DO OR DIE DECISIONS
Dr. W. A. Criswell
Daniel 1:8-9
05-03-70
As we return to the book of
Daniel, they are not only broadcasted and listened, but there are two wonderful
court reporters, Mrs. Brewster and Mrs. Lancaster, who are taking them down. Today, Mrs. Lancaster—now, honey, you
needn’t take that down, because I can’t publish that in the book. But they’re taking the sermons down and they
will be published in a book. The first
volume on the book of Daniel was published a year and a half ago. And the second volume was supposed to have
come out last fall. But I got so busy
trying to be the ball of contention of the Southern Baptist Convention, until I
didn’t have time to study to prepare the sermons. And I can’t preach without studying. So, during these days of my presidency, I have been preaching in
an area that is very familiar to me in the New Testament. But I am going back now to the book of
Daniel. And these sermons will comprise
the second volume on that great prophecy.
The title of the message is: Do or
Die Decisions. In this first
chapter of the book of Daniel, after we have been introduced to the young men,
Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah, it says that:
The king appointed them a daily
provision of the king’s meat, and of the wine which he drank: so nourishing
them, that at the end of three years that they might stand before the king…
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: therefore he requested
to the prince of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself.
Now God had brought Daniel into favor
and tender love with the prince of the eunuchs.
And the prince of the eunuchs said unto
Daniel, I fear my Lord the king, who hath appointed your meat and your drink:
for why should he see your faces worse looking than the children which are of
your sort? Not only that, you, ye shall
endanger my head to the king.
Then said Daniel to Melzar, whom the
prince of the eunuchs had set over (the young men).
Prove thy servants, I beseech thee, ten
days; and let them give us pulse to eat (let’s say vegetable soup–let them give
us vegetable soup to eat) and water to drink. (And I would have loved that
along with some popcorn and homemade ice cream.)
Then let our countenances be looked
upon—(Now, dear, you can’t put that into the book either.) Then let our countenances be looked upon
before thee, and the countenance of the children that eat the portion of the king’s
meat: and as thou seest, deal with thy servants (then judge us).
So he consented to them in this matter,
and proved them ten days.
And at the end of ten days their
countenances appeared fairer and fatter in flesh than all the children which
did eat the portion of the king’s meat.
So Melzar took away the portion of their
meat, and the wine which they should drink; and (gave them vegetable soup) gave
them pulse.
And as for these four children, God gave
them knowledge and skill in all learning and wisdom.
Now,
that’s the background for the message: Do or Die Decisions—Daniel’s purpose
of heart.
All of life is filled with crisis
and decisions. Almost every day there
will be a fork in the road. Where you
are today, is because of the turn in the road that you took yesterday. It is one of the wonderments of my own mind
that God has so largely made these decisions to be faced in the youth time of
our life. Practically every
life-coloring decision that we make has been made when we were young. Whether a man is a Christian or not is mostly
decided when he is a child. The friends
that we choose, the life’s companion that we marry, the vocation that we are to
follow, almost all of these decisions are made when we are young.
Daniel, as the scriptures say, was
still flourishing in the first year of king Cyrus. When I read this text, I am in 605 B.C. When I come to the first year of Cyrus, I am in 536 B.C., seventy
years later. And this man, Daniel, has
been a prophet through those years and years.
And at the age of possibly ninety, when he was thrown into the den of
lions, he is still the true servant of God.
But that commitment and that turn that made him so effective in the
choice of the Lord was taken when he was a youth.
The farmer reaps the harvest in the fall
because of the plowing and planting he has done in the spring. And so the turn of life that makes us the
men and women that we are, are due to the choices that we made when we were
young. And those choices, in most
instances, are very difficult.
This young man Daniel and his three
companions were fed with the meat that the king did eat. And they drank from the wine that he
drank. Why would anybody object to
that—to eat the king’s meat and to drink the king’s wine? They were dined and feted like princes and
the sons of the monarch himself. Why
should they object to that?
It was the custom in ancient Babylon
that those who were to be men around the throne of the king were to be fed the
dainties of the king’s table. That was
the way that they were trained. And it
was the custom of the land for them so to fashion their lives according to this
rule of the king. Why should anybody
object to that? When in Rome, we’re to
do as Romans do. And when we are in
Babylon, we are to do as the Babylonians do.
We are to follow the customs, and the fancies, and the fashions of the
day and of the age in which we live.
What they think, we’re to think. What they do, we’re to do. How they act, we’re to act. Where they go, we’re to go. This was a part of the great difficulty that
the young man faced. And not only that,
but he was a slave in the court of the king.
He was an alien and a foreigner.
Had he been free-born, had he been a Chaldean, had he been a citizen, it
might have been easier to decide. But
he was a slave and he was a captive in a foreign court. And as he faced that decision, it possibly
would have cost him his head to refuse the king’s meat and the king’s
wine. His career was at stake. His advancement was at stake—and, above
that, his very life.
But the matter concerned a great
religious decision. And the only
decisions that really matter are those that are made before God. You see, it was the purpose of the king that
these young men should be wooed and weaned away from the religion of Almighty
God. And they were to be become
idolaters, and Chaldeans, and worshipers before Bel-Merodach. That was the reason that the king changed
their names: For all four of these boys were named in honor of the great, true
Almighty who reigns over the earth:
Daniel, “Daniel”—“God’s my judge;” “Hananiah”—“God is
gracious;” “Mishael”—“who is
like the Lord?;” “Azariah”—“God is strong.” Evidently, they were born into godly homes and their parents had
named them after the great Almighty in heaven.
But it was the purpose of Nebuchadnezzar to change all that.
They were to be taken from their
fathers, and their homeland, and their fate, and they were to be introduced
into the religion and the idolatry of the Chaldeans. So they changed the name of Daniel to “Belteshazzar”—“a servant
of Baal.” And they changed the name of
Hananiah to “Shadrach”—“in the name of (some God whose name we don’t even
know).” And they changed the name of
Mishael to “Meshach,” again the name of a God who’s been lost from the annals
of time. And they changed the name of
Azariah to “Abednego”—“a servant of Nego.”
And the purpose of the whole outline was to make them forget God and to
be enmeshed in the idolatry and the culture of the Chaldeans.
And this fare that they were to eat
and to drink was likewise purposed for making idolaters and Chaldeans out of
them. For you see, Babylon was a city
dedicated by the religious, by the religiosity, of the king to
Bel-Merodach. Babylon was one of the
most spectacular cities the earth has ever seen. These ancients tell us that the wall around it was three hundred
feet high. It was eighty feet
broad. That the Euphrates River flowed
through it and was separated into beautiful canals that made a Venice out of
that interior city. It was a veritable
civic empire within those walls, fifty to sixty miles in length.
And the king’s palace was a glory to
behold—great walled domain itself. Vast
brilliant hunting scenes, painted on the wall of the palace. And on the inside, in deference to his
Armenian mountain wife, he had built gardens, upon gardens, upon gardens, upon
gardens until they looked like rising mountains. And the ancients called it one of the seven wonders of the
world—Nebuchadnezzar’s hanging gardens, rising gardens.
But out of all of the spectaculars
of ancient Babylon, there was none, not even the king’s palace or not even his
mountain gardens, like the great temple to Bel-Merodach. Those ancient people say that it towered in
the air over six hundred feet high. And
some of those ancients say that not even the Karnak temple of Egyptian
Thebes—and moderns say that not even St. Sophia of Constantinople or St. Peters
in Rome—rival the grandeur of that primeval sanctuary. And it was food and drink that had been
offered unto Bel-Merodach in that great temple that was laid before Daniel and
his three Hebrew friends.
The fare was a part of their
Chaldeanization and their introduction to idolatry. As Daniel faced it, the scriptures say that he purposed in his
heart that he would not defile himself with a portion of the king’s meat, nor
with the wine that he drank. In other
words, he refused to be melted down into just another Chaldean.
He remembered the Lord God; and he
remembered the faith of his fathers; and he remembered the people to whom God
had given the promises; and he remembered the law of Moses and those Leviticus
rites concerning clean and unclean. And
he purposed in his heart that he would die rather than fail the faith—turn
aside from the true worship of his God.
And that’s why I say that the decision is religious; and that any
ultimate decision that matters, that changes life is religious. And if it is not religious, it is
peripheral, and temporary, and without depth.
I could not help but be interested
in the daily newspaper about two days ago.
There was a very large picture of Tom Landry, who is the coach of the
professional football team in Dallas—the Dallas Cowboys. And he says in the article that Landry’s
main interest is in confronting young people with the challenge and advantage
of following Jesus Christ. He’s
described as the vice-president and the tireless worker of a nationwide
organization called the Fellowship of Christian Athletes of which about half a
dozen or a dozen of our fine men belong to it.
And he says: "Harlen Jones scared me"—(now we’re quoting Tom
Landry)—“Harlen Jones scared me at a drug seminar recently when he said that we
will lose fifty percent of your young people in the next ten years to
drugs." Quoting Tom Landry:
"The only successful cure for drug addicts today has been spiritual
experience. If it can solve the
problems of addicts, a spiritual confrontation with God, think what young
people could do if they discover Christ before getting involved in such problems
as drugs."
That’s what I’ve been saying,
preaching this Word: The decision is
religious. And when a youth or anybody,
turns aside from God, the whole world of darkness, and depravity, and
compromise, and sin, and waste, and sorrow, and heartache, and destruction—the
whole world of the abyss, yawns before them.
But if you can get a youth to give his heart to God, and to accept
Christ as his Savior and to follow Jesus, you’ve solved every problem that he
faces in his life. Every one of them:
The problem of law, and the problem of morality, and the problem of
righteousness, and the problem of virtue and cleanness and young manhood and
young womanhood; and marriage and home and children and destiny and judgment
and death and eternity—if you can get him to give his heart to God and to
purpose in his heart, it will solve every problem we face. But the heartache and the tears that
accompany so many of our fathers and mothers is this: We can’t get our children
to see in God and in Christ the dearest friend any youth ever had and the
holiest road down which any youth could ever walk.
Now, we continue: Daniel purposed in his heart, he’d stay by
the faith and by the Lord. And he was
lovable and gracious in that great decision.
God brought Daniel into favor and tender love with the prince of the
eunuchs. He was not only a fine, fine
young man, and he was not only very determined in that commitment to stay with
the Lord, but he was sweet and lovable and gracious in that determination.
I remember one time Dr. W. R. White
saying to me: "It’s a tragedy that the men who are the most fundamental
are, for the most part, most caustic and rasping and brackish in their
spirit." Isn’t that a shame? That firmness turns into obstinacy, and
commitment turns into bigotry; and a great devotion turns into
cantankerousness. That’s a
tragedy! Of all the people in the world
who ought to be gracious, and lovable, and kind, and generous hearted, are the
people who love God the most.
Now, I want to show you something
that happens when you do that. There
are a thousand ways to say a thing; and there are another thousand ways to do a
thing. And if you’ve loved God and
you’ve committed your life to Him—and of course, live among a worldly world,
and among an ungodly people, how vital it is that what we do, we do generously,
and lovably, and kindly, and sweetly—and God does something! When Daniel made that purpose in his heart
and sweetly, graciously avowed that purpose, God did something for Daniel. God intervened in his behalf. And God brought Daniel into the favor and
tender love of the prince under whom he was being educated.
I don’t think God lets anybody down,
ever! Never! who places his trust in Him; and who sweetly, and beautifully, and
generously, and graciously gives himself to that determination. I think God clears the way. I think God intervenes and sees him
through.
I want to tell you a story that I
read this week in an old, old, old, old, old book. I don’t know how old that book is. But I have it in my library, two or three small collections from
preachers who have been dead for a generation.
And in one of those old, old, old books I read this story: That there
was a boy in Massachusetts whose father was a drunkard and whose family was wastrel. And there was a godly man in that town who
took an interest in a boy in that family.
The young fella seemed to have promise, and he made the debating team in
the school. And that godly friend
introduced that boy—out of such a wretched drunkard of a family—introduced the
boy to the Lord; and, before the Lord, made the boy promise to take a vow he
would never drink. Never!
As the young fella grew up, he was
entrusted with a message to John Quincy Adams, the president of the United
States. And when he came to Washington
and stood before the president, John Quincy Adams, being from Massachusetts and
knowing of the background of that boy, welcomed him and said: "Tonight you shall eat dinner with me
and with some of the great leaders of our nation." And the boy sat down in the place of honor
in the White House with the president of the United States and the leaders of
our nation. Before the president, was
the glass of wine; and before the boy was the glass of wine—and before all the
congressional leaders who were there.
So the president lifted up his glass to drink with the boy at his right
hand. And the boy flushed and blushed
and finally said: "Mr. President, I have taken a vow I will never
drink. And I cannot drink!"
The president put his glass down and he
said to the leaders of the nation: "No wine will be drunk at this table
tonight." And every man put his
glass away. And the Congress heard
about it; and the daily newspapers heard about it; and the whole world heard
about it. And in the days and the years
that followed, no finer representative of government ever came out of
Massachusetts than Henry Wilson who was elected and sat down in the chair as
vice-president of the United States of America.
I believe that: When a boy, when a
girl, when a man or a woman, gives himself with great love and devotion in
kindness and in humility to the Spirit and the work of Christ, I think God goes
before him. I think God intervenes in
his behalf. And I think God sees him
through.
We continue: If you have a faith in the
Lord, it will be tried. It just
will! There’s nobody who believes in
God who does not go through that fiery trial.
Welcome it! Welcome it! We’re not hesitant or reluctant to put our
faith to the test. Welcome it—any
trial. Daniel said that: “Take away
this food; take away this wine, let us eat vegetables. Try us, and at the end of the period of
trial here for ten days, look at us and see if our faith has not been confirmed
from Heaven. Try us!”
Even the man who built his house on
the rock was tried! For the Lord says: “The rains descended and the floods came
and the winds blew and beat on that house.”
All of us go through that trial.
We shall not cringe, nor shall we be fearful, nor shall we even be
reluctant. “Fine!” Whatever the trial, we have committed our
hearts to God. “Here I stand, so help
me, I can do no other!” And for us to
be, in our hearts and spirit, cowards and afraid—for any trial is not worthy of
our heavenly commitment:
Am I a soldier of the cross,
A follower of the lamb,
Am I afraid to own His cause,
Or blush to speak His Name?
Must I be carried [to the skies]
On flow’ry beds of ease,
While others fought to win the prize,
And sailed through bloody seas?
…Sure I must fight if I would reign;
Increase my courage, Lord!
I’ll bear the toil, endure the pain,
Supported by Thy Word.
[Isaac
Watts, 1709]
A trial—and don’t be afraid, it comes,
but God will see you through. This
purpose of heart, this “do or die” decision—and God calls us to make it for
Him. Do it! Like Joseph did it—finally in the dungeon in Egypt, but God saw
him through. Like Moses did it—refused
to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter, that he might suffer affliction
with the people of God. Do it! Like Hananiah and Mishael and Azariah did
it—rather be thrown in the fiery furnace than to deny the faith. Do it!
Like the sweet and beautiful song of commitment and invitation we sing:
I have decided to follow Jesus,
No turning back, no turning back….
Should no one join me, I still will
follow.
The world behind me, the cross before
me.
No turning back, no turning back.
I have decided—and Daniel purposed in
his heart. Do it! And God bless and sanctify that holy and
heavenly commitment. I’ll be standing
right there, on that side of our table of the Lord’s Supper, will you come and
stand with me? “Today, Pastor, I give
my heart to Christ and I’m coming. I
make that decision now, and I’m coming.”
A family you, placing that circle of
that home in the fellowship of this dear church: “Here I am and here I come; my
wife, my children, all of us are coming today.”
Will you? Make the decision in your heart now! In the balcony round, on this lower floor and in a moment when we
stand up to sing, standing up coming, on the first note of that first stanza:
“Here I am Pastor, and here I come.” Do
it now, make it now, while we stand and while we sing.
.
