In my two previous posts we saw the first two ways that the enemy attacked Daniel. He tried to physically remove Daniel from the presence of God. When that didn't work, he tried to remove every trace of God from Daniel's life. Again, epic fail.
The final way we see that the enemy attacked Daniel was through temptation. Temptation is funny because it can come in so many ways. In this instance in Daniel Chapter 1, the temptation was not necessarily to sin, but merely to compromise.
Verse 5 tells us that the king assigned Daniel and all of the other young Hebrew slaves a daily amount of food and wine from the king’s own table. On the surface it seems like nothing would be wrong with that. They had a lot of work to do in their training, and they were going to need a lot of strength, and this was better food than they had probably ever had.
“But Daniel resolved not to defile himself with the royal food and wine…”(v.8). I see two reasons why Daniel’s decision was so important. First of all, the food was probably food that was forbidden for Jews to eat. The king’s meat more than likely included pork. As we saw earlier, Daniel was always reminded of God’s judgment over his life, and he didn’t want to face the judgment of God for any reason. Still this probably wouldn’t have been so bad. After all, all of the other young men were eating the king’s food.
But, the second reason for Daniel’s resolve is the most important. I believe that Daniel recognized the temptation to compromise. Eating forbidden food might not have been the most evil thing in the world, but if he compromised and disobeyed God in this one, little thing then it would be much easier to compromise later in something bigger.
Compromise is one of the biggest killers out there because it will gradually lead you to your destruction without you even knowing it. The enemy knows that. He doesn’t stop attacking someone just because they are strong in their faith. He knows that the strong would not intentionally fall in to sin, so he will attack with things that might not even be sin.
I don’t say this to puff myself up, but I don’t listen to secular music at all. My radio station in my car will never deviate from a Christian station. And if I’m not listening to the radio then I am listening to a Christian CD. I know the power of music in my life. Being a musician, I am always looking for ways to grow and stretch myself. Unfortunately, Christian music sometimes has a reputation of being average or even below average when it comes to quality. But God has called me to use music for his glory, and I don’t want to allow anything in my life that would lead me to create music for any other reason. There are many Christians, and many Christian musicians that don’t agree with my decision, but that is one area of my life that I will not compromise.
As children of God we must always keep our faith in front of us. We need to make a conscious decision of what we will allow into our lives and what we will not. Daniel drew a line in the sand and in essence said, “I will not allow anything into my life that could possibly lead me away from God.” Why is this important? We all know the story of Daniel in the lion’s den (Chapter 6). I believe that if Daniel had allowed himself to compromise early on, we would never have this story because Daniel would have eventually fallen in with the rest of the crowd. But because of Daniel’s resolve in the small matter of the king’s food, he was later able to stand against the king and continue to pray to the God of Israel when it was politically incorrect.
Ephesians 6:10-18 tells us that we are not wrestling against flesh and blood, but we are in a war against demonic powers. The only way that we can fight against them is to first decide to be strong in God’s power and stand firm in the full armor of God.
What areas have you allowed compromise into your life? Have you noticed yourself slowly drifting away from the Lord? Have you noticed yourself sin in ways that you thought you never would? I would venture to guess that if we could trace the origin of the sin, we could trace it back to a simple compromise that we allowed into our lives. It is time to put your foot down and draw a line in the sand and say, “No more! This is how I will live and I will not deviate from this path.” God will bless those who are faithful to Him, and there are great rewards for those who choose to stand for Him.
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