Did you hear that? Serving the king. To stand before means to serve.

We find that over and over again. It says the angels stand before the throne of God. Doing what? Waiting a commission to serve. Jeremiah the prophet stood before God waiting to move out in service. He says, I want people who will serve me and I know they'll serve me if they're obligated to me. I know they'll serve me if they depend on my kind of stuff and my standard of living. Have you ever had a taste of that kind of stuff?

Have you ever just gone somewhere and just lived it up for about two or three days or maybe one day or somebody took you to some restaurant, you know, and it cost you about $50 and you just got a little taste of that and you thought, boy, you know, I could get used to this. This is the way I deserve to be treated. Well, that's the whole idea of the brainwashing.

That's the trap. And apparently, you want to know something? If there were 50 to 75 young men who were taken in, it must have worked with about 71 of them because the only ones we meet that didn't fall prey to the brainwashing process are four of them, just four. Verse 6, Now among these were of the children of Judah, Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael and Azariah. Notice among these, that means there were many more and among them only four, only four. There aren't very many people in the world who resist the world's effort to brainwash.

There aren't very many people who won't buy the world's bag, who won't dance to the world's jig. There were only four. And you know what they did? Verse 7, Unto them the prince of the eunuchs gave names.

Daniel he gave belt to Shazar, Hananiah, Shadrach, Mishael, Meshach and Azariah, Bednego. Now you know what happened? They changed all their names to Chaldean names. That's another part of the process of brainwashing. You forget your roots. You forget your heritage. You forget your family.

You forget your past when you forget who you really are. You just don't have any identity anymore. You just lost your identity. I remember for so many years I was always introduced as Dr. Jack's son.

I was nobody. I was just Dr. Jack's son. If there was no Dr. Jack, there would have been no me.

That's really true. But I'll never forget one day somebody said, oh...it was introduced to me too late. He said, oh, this is Dr. Jack's son. She said, oh, Dr. Jackson, it's so nice to meet you. I was Dr. Jackson, whoever Dr. Jackson is.

I wouldn't mind being Dr. Jackson if I were Dr. Jackson. Cutting people off from their heritage is not new and it's common even today. I was reading a book about a Dr. Hong who very interestingly enough was raised in North Korea. This very unique man watched as his whole family was tortured when North Korea was invaded by the Japanese.

They came in. They cut the thumbs off his father. They killed his grandmother. They murdered his brother. In fact, they hung him in the doorway of their house. And one of the things that they did all over North Korea when they first came in was they changed all of the Korean names to Japanese names to cut them off from all sense of identity.

This is part of the brainwashing process, and that's what they did. It might be interesting to know something about the names because I think this is...by the way, I might add that they changed Joseph's name, remember? He was given an Egyptian name when he went to Egypt.

I think it was something like Zaphnath Paaniya or something. And you know, do you know a lady in the Bible by the name of Hadassah? That's the true name of Esther. Her name was changed too when she came into another society.

That's what they did very commonly. All right, Daniel. Daniel means God is judge. Belteshazzar means Baal provides. Bel. Bel provides or it could be Bel's prince. So they changed him from Yahweh God to Baal.

Wipe out God, see? Secondly, Hananiah means the Lord is gracious. They changed Hananiah's name to Shadrach. Shadrach is some kind of a derivative from the god Aku from which we get the word Marduk.

It's all so tangled up. But another one of the chief deities of Babylon. Mishael, by the way, means, and I love this, who is what the Lord is.

Isn't that great? Who is like the Lord? They changed his name to Meshach, again from Mishaaku, which is who is what Aku is. Aku, by the way, is supposed to be the moon god.

Azariah means the Lord is my helper. They changed it to Abednego, or servant of Nego, or servant of Nebo, and Nebo was the son of Baal. So in every case, something in all those four names represented God. That says something about the fact that they must have had godly parents, which may be why they stood out among the rest, because there was only a remnant of believing people in Judah anyway, and of all of the young men that were taken, maybe there were only these four who had a godly heritage. They certainly had lovely, godly names, but in every case, they stole away God from their names and substituted their pagan deities. They were trying to blot out God. They were trying to substitute their own demonic pantheon, all part of the brainwashing. I see that in our society. Boy, I see Satan working to brainwash our young people, to educate them in the things of the world, to draw them off into the allurements of the world, to get them to eat the world's meat, and to play the world's games, and most of them go. That brings us to the final thought in verse 8, from the plight to the plot to the purpose, the purpose.

And this changed everything. The key to the uncompromising life, verse 8, just the first part. 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. Stop right there. Daniel, listen to this.

This guy is 14 years old. He purposed in his heart. Literally, he laid it on his heart. There were three distinctly heathen things that had happened to these young people. Heathen wisdom was to be taught to them. Heathen names were to be given to them. And heathen food was to be fed to them.

Now the first two, they accepted. They went on with the heathen training, learning their education. Then it wasn't all evil. They had many scientific things and many very helpful principles of architecture and science and so forth. They allowed themselves to enter into their kind of training.

And sometimes in our society, in our world, we have to go in for the training that our world offers, and we have to know how to sort the good from the bad, the true from the false. And so they did not fight against that educational process. Secondly, they didn't seem to be bothered by the heathen names they were given, because you could change their names, but you couldn't change the fact that their names as they originally were written in God's book as His children. You could change their names, but you couldn't change their hearts. You could change their names, but you couldn't change their souls. But the third thing is where they drew the line.

And they said, nope. Daniel said he would not defile himself, and the word defile means to pollute or to stain with an ugly stain. He says, I will not stain my life, I will not pollute my life with the King's food, nor will I touch His wine. Let me tell you why he decided the way he did.

Listen. There was no strict prohibition, get this, in the Word of God. There was no strict prohibition against taking a heathen name. There was none. Second, there was no strict prohibition against learning what some other people had to teach.

There was, however, very strict prohibition about what a Jew could eat and drink. True? Now listen. This is the point of the whole thing. Daniel drew the line of no compromise in his life on what the Word of God said.

Did you get it? What then is the character of an uncompromising life? It is a commitment to draw the lines in your life where the Word of God draws them. You see? That's where Daniel drew the line.

Now listen. He couldn't eat the King's food for two major reasons. Number one, it wasn't kosher. They had dietary laws. Jewish food had to be prepared a certain way.

The blood had to be drained off a certain way. There were clean and there were unclean animals, right? The Babylonians had no such thing. Do you know that they literally feasted on pork? They thought pig was a delicacy. And they ate meats forbidden to a Jew. And the cooking preparation was not fitting for a Jew. And now you can see something of the purpose of God's dietary laws, can't you? Because in this case, it kept some wonderful young men from getting corrupted. That was God's intention for it, to restrict the possibility of intermingling with pagans. But there was another reason that Daniel couldn't take of it. And that is because the Old Testament again and again said not to tolerate idols, not to tolerate idolatry of any kind, not to have anything to do with an idol-worshipping people.

And listen to this. The King's food served at the King's table was always connected with the gods. For we know from Babylonian history that the food they ate was first offered to the gods and the wine they drank was first offered to the gods. And all of it was given as it were to the gods symbolically and then they ate of it. And if Daniel and his friends were to eat of that food, they would be eating that which had been offered to gods and they would be literally participating in a pagan feast.

They couldn't do it. They took their stand on the Scripture. Where there is a specific biblical mandate, you draw the line.

If there is a clear word from God, that is the character of an uncompromising life. He would not defile Himself. He would not be stained. He would not be polluted by disobeying Scripture.

Now listen to this. He had every reason to do it, every reason. Just think, first of all, He was a kid. What kind of character do you find in a 14-year-old?

Not often that kind. He was just a kid. Not only that, He was away from home. There was nobody around to check. Dad wasn't going to be around the barn with a belt.

Nobody was going to say, what are you doing kid? He was on his own. Not only that, the king was the king and the king made a law and he probably learned to obey authorities. Not only that, if he wanted to advance in the kingdom, which every young man might want to if he had that kind of quality, he would have known he had to do what the king said. Further, if he disobeyed, the king would be very angry and it didn't take long as you read the book of Daniel to find out when he got angry, he got real angry and started pitching people in fiery furnaces. And he also might have thought, God let us down by bringing us here in the first place.

What do we owe to Him? He had every reason to compromise, every reason. But he didn't.

You know why? He had character. He had real character. He had real integrity. He would learn the king's language, yes. He would learn the sciences of the Chaldeans. He would even accept the name, but never the lifestyle.

Do you hear it? Never the lifestyle. Never the lifestyle. Now I want you to know, it didn't mean he got angry and bitter and callous and had an evil spirit and turned everybody against him. Verse 9 says that the prince of the eunuchs had compassion on him.

He felt tender toward Daniel. This guy had convictions that he held with love. What a young man.

What a young man. Beloved, I say this to you. The character of an uncompromising life is based upon an absolute obedience to the principles of the Word of God. All I can say, beloved, is when the Bible says something, don't compromise that. And hold your conviction with love. And when you live an uncompromising life, God is going to use you. Men, from here on out people, God uses Daniel in ways that are just thrilling...thrilling. Oh, be useful to God.

Set a standard and live it every day of your life. Let's pray together. Lord, we just feel so overwhelmed with the story of Daniel, this wonderful, wonderful story. Lord, I pray that you'd mold us into the kind of character that that 14-year-old or 15-year-old boy had.

Some of us have been around a lot longer than that and are hard pressed to find such character in our own lives. Father, I pray for our young men, teenagers, our young women who are literally bombarded by the garbage of the world, who are tempted to talk the world's language and get the world's education, indulge in the world's lifestyle. God, I pray that you'll raise up young people like Daniel and his friends who will not be corrupted, who will not be polluted, who will not be stained, who will not be defiled, but will base their character of an uncompromising life on the Word of God. And so, Father, help us to dedicate ourselves afresh to you. For Christ's sake, amen. An unshakable commitment to the Word of God.

Daniel had it and so can you. I hope you picked up on that point today as John MacArthur continued his study titled An Uncompromising Life here on Grace to You. Now, John, I'm wondering if you could speak to that listener who, like Daniel, is committed to obeying the Word of God, but at times he's faced with circumstances not directly addressed in Scripture. In those moments, how can we honor God? You know, I'm sure there were times in the past when obedient, godly believers were faced with circumstances not directly addressed in Scripture, as you said, that they really needed some help with.

They had to find a teacher, they had to find a friend, they had to find a group of folks they could kind of talk it through and figure it out. There must have been a lot of those kinds of things in ancient times, as there are now. But I would venture to say, now, in the day in which we live, no Christian should really be confused about any of the issues that are all around us, because the answers are so readily available to us.

They're just available through all kinds of resources. And that's the reason Grace to You exists, to put those kinds of resources in your hands. I want to remind you of a book that I think is critical for our time. It's called Right Thinking in a World Gone Wrong. Right Thinking in a World Gone Wrong. It deals with political activism, the cult of celebrity, homosexual marriage, environmentalism, entertainment, escapism, abortion, birth control, surrogacy, all these things in this book, Right Thinking in a World Gone Wrong. 260 pages, Right Thinking in a World Gone Wrong.

That's right, friend. John's book, Right Thinking in a World Gone Wrong, brings biblical clarity to some of the most controversial issues you and your church will face. To get a copy for yourself or a friend, go to our website or call us today. The number here, 855-GRACE and our web address, GTY.org.

Right Thinking in a World Gone Wrong is especially helpful for high school and college students grappling with worldly philosophies in the classroom. The cost is $15 and we ship for free. To add a copy to your library, call 800-55-GRACE or go to GTY.org. And keep in mind that John has written dozens of other books that you can learn about and purchase from our website, covering topics that range from the debate between creation and evolution to the nature of the gospel, the second coming of Christ, how to protect and strengthen your conscience, and much more. And of course, our flagship resource, the MacArthur Study Bible, is available to purchase in numerous English and non-English versions. Our web address one more time, GTY.org. Or call us at 800-55-GRACE. Now for John MacArthur, I'm Phil Johnson. I hope you're able to join us tomorrow when John returns to this series, An Uncompromising Life, and shows you how to stand firmly for God no matter what consequences you face. It's another half hour of unleashing God's truth one verse at a time. On the next, Grace to You.