Culture Shock
Tom Shrader introduces a six-week study of Daniel chapters 1–6, setting the stage with Nebuchadnezzar's conquest of Jerusalem and his deliberate effort to assimilate Israel's brightest young men into Babylonian culture. Daniel's refusal to eat the king's food illustrates the power of pre-deciding convictions before pressure arrives, rooted in thorough knowledge of Scripture. The overarching theme is God's absolute sovereignty over history and rulers, and the call for believers to live faithfully and distinctively in an environment hostile to biblical values.
“Daniel could discern the fact that the Babylonian culture was in conflict with the word of God, and he had the maturity and moral courage to say a firm no to cultural pressures.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Faithful
Recorded: 2012 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 49 min
Themes: conviction, faithfulness, culture, peer pressure, identity, standing firm, sovereignty, obedience, feeling pressure to compromise, living in a secular workplace, young adult, new believer, navigating hostile culture, student, struggling with identity, feeling spiritually isolated
Scripture: Daniel 1, Daniel 1:8, Daniel 4:29, Genesis 37–50, Genesis 39, Leviticus 11, Deuteronomy 14, Exodus 34:15, Romans 8:14, Romans 12:2, Matthew 6:33, Luke 16:10, John 17, 1 Peter 1:14, Ephesians 5:25, James 2
Theological Themes: divine sovereignty, biblical inerrancy, sanctification, cultural engagement, covenant faithfulness, scriptural authority, theology of history, holy living
Full Transcript
Introduction to Daniel
Open your Bibles to the book of Daniel. If you don't have a Bible, raise your hand — they will be working their way around the room. If you get a Bible from us, it is page 478. We are in the second part of a series titled *Faithful*. The first part was a study in the life of Joseph, looking at Genesis chapters 37 through 50. Part two is an examination of the first half of the book of Daniel.
Daniel has 12 chapters and two main sections. The first section, chapters 1 through 6, is a narrative — the story of Daniel and his friends. As we study these chapters, Daniel and his friends are our main characters, but God is the main character. My fear in using a word like "story" is that you might think this is allegory or fiction, but it is not. It is an account of historical events. Those first six chapters will be the focus of our study over the next six weeks. Chapters 7 through 12 contain Daniel's prophetic dreams, but we will stay with those first six chapters.
I have taught these first six chapters of Daniel probably four or five times, but I tried the best I could to start afresh. I did not go to old notes or anything previous — I wanted to come to it as fresh as possible. I wanted to stay within the context of the idea of faithfulness, which is what we saw in Joseph's life and what we see here in Daniel's life: how do you survive in the midst of a really hostile environment?
The Relevance of Daniel Today
One author writes this: "A study of the book of Daniel gives the meaning of history more clearly than any other portion of the Bible. And what is more, it tells us how to live for God in ungodly times like ours." You are going to be reminded over and over again of God's control over history, God's control over kings and rulers and presidents, the perseverance of faith, and what it means to live for God in the midst of real hostility. To me, this fits very well and very timely into the world we live in.
Daniel is a foreigner in the land of Babylon. He is one who subscribes to cultural values that are radically different from the world in which he lives — not unlike us. The key verse in chapter 1 is verse 8: "Daniel made up his mind that he would not defile himself." Some translations say he "determined" or "resolved." It is the idea of purposing something in one's heart. In the midst of the hostile environment that you and I live in, we need to resolve. We understand the conflict. We understand that God's agenda and man's agenda, God's values and man's values, are typically different.
When Augustine wrote *The City of God*, that was the idea he was exploring — there is a city driven by godly principles and a city driven by human principles. Along those same lines, Daniel Campbell writes this about the book of Daniel: "Daniel could discern the fact that the Babylonian culture was in conflict with the Word of God, and he had the maturity and moral courage to say a firm no to cultural pressures. Involved in this is the clear implication that Daniel was a keen student of Scripture and that he had the ability to apply what he knew to the problem of daily life." That is what we are going to examine together.
Living Faithfully in a Hostile Culture
We are going to look at some incidents that took place 2,600 years ago and yet are as relevant today as the morning newspaper. How do you survive in this world? It feels — and I do not know if this is the result of getting old or simply the times we are in — but it feels like it is getting worse. It feels more and more hostile. It feels like you can no longer critically examine or even poke fun at anyone except born-again Christians. It feels like the decision-makers and the intelligentsia of our day are genuinely hostile to what we believe. They certainly were in Daniel's day, and I think they are in ours as well. Daniel would have been dealing with his own version of secular humanism.
By way of introduction, I want to divide our time a little bit today and a little bit next week. Next week, being the first of July — close to the Fourth of July — I want to speak to this idea of church and state and how all of this plays out, because that is really what all six of these chapters are about. How do we live in this hostile environment? How do we maintain integrity when it is under fire?
Another author writes: "I do not know of any message that is so timely and valuable for Christians living in our own secular and materialistic times as that message of Daniel. Indeed, in Daniel, we have a stirring and helpful example of one who not only lived through such times and survived in them, but actually triumphed in them — excelled in public life to the glory of God. He did not compromise, did not bow to the world's idols. He was hated and plotted against, but he triumphed because he knew God, trusted Him, and decided to do whatever God told him to do, trusting that God would do what was best for him."
That is the backdrop. Daniel is a godly man living in a very ungodly place — a man of prayer, a man of God — and yet that is precisely what brings him into opposition with the people around him. One of the things I hope we see, and I feel a pull to say this clearly, is that when that kind of pressure comes, sometimes our instinct is to make a battle out of everything — to die on every hill.
culture, their language — all of it is Babylonian now, or Nebuchadnezzar wants it to be. And so he sets up this program to essentially reprogram them. He wants to take these bright young men and turn them into Babylonians.
Nebuchadnezzar's Reprogramming Strategy
The king's plan is deliberate and comprehensive. He is going to teach them the literature and language of the Chaldeans. He is going to feed them from his own table. He is going to give them new names. All of this is a systematic effort to strip away their identity and replace it with a Babylonian one. This is not accidental. This is intentional cultural assimilation by force.
Look at verse 5. The king appointed for them a daily ration from the king's food and from the wine which he drank, and appointed that they should be educated three years, at the end of which they were to enter the king's personal service. Now among them from the sons of Judah were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. Then the commander of the officials assigned new names to them. He assigned to Daniel the name Belteshazzar, to Hananiah Shadrach, to Mishael Meshach, and to Azariah Abed-nego.
This renaming is significant. In the ancient Near East, a name was not merely a label. A name carried meaning. It carried identity. It carried allegiance. The Hebrew names these young men carried were God-honoring names. Daniel means "God is my judge." Hananiah means "the Lord shows grace." Mishael means "who is what God is." Azariah means "the Lord helps." Every one of those names points to Jehovah. And Nebuchadnezzar's officials systematically replace every one of them with names that point to Babylonian gods. Belteshazzar, Shadrach, Meshach, Abed-nego — these are names tied to the pantheon of Babylon.
So you can change the food, you can change the language, you can change the name. What you cannot change — and this is what the rest of the chapter is going to show us — is the conviction of a heart that is genuinely committed to God.
Daniel's Conviction and Creative Resistance
Verse 8. But Daniel made up his mind that he would not defile himself with the king's choice food or with the wine which he drank. So he sought permission from the commander of the officials that he might not defile himself.
Now stop there for just a moment, because this is important. Daniel does not stage a protest. Daniel does not write a manifesto. Daniel does not gather the other young men and lead a rebellion. What Daniel does is go quietly and respectfully to the man in charge and ask for a different arrangement. That is worth noticing. He has a conviction. The conviction puts him in direct tension with the king's command. And yet his response is neither capitulation nor confrontation for its own sake. It is a creative, humble, respectful proposal.
Why does Daniel object to the food? There are a couple of likely reasons. The food from the king's table would almost certainly have been offered to idols before it was served. It also would not have been prepared according to the dietary laws that God had given Israel. Either reason — or both together — would have been sufficient grounds for Daniel to consider this food defiling. This was not a trivial personal preference. This was a matter of covenant faithfulness.
Now look at what happens next. Verse 9. Now God granted Daniel favor and compassion in the sight of the commander of the officials. Do not miss those words. God granted it. Daniel makes his request, but it is God who opens the door. This is consistent with everything the book of Daniel is going to show us — that God is sovereign, that He is working, that He is not absent even when His people are in captivity in a foreign land under a pagan king.
The Commander's Fear and Daniel's Proposal
The commander's response is honest. Verse 10. The commander of the officials said to Daniel, I am afraid of my lord the king, who has appointed your food and your drink. For why should he see your faces looking more haggard than the youths who are your own age? Then you would make me forfeit my head to the king.
This man is not hostile to Daniel. He is simply afraid. He has a real problem. If these young men show up looking worse than the others, his life is on the line. So Daniel goes a level down. He goes to the overseer, the man directly responsible for their day-to-day care, and he makes a proposal.
Verse 12. Please test your servants for ten days, and let us be given some vegetables to eat and water to drink. Then let our appearance be observed in your presence and the appearance of the youths who are eating the king's choice food, and deal with your servants according to what you see.
This is Daniel being shrewd without being dishonest. He is not demanding. He is proposing a test. He is essentially saying, give us ten days, and then you decide based on the evidence in front of you. He is offering the overseer a way to say yes without putting himself at unreasonable risk. That is wisdom. That is the kind of creative problem-solving that comes from a person who is committed to his convictions but is not looking for a fight.
God Honors Faithfulness
Verse 14. So he listened to them in this matter and tested them for ten days. At the end of ten days their appearance seemed better and they were fatter than all the youths who had been eating the king's choice food. So the overseer continued to withhold their choice food and the wine they were to drink and kept giving them vegetables.
God honors their faithfulness. Not in some vague spiritual sense — concretely, physically, visibly. These four young men look better than everyone else at the end of ten days. And so the arrangement continues.
Then look at verses 17 through 20. As for these four youths, God gave them knowledge and intelligence in every branch of literature and wisdom. Daniel even understood all kinds of visions and dreams. Then at the end of the days which the king had specified for presenting them, the commander of the officials presented them before Nebuchadnezzar. The king talked with them, and out of them all not one was found like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. So they entered the king's personal service. As for every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king consulted them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and conjurers who were in all his realm.
Ten times better. And notice the text is careful to tell us where that came from. God gave them knowledge and intelligence. God gave it. They are faithful, and God honors their faithfulness. Nebuchadnezzar set out to produce the best possible advisors for his court, and in the end, the four young men who refused to compromise their convictions are the ones who rise to the top.
What This Means for Us
Now let's bring this forward. We live in our own version of Babylon. The pressure to assimilate is real. The culture around us has its own version of the king's food, its own new names it would like to give us, its own literature and language it would like us to absorb until we forget who we are and whose we are. And the question Daniel puts in front of us is not whether we will feel that pressure — we will — but how we will respond to it.
We said at the beginning that Daniel's response is neither blind capitulation nor reckless confrontation. He does not simply go along. He also does not pick a fight for the sake of picking a fight. He identifies the specific point of conviction — the food, the defilement — holds that line, and then looks for a creative, respectful way to honor both his conscience and the legitimate authority he is under. There is a lesson in that posture that most of us need to sit with for a while.
Because the temptation for us, when we feel the tension between our faith and our culture, is to go to one of two extremes. We either quietly go along with things we know we should not, telling ourselves it is not that big a deal, or we dig in on every hill and treat every cultural difference as a battle to be won. Daniel shows us a third way. Know what you actually believe. Know why it matters. Hold that with conviction. And then engage the world around you with wisdom, humility, and creativity.
And underneath all of it, remember who the main character is. It is not Daniel. It is not Nebuchadnezzar. It is God. He is the one granting favor. He is the one giving knowledge and intelligence. He is the one who is sovereign over the king of Babylon, over the exile, over the whole story. The theme of Daniel is the same theme that runs through all of Scripture — there is not a maverick molecule loose in the universe that could usurp the plan of God. He is sovereign over the mightiest empires on earth, and He is sovereign over your life, even in the moments when it does not feel that way.
Assimilation by Indoctrination
Nebuchadnezzar's strategy was clear: identify these young men and assimilate them into Babylonian culture. He was not going to directly combat what they believed. He was simply going to overwhelm them with something else. By teaching the Babylonian language, literature, and customs over a period of three years, he intended to gradually erode their memories until they would walk like, talk like, and look like Babylonians. That was his hope, and that was his method.
This is the whole idea of the frog in the kettle. If the water is boiling and you drop the frog in, he jumps out. But if you place the frog in tepid water and slowly turn up the heat, he is boiled without ever realizing what happened. You simply immerse him. That is essentially what has happened historically over the last fifty, sixty, seventy years here in the United States of America. There has been a slow boil taking place, so that now people can say things that are clearly anti-God and anti-biblical, and you are ridiculed if you object. It has simply become the world we live in.
Hooked on the Culture
Under the king's command, Daniel and his companions were going to be indoctrinated and stripped away from their heritage in a couple of deliberate ways. Verse 5 describes the first: they would be given the daily ration from the king's choice food. The message was essentially, "I don't know what you've been eating back in Jerusalem, but we have really good stuff here." Along with the food came the wine. He appointed that they should be educated for three years, and at the end of that time they would be ready for the king's service.
The Taking of Names
Among those selected were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. The commander of the officials assigned new names to them: Daniel was called Belteshazzar, Hananiah was called Shadrach, Mishael was called Meshach, and Azariah was called Abednego. Names meant something in that day and age. We give children names today primarily because of the way they sound, perhaps something a little unusual or different, but in that culture names carried deep significance.
The change of names was designed to describe, if not immediately then over a period of time, a change of allegiance. Daniel means "God is judge." Belteshazzar takes the name of Bel, one of the chief false gods, and means "Bel protects life" — so God was my judge, but not anymore. Hananiah meant "Jehovah is gracious," while Shadrach means "the command of Aku," one of the foreign gods. Mishael means "who is like God," and Meshach means "who is that, and who is Aku." Azariah means "the Lord helps," and Abednego means "servant of Nego." The renaming was designed, again, to gradually separate these young men from their past.
The Power of Remembrance
One of the most powerful words you will find in Scripture, and in your own mind, is the word *remember*. "Do this in remembrance of Me." That is what makes history so important. We live at a time when people are commemorating the War of 1812 and no one can tell you what it was about. They tried to do a reenactment up in northern New York and did not have enough Americans to participate, so they used Canadians. No one knows history — and not just dates and places and times, but the deeper questions: Why? Why is it this way? What really matters? It has been a gradual erosion, and now the stakes are enormous.
Daniel's Resolve
Consider the situation these boys were in. At fourteen, fifteen, or sixteen years old, they were in all likelihood severed from any family support structure, placed in a foreign land in a hostile, secular environment. Their very identities were being taken from them. They had the full force of Babylon — specifically the king himself — invested in reshaping their lives. They were in a spiritual battle.
Then comes verse 8, the key verse: Daniel made up his mind. Depending on your translation, you may see the word "determined" or the word "resolve." Resolve means this: to purpose in one's heart. It is an internal process. So much of the external battle we want to fight — do this, don't do that — is in reality settled first in the mind. Resolve means to purpose in one's heart. It is the result of Daniel's thoughtful, prayerful, sober thought process, in which he internally decided that the Word of God would determine the choices and decisions of his life. He knew the Word of God well enough to know what needed to be done, and then to apply it in life.
That is the same world you are in. You carry a dual passport — citizen of the United States, citizen of heaven. The Bible tells us that at times we are aliens, we are foreigners here. You have a different set of values and a different culture. Your core beliefs are different from the world around you.
The Battle Begins in the Mind
"Do not be conformed to this world" — Romans 12:2. J.B. Phillips translates it this way: "Don't let the world squeeze you into its mold." The verse continues: "but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." We want to look at behavior, which is understandable, but if we don't change the heart and the mind, the behavior doesn't matter. The real game is played in the mind.
I haven't exercised much at all lately. I haven't been feeling particularly well, I'm a little short of breath, and I have a thousand excuses. I get in the car, start to drive, the first light is red, and I think, "See, that is God telling me I shouldn't go." If something comes up — a phone call, anything — I take it as a sign I need to stay home.
Something interesting happened to me in the last month. My wife Sandy works out a great deal. When she was a little younger she did triathlons, she runs marathons — now half marathons — and currently, because of a hamstring problem, she gets up every morning at 4:50 and goes swimming. She swims intensively.
Here is what I realized: I always assumed she was simply someone who enjoys it. What I discovered is that she hates it as much as I do. It is not that she is physically stronger than I am — though unfortunately she is. She is mentally stronger than I am.
That alarm goes off at 4:50. It is the strangest alarm — a floating, gentle ding, ding, ding, ding, and then after five minutes it gets intense. Her approach is this: she lies there for five minutes, and then she goes. She does not think about it, she does not analyze it, she does not process whether her back hurts or her knee hurts. She gets out of bed and puts that swimsuit on, and the moment she does, she is committed. I'll say I'm laying back down, and she says, "No — I've got this suit on, I'm going." But it all starts in the mind. That is where the battle begins.
Where the Mind Goes, the Heart Follows
In the negative sense, consider any temptation: if your mind goes there, in all likelihood your heart is going to follow, and then your actions are going to follow. I have a favorite story that illustrates this perfectly.
A woman came up to me one day and said, "Can you pray for me?" I asked what I was praying for, and she said, "I have a box of turtles at home in the refrigerator." Remember turtles? Caramel with pecans and chocolate over them. She asked me to pray that she wouldn't eat them.
I said yes, but I also gave her some advice: just go home and eat them all at once and get it over with, because you are going to eat those turtles. Those turtles were eaten at the point of purchase. You are not going to buy turtles, take them home, and throw them away. At the very least you will say, "I'll finish this box and then never buy them again." The decision was already made in the mind the moment she put them in the cart.
Daniel Pre-Decides His Convictions
Daniel resolved in his mind. He purposed in his heart. He made a declaration — he pre-decided his decisions. He knew what he believed. He knew conflict was coming, and he decided that what God said would trump what man said, that God's agenda would trump man's agenda, that God's values were the ones that would drive his life. That immediately put him in conflict with the world around him.
Now, conflict does not have to mean a battle. Sometimes you can be creative, and I want to encourage you in that. Verse 8 tells us: "Daniel made up his mind that he would not defile himself with the king's choice of food and with the wine which he drank, so he sought permission from the commander of the officials that he might not defile himself." Daniel identifies the problem, names it honestly, and looks for a constructive path forward.
There were probably one or two reasons — possibly both — why this food was a problem for him. Most likely, the food he was going to be given was not kosher. It would not have been in line with the dietary laws laid out in Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14, which specify what can and cannot be eaten — no rabbit, no pork, no camel, no meat that has not been drained of its blood. On top of that, the food would likely have included meat sacrificed to idols, which would conflict with Exodus 34:15. So in Daniel's mind, there was both a ceremonial and a moral compromise at stake.
Faithfulness in Small Things
Let me interject a very human observation here. You could probably build a case that says: Daniel, you are fourteen, fifteen, sixteen years old. You are nine hundred miles from home. Nobody is ever going to know. And even if they do know, they are not going to care. This is not the biggest issue in your life. But for Daniel, it was.
James Montgomery Boyce, whose writing I deeply appreciate, thought through this whole question of big things and little things in relation to this passage. He said this is a small thing — and then he added: that's the point. For it is in the small matters that great victories are won. This is where decisions to live a holy life are made. Not in the big things — though the big things come if the little things are not handled first.
Mastering the Mundane
If Daniel had said, "I want to live for God in big ways, but I'm not going to make a fool of myself in the trivial matters of eating and drinking the king's food," he would have never amounted to anything. Because he started out for God in the small things, God used him greatly. As Jesus says in Luke 16:10, "Whoever can be trusted with the very little can be trusted with much. Whoever is dishonest with very little will be dishonest with much." It's the little things.
The phrase I use — and this resonates with me — is mastering the mundane. We all want the big moments. College football season is getting close now; you can start to feel it coming. Right now players are in the weight rooms, they have informal meetings, they're lifting, doing a lot of work, and then they go into two-a-days with all that discipline. But here's the thing: most of us want to play the game. We love game day — coming out in clean uniforms, the stadium full, the band playing the fight song, 70,000 people cheering, the smell of brats cooking in the air. We want game day, but nobody wants to practice. Everybody wants to play in the tournament; nobody wants to hit balls. That's the master of the mundane.
We live in the mundane. Most of us trip up not in the big things of life but in the ordinary things. And there is a kind of slippery slope to it, although I generally dislike slippery slope arguments. You trip up in the little things and it seems like no big deal — you steal a paper clip. But understand: you're Bernie Madoff without imagination at that point. You're still stealing. It's a small thing, but compromise has entered, and that's how it sneaks in.
I was reading something on the fortieth or fiftieth anniversary of the Watergate break-in, and some of the men involved in the Nixon administration said something really interesting: they never set out for a big cover-up. It was just little things, and then the little things got away from them. That is exactly how compromise works.
God Honors Obedience
Daniel says he is not going to eat the king's food. That puts him in conflict with the world around him but aligns him with God. And look at verse 9: "God granted Daniel favor and compassion in the sight of the commander and of the officials." Then look at verse 17: God gave the young men knowledge and intelligence. They are obedient, and God gives. They do as God commands, and God acknowledges their obedience by giving them favor.
This should resonate with those of you who studied Genesis 39 with us. The Lord was with Joseph. Potiphar saw the Lord with Joseph, and Joseph found favor in Potiphar's sight. Joseph ends up in prison, and again the Lord is with Joseph, the chief jailer sees it, the Lord blesses him, and the chief jailer gives Joseph favor. The pattern is the same.
I want to be really honest here: that's one of the things I don't like about the book of Daniel. Every time he's in a jam, he gets out. He goes into the fire — he gets out. He goes to the lions — he gets out. What I don't like is the implication that if you do what God calls you to do, it will always have a happy ending. It doesn't always necessarily work out well circumstantially. But obedience is always the best thing to do. God is concerned about our obedience and about the process. He is not as concerned about end results, because end results are His responsibility.
Convictions vs. Beliefs
Daniel has here what we would call a conviction. We all have theories and beliefs — some things we hold loosely and could be talked out of, some things we've thought through pretty carefully but could still revisit. A conviction is something you firmly believe, you are not going to change your mind, and you are going to stand on it.
A man gave me a book this week on whether you can lose your salvation. He asked if I would read it. I said no. He asked if my mind was closed on this. I told him it was slam shut — reading it would be a waste of my time. That is a conviction. Now, give me something on end times and maybe I could be moved; I don't know. But some things are convictions, and Daniel has one here.
His conviction is in direct opposition to the authority over him. He could simply dig in his heels, or he could cave in — but caving in would violate what he believes. So Daniel gets creative. Look at verse 10. The commander of the officials says to Daniel, "I am afraid of my lord the king, who has appointed your food and your drink, for why should he see your faces looking more haggard than the youths who are your age? Then you would make me forfeit my head to the king." In other words: Daniel, if you don't eat this food and you fall behind the other young men in strength and appearance, the king will take my head for it.
Daniel seems to hear that and respond: I understand your concern — now you understand mine. Verse 11: "Daniel said to the overseer whom the commander of the officials had appointed over Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, 'Please test your servants for ten days...'"
Pre-Deciding Your Convictions
Daniel proposed a test to the overseer: give him and his companions only vegetables and water for ten days, then compare their appearance to the youths who had been eating the king's choice food. He didn't dictate what would happen if the test failed — he simply said, "Let our appearance be observed in your presence, in the appearances of the youth who are eating the king's choice food, and deal with your servants according to what you see." The overseer listened and agreed to the experiment.
At the end of ten days, their appearance seemed better — they were fatter than all the youths who had been eating the king's choice food. So the overseer continued to withhold the choice food and wine and kept giving them vegetables. God then gave the four youths exactly what they needed at that moment: knowledge and intelligence and every branch of literature and wisdom, and Daniel even understood all kinds of visions and dreams.
At the end of the days the king had specified for presenting them, the commander of the officials brought them before Nebuchadnezzar. Out of all the young men examined, no one was found like Daniel and Hananiah and Mishael and Azariah, so they entered into the king's personal service. As for every matter of wisdom and understanding about which the king consulted them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and conjurers who were in his realm. Daniel maintained this position for seventy years, continuing until the first year of Cyrus the king.
Unethical Pressure in the Modern Workplace
You have opposition too. A survey of 270 architects, engineers, contractors, and subcontractors asked whether they had experienced, encountered, or observed construction-related acts that would be considered unethical in the past year. Thirty-four percent said yes, and thirty-four percent said they had experienced unethical activities many times. The workplace costs employers roughly $700 billion in employee theft every year — employee theft is twice the rate of consumer fraud, accounting for about twenty cents of every employer's dollar.
Consider how much could change if people were simply honest at work. Healthcare costs alone could be cut by nearly forty percent if doctors, hospitals, and patients didn't cheat the system. Ethics failures reach into every sector: science, education, politics, and business alike. A joint research project between Emory University and Harvard involved forty-seven researchers, teachers, and scientists who collaborated to produce false information in order to secure a government grant. It is estimated that one out of every three people has been hired on a falsified resume — that has become something close to the norm.
This is not a problem confined to one corner of society. After six years of the Reagan administration, 110 senior officials were under investigation or indictment. This is not a partisan problem — it cuts across every institution. A friend was invited to speak to business majors at UCLA at the end of their freshman year, and the very first question he posed to the room was: do you know any successful business person who is honest? The assumption embedded in that question tells you everything about the world you are operating in. You already know this — you see it at work, in the office, in the casual suggestion to just get paid in cash.
Your Faith Is an Advantage, Not an Anchor
In the middle of all of this, there may be situations where you are placed in a position that conflicts with what you think or believe, and sometimes you do have to die on that hill. But Daniel's example suggests it is worth first looking for creative approaches to the pressures around you before concluding that a direct confrontation is the only option. What is clear is that you need to pre-decide your decisions. You need to establish your objectives in life and in the workplace before the moment of pressure arrives.
This is where it becomes critically important to understand what Daniel's life demonstrates and what is true in yours as well: your relationship with Christ is an advantage in the marketplace. Too many Christians see their faith as something holding them back — as if the ability to lie, steal, and cheat were the real path to the top. But consider honestly what any employer genuinely hopes to find in someone: a person oriented toward service, who is honest, and who works hard. That is exactly what this book shows us Daniel doing.
As was noted at the very beginning of this series, Daniel could discern the fact that the Babylonian culture was in conflict with the Word of God, and he had the maturity and moral courage to say a firm no to cultural pressures. Involved in this is the clear implication that Daniel was a keen student of the Scriptures, and he had the ability to apply what he knew to the problems of everyday life. What God tells you to do and how to live within God's value system is not an anchor holding you back. It is a foundation to stand on. Resolve begins there.
Seeking the Kingdom First
What do we resolve? We resolve to seek first the kingdom of God. That is Matthew 6:33. I resolve in my heart, regardless of what the culture says. Those of you who are parents, think about the things you tell your kids: "If everybody jumped off a bridge, would you?" "Be different. Just because everybody's doing it." And now you find yourself in that same setting, just as vulnerable to it. I seek first the kingdom of God.
To live a holy life — 1 Peter 1:14 — to be holy, as God says, as I am holy. J.C. Ryle in his book simply titled *Holiness* talks about the fact that holiness is not an option for us. In a sense, part of why Christ came into the world was to see us holy. Ephesians 5:25 says, "Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy by cleansing her and washing her through the word to present her to himself as a radiant church without stain or wrinkle, but holy and blameless."
Ryle goes on to point out that the only sound evidence you have that you are a Christian at all is your holiness. That is what James says. There is a living faith and a dead faith. There is a faith that says God is holy, but whose deeds do not match what it claims to believe. If I have faith but no works, James says, that is a dead faith. Paul says in Romans 8:14, those who are led by the Spirit are the sons of God — those who are holy. Ryle makes this further point: we must be holy because our present comfort depends much on it. He is not saying all adversity in our lives is due to sin, but some of it is.
In the World, Not of the World
We resolve that the kingdom of God will be number one. We set that at the forefront. We resolve not to be assimilated into the world. I became a Christian in 1980, and immediately you start to hear phrases. The one I heard in 1980, and have heard every year since — and probably said myself far too many times — is that we are to be in the world, but not of the world. There is that tension.
I really do believe we love the idea of drawing our circles tight and not engaging the world, but God did not call us to avoid engaging the world. He did not take Daniel and say, "Don't engage that world." Daniel is engaged in that world. Jesus, the night before He dies, prays in John 17, "Father, as you sent me into the world, I send them into the world." God called us to live in this world. Our lives are to be visible in this world, so that people see our good works and glorify our Father in heaven.
And there is that tension. How much into the world? How much can I do? How much should I do? How much is compromise? For many of you, those are individual decisions. You cannot all land at the same spot on some of these. You face it every way and every day — at work, at school, at home. To be in the world but not of the world is to not be conformed to the world's thinking, to not be driven by the same things.
What the World Values
It is pretty clear that what the world values is stuff — new stuff, the latest stuff, the best stuff. There is nothing wrong with stuff, but the question is how much. I have played two rounds of golf in three years. I picked up a club the other day, took four swings, and I was done. I went inside, turned on the Golf Channel, and there was an ad for a new driver. The first thing I thought was, "I need that driver. I'll bet I'd hit it further with that driver." It is just one more thing, one latest thing, and the world values that.
The world thinks you are a better person if you have a newer car. It is just the world's system, but God does not think that way. That is the whole story we looked at in 1 and 2 Samuel. Man looks at the outside; God looks at the heart. Man's value system is different from God's value system. Man says, look at the prestige, look at all of this. God says He does not really care that much about prestige.
Pre-Deciding What Is Right
Here is what else you need to resolve. You need to resolve to be devoted to God no matter what — to do what is right because it is right. You need to pre-decide that. You cannot wait until the heat of the moment. Is that not what we tell kids? You decide how far you will go before you are ever in a compromising situation. You make those decisions in the cool of the family room, not in the backseat of a car. Pre-decide your decisions. This is what I resolve.
It may be a simple illustration, but consider this: when that alarm goes off at 4:50, there is no way Sandy is not going to get up at 4:55. It is a done deal in her mind. "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." That is Daniel chapter one — how to live in the midst of a hostile environment, a hostile culture. And we will see there are times when you simply cannot find a win-win. You will just have to say, "This is what God says, and I am going to do it." Daniel looks for, and finds, a creative way to deal with all of it — which is pretty remarkable.
Closing Prayer
Father, thank You for this awesome and amazing truth. You are a holy God. You are the God who loves us and cares for us. Thank You that You are good to us — the great God, the faithful God. Pray now that in the midst of this hostile world in which we live, You will strengthen us, guide us, and lead us. Father, thank You for this.
There is an awesome and amazing truth. Strengthen your people. Lead us with Your word. We pray that to You in Christ's name. In Jesus' name, amen.