Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2291
“But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king’s meat, nor with the wine which he drank.” Daniel 1:8.
VERY much of our future life will depend upon our earliest days. I like a remark of Mr. Ruskin’s that I remember to have read, though I cannot quote it verbatim. He says, “People often say, ‘We excuse the thoughtlessness of youth,’” but he says, “No, it never ought to be excused. I had far rather hear of thoughtless old age, when a man has done his work— but what excuse can be found for a thoughtless youth? The time for thought is at the beginning of life and there is no period which so much demands, or so much necessitates, thoughtfulness as our early days.” I would that all young men would think so. They say that they must sow their “wild oats.” No, no, my dear young Friend, think before you sow such seed as that, and remember what the reaping will be. See whether there is not better corn to be found than wild oats and try to sow that. Then think how you will sow it and when you will sow it, for, if you do not think about the sowing—
“What will the harvest be?”
If there is any time when the farmer should think, it is surely in the early stages of the plowing and the sowing. If he does not think, then, it will be of small use for him to think afterwards.
Daniel was a young man, and he did think. It was his glory that he so thought that he came to a purpose, and he purposed, not with a kind of superficial, “I will,” but he, “purposed in his heart,” and gave his whole self to a certain definite purpose which he deliberately formed. He was a young man—he was also a captive—and that rendered it the more remarkable that he should come to such a decision. He had been stolen away from his father’s house and carried into a foreign land. And you know what men say, “When you are in Rome, you must do as Rome does.” But here was a young man in Babylon who would not do what Babylon did—a youth in a king’s court who would not eat what the king ate, or drink what the king drank—a captive whose very name had been changed in order to make him forget his country and his God, for the change in name, as I told you in the reading, was meant to be significant of a change in religion.
But though they might change Daniel’s name, they could not change his nature, nor would he give up anything that he believed to be right. Captive as he was, he had a right royal soul, and he was as free in Babylon as he had been at Jerusalem. And he determined to keep himself so, for he, “purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king’s meat, nor with the wine which he drank.” Oh, that we had a multitude of young men who knew how to put their feet down! We have a great number, now, who are watching to see where to put their foot down, and they will try to put it down, not where it is most solid ground, but where it is most turfy, and easy, and soft to the feet! May God give us back the old grit that used to be in old-fashioned Christians, to whom custom was nothing, but God’s Word was everything—to whom it mattered not whether it brought loss or gain—but they did the right and followed the right, cost what it might!
Now, it was because Daniel, while yet a youth, a captive, a student, was so decided in what he did, that his later life became so bright. He would never have been called, “a man greatly beloved,” if he had not been made, by Grace, a youth greatly decided. Neither would he have advanced to the reign of Cyrus, as we read just now, if he had not stood firm in the reign of Nebuchadnezzar. You shall read the evening of life in the morning of life, and you shall decide what your evening is to be by what your morning is! God help you, who are beginning life, for, if God begins with you and you begin with God, your life will be one of happy usefulness which will have a truly blessed end!
I am going to talk just now, not so much about Daniel, as about the whole subject of a spirit of decision in such a time as this. Our first head will be that there are temptations to be resisted by us, as there were by Daniel. Secondly, there are right methods of resisting temptation. And, thirdly, there are certain points which will have to be proved by experience while we are in this process of fighting against temptation.
I. THERE ARE TEMPTATIONS TO BE RESISTED. There never was a man yet who had faith and who had not
trials. Wherever there is faith in God, it will be tested at some time or other—it must be so. It cannot be that the house shall be built, even on the Rock, without the rains descending, the floods coming and the winds beating upon that house. Though it shall not fall, yet it shall be tried by a force that would make it fall were it not Divinely sustained.
Now, first, look at Daniel’s temptations. In his case, the temptation was very specious. He was told to eat the portion of food that, every day, came from the king’s table. Could he need any better? And he was commanded to drink the measure of wine, generally the best in the world, that was sent from the king’s table. He might have fared like a prince! Could he have any objection to that? He had no objection except this—that it would defile him. Do you understand what he meant by that? There were certain foods used by the Babylonians, such as the flesh of swine, the flesh of the hare and of certain fish, that were unclean, and when these came from the king’s table, if Daniel ate them, he would be breaking the Law of Moses as given in the Book of Leviticus, and thus he would be defiled. Remember that the food which was allowed to Israel was to be killed in a certain way. The blood must be effectually drained from the flesh, for he that ate the blood defiled himself thereby.