Daniel 1:8-17 “No Food to Foreign Idols”
Last week, as you know, we had a pulpit exchange here on the island. I was in Princeville preaching, and Pastor Bemry of the Marshallese Koloa Church was here. Funny thing, when I got up to Princeville there was a fellow there who met me right off who talked about the Pastor up in Princeville as Glenford. I had to ask him, is that the pastor’s name? I thought it was just Glenn, Pastor Glenn Frasier.
“Yah, that is the regular pastor’s name all right. I just call him Glenford. That is what I do,” he continued, “I change people’s names like that.” “There is a fellow in the church whose name is Phil. I call him ‘Filbert’.”
“Filbert. Isn’t that a nut?” I asked.
“Oh yah, but he doesn’t mind that I call him a nut.”
Did I tell you all already how much I missed you last week? I really did! This week we start a new sermon series on the Book of Daniel. In the first chapter, we see that Daniel, who has been captured with others from Judah and taken to Babylon, is told by King Nebuchadnezzer that he has to go by the name that the king is giving him. Daniel is no longer to be Daniel. Now he is supposed to be “Beltshazzar.” Daniel does not care for this name change, nor do his buddies.
You see, Daniel is a name that has as its last phoneme a reference to godliness. The phoneme “dan” means judgment in Hebrew. The “i” means of. And, the “el” part means God. So, the name Daniel means “God is my judge.” So, when Nebuchadnezzer changes Daniel’s name for him, the effect is to take God out of the name. Dan’s buddies’ names also each have references to God. You can read this in verse 7. Hananiah and Azariah have the name of God in the “ya” parts of their name. This is the same as “Yahweh” in the Hebrew Scriptures. Daniel and Mishael have the “el” which is the same as “Elohim,” another name for God from the Hebrew.
What’s in a name, you ask? After all, would not a “rose by any other name smell as sweet?” That is what Shakespeare tells us from Romeo and Juliet. Would not Daniel still be Daniel even if he is called Beltshazzar?
I tell you that there is something about having faith in God and naming that out loud! You should not be an anonymous Christian (point #1). There is a Christian radio show on the air right now called “Casting Care” that allows callers to call in to ask questions or ask for prayers. The genius to the radio program is that they say, “You should call into our program because you can ask anything and your pastor won’t know it is you.” They get a lot of callers. Maybe even some of you have called in—I wouldn’t know of course; I am just a nosey pastor who should be kept in the dark about your faith questions! Ha ha.
Daniel is not going to become anonymous. He is not going to be just another nobody in the king’s court. He is going to stand out as a person of faith. He wants everyone to know that he believes in God. He has God’s name attached to the end of his name, and he does not want to lose that connection. Just imagine that your name also has the name of God attached to it so that the whole world knows in whom you have faith and in whom you believe! In Bible study on this passage we had fun changing our names to the Mesopotamian equivalents. My name became “Olaf-polasser.” Today, this morning in worship, I want to change my name to something more godly. How about: “Olaf-i-el”?
The second point this morning comes from this story that Daniel and his buddies were being forced to eat the king’s rations. They do not want to do this because the food has already been offered in sacrifice to foreign gods of Babylon. The food is defiled in this way. Again, we are stuck with this issue, “a hamburger by any other name should taste as good!” Or, does it matter?
It matters if the society, the culture, is telling you do something that you know from your faith to be wrong. To this point, I think that our churches today are experiencing an interesting shift. Christian morality is becoming important again. You see, for a while there, we could hear our brothers and sisters in the faith saying such things as “It does not really matter how you live your life as long as you have faith in Jesus.” People were saying this in spite of the fact that Christ himself expected his followers to change their lives for Him. Christianity was not really regarded as a life-changing thing at all. It was considered merely a spiritual decision.
The shift in the church today is that we recognize that how we live our lives as Christians matters as much as our choice to accept Christ into our lives. They go hand-in-hand. Yes, there is a new Christian morality today that is sweeping through the churches. The church is providing the moral compass to people’s lives once more. We are just at the beginning of this change. I am excited to see what will happen in years to come.
The new church morality is not founded like the old morality. The old morality was based on the majority in society. For instance if the morality in society says that it is okay to smoke drugs, then it must be okay. In this way, we see that it is okay to smoke pakalolo in certain states and not in others. Some places say it is okay to drink beer at age 18, others say 21. At one point in the history of our own country, we had complete prohibition. It was not okay to drink any alcohol because the majority voted that in.
The old morality was also based on the idea that as long as you were not harming anybody else, then it should be okay to do. For instance, it is okay to smoke tobacco as long as nobody else has to breathe in your smoke. Divorce, for instance, became “no fault.” How can two people hurt so much and then turn around and say “no harm, no foul”?
The new Christian morality puts God right into the middle of the argument on how we are supposed to lead our lives. It asks the simple question, “Is this pleasing to God”? Is this how Christ wants us to spend our days on this planet? Is this what we were created for? There is no majority vote on the issue for us Christians.
Getting back to Daniel, even though he lived 600 years before Christ, he seems to understand this kind of morality quite well. Even when it comes to just choosing the food that he will eat, he asks whether God would be pleased with his eating food that had been previously offered to foreign idols. How could God be please with this? Of course God would not appreciate this. Daniel decides in his heart to do what is pleasing to God, and he completely disregards (even to his own detriment) the commandment to eat that other food.
We live our lives therefore in all that we do in order to honor God. Take that point home with you (point #2).
The last point for this morning is a point that the Apostle Paul tried to make on this subject of morality to the Church in Corinth. The church back then did not get it. We know this from the history books. So, I really need your concentration and utmost attention to this idea. Okay? Ready? Open your hearts and minds! Reading from 1 Corinthians 8:10-11, “For if others see you eating in the temple of an idol, might they not, since their conscience is weak, be encouraged to the point of eating food sacrificed to idols? So by your knowledge those weak believers for whom Christ died are destroyed.”
Remember, Daniel in his day in Babylon was not just anybody. He was the remnant of royalty from Judah. He was noble. Likewise, we should think of ourselves as noble Christians. If we noble Christians are simply going along with what the culture and society are saying, then those who look to us for leadership and a sense of what is truly godly in this world are lost, and Christ’s death means nothing to them.
When Christians do not lead moral lives it becomes a stumbling block to others whose lives would be saved unto Christ. Jesus himself said in Mark 9:42, “If anyone of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believes in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea.” Christ was not talking to the Sadducees or Pharisees at that moment; He was talking to His Disciples. He was talking to those followers who would come after Him. He was talking to you and me.
What this means in modern terms is that you, as a follower of Christ, have an influence over other people’s lives that you might not even recognize. You are an influential person! You are a person of great influence, in fact. What you say and think matters more in this world. When everybody else has lost hope, they will turn to you because you have the hope of Christ. When everybody else has lost direction in their lives, they will turn to you because you are following the one true Way.
We have not gotten to the part in our Sunday evening Bible Study of the Book of Revelation about the opening of the Book of Life in heaven, but imagine if you will this morning that there is a Book of Life in heaven. God is writing everything down. Now, imagine that not only do you get an honorable mention in that book for your faith in Christ, but indeed you get a whole chapter with your name as the chapter heading! Just like Daniel got a book named for him in the Bible, you have at least a chapter in the Book of Life with your name on it. In your chapter God will place all the names of the people who have been influenced by your faith in Christ.
Let me now recapitulate my three points then: 1) Do not be an anonymous Christian. 2) Make sure everything you do is an honor to God. And, 3) know that your life and faith can and will influence others. Point 4, God will bless you just like Daniel!
Amen.