On Sunday we started our new teaching series from the book of Daniel and one of the main themes of Daniel 1 is that God is in control. If you haven’t yet had a chance to listen to the sermon you’ll find it here: https://youtu.be/48CeNLlgW64
And as we read through the rest of the book of Daniel (**Spoiler Alert**) we discover that God is not just in control of the past and the present – he is in control of the future too.
But for Daniel and his friends, it didn’t look like that for large parts of their story. They’d seen the Babylonians march into Jerusalem, overrunning the city and destroying the temple. Many of their friends and families would have come to a nasty end. Daniel and his friends were chained up and marched away. What was to become of them? They would have had no idea at the time.
We meet Daniel and his friends as they begin a three-year training programme in the court of king Nebuchadnezzar. A quick look at a map of the time would leave you with the impression that Nebuchadnezzar was very much in control. His empire stretched from Iran, through Iraq, Syria, parts of Turkey and down through Lebanon, Israel, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, and threatening the borders of Egypt. The logical conclusion was that it was the size, strength and skill of Nebuchadnezzar’s army that made the conquest of Israel possible, and that this was just a part of Nebuchadnezzar’s plan to make inroads into Egypt – or at least to provide a ‘buffer zone’ between Egypt and his empire.
But Daniel 1:2 leaves us in no doubt. This had nothing to do with Nebuchadnezzar’s might or plans. It was God working out his plans and fulfilling the warnings that punctuate 2 Kings and the prophets. It might not look like it, but God was in control.
People that spend their lives writing books about Daniel do not agree why Daniel and his friends chose to take a stand over the food and drink from the king’s table. It’s not simply because of the Old Testament food laws. If that was the case, then only some choice meats would have been excluded and the wine would have been OK. If it was because these foods would have been prepared in a non-kosher way, then surely that would also be true of the vegetables. And later, in Daniel 10:3, we find Daniel fasting from meat and wine, so obviously he started eating at least some of them at some point.
Daniel and his friends would have had very little control over their lives. As we’ll soon see they could say ‘no’ – but that, under normal circumstances, would have meant death. And whilst they could have refused to dress or talk or work like Babylonians, their death would have meant their godly influence wasn’t felt in Babylon for the next few decades. Although we have no idea, I like to think that the magi who visited the boy Jesus five hundred years later were aware of the prophesies about the Messiah because of the influence, teaching and writings of Daniel within the Babylonian court.
Daniel’s wisdom extended to knowing which battles to fight and how to fight them. In chapter 3 it was a straight ‘no’. But here in chapter 1 it’s a quiet word to the chief official – and when that doesn’t work, he follows it up by hatching a cunning plan with the person next in line.
One of the key things here is – what’s going on in Daniel’s head. Always, at the front of his thinking, there is the fact that God is in control. That God is king. That his allegiance and obedience are ultimately to God alone. And so, possibly on Day One of their training, very quietly and politely, with respect, Daniel plucks up the courage to say ‘no’.
Daniel rejected the conventional wisdom of the world in which he lived and chose a restricted diet – and trusted God for the outcome.
I wonder whether there are areas in our lives where we need to reject the conventional wisdom of the world and take a stand by choosing a ‘restricted diet’? Not allowing our fears to govern our choices but trusting God for the outcomes rather than relying on our own resources. This might be to do with our finances, our career or how we use our time or maybe some other area in our lives.
What is God saying to you today?
