What Does It Mean to Be Pure

Introduction

Daniel the first chapter. Daniel chapter 1, which Brother Mark read for us just a little while ago. We’ll be going there in just a little while. I thank Michael for leading that song. I had no idea what he was going to sing this morning, but I tell you, and I hope it’ll be apparent as we go throughout the lesson this morning, there could not be a better song than the one that we’ve just sung in talking about the matter of purity. We’ll get right into that in just a minute. I just want to express my gratitude to be able to be with you this morning. It seems hard that it’s been 18 months already. It has been. Some things have changed. I’ve got a little more gray hair.

I’m keeping it nice and cropped on the sides to try and hide that a little bit. The reason for that gray hair is, well, I have the stereotypical preacher’s child. I do not know what Ethan will do to win fame and renown across the brotherhood, but I am sure there will be some things that he does. He’s doing well, though. Pray for Jana. Jared is in kindergarten, finishing up kindergarten, and he’s doing very well. Smart as a whip. Still loves all things nature, so feel free to quiz him about sharks and sea life all you want today. He can tell you about all that stuff. And Janice, well, she’s just as pretty as ever. And if Hugh Barry were here, I’d already have one amen this morning.

Alright, who’s who’s doing the camera up there? Y’all ready? Okay. I like having fun with those guys. It was a great day yesterday. I really enjoyed it. Having done 10 weekends here while I was working here, and now to be on the other end of that. I tell you, it’s a little more fun being on the other end of that. You’re not all worried about the setup and where’s the food and how many chairs we have out. You just get to focus on spiritual things. And we had a great day yesterday. Today we’re talking about purity. We want to talk about what does it mean to be pure. And we oftentimes associate the idea of talking about purity with young people, and we typically talk about sexual purity.

And granted, that is an area of purity, but we’re not going to focus that on that this morning. We’re going to talk about what does it mean to be pure. Husbands, when you gave your wife a ring, you were wanting her to be your wife. You were asking her for that. And that ring typically has a diamond on it. Now, why is that? Well, here, let me give you this rock, and I know you’re going to like it because this rock, this diamond, doesn’t have any impurities in it. Well, granted, yes, they they gauge diamonds on that. You don’t want a diamond with a bunch of impurities in it. But that’s not the reason why a diamond is valuable. A diamond is valuable because of what a diamond is.

And yes, you want a pure diamond. You want a diamond that is just a diamond. And sometimes when we talk about purity, we talk about it from the standpoint of, okay, we don’t want the bad stuff in us. And true. That is an area of purity. I need to be pure. I don’t need to let my body be enslaved by alcohol and drugs, and I don’t need to let my mind be corrupted by pornography, and I need to maintain my sexual purity, all kinds of purity, but that’s not what makes someone pure. A diamond is valuable because it’s a diamond. A person is valuable because of what God has made that person. That is what we mean by purity. When we talk about something that is pure, when you woke up this morning, you wanted something to drink.

My beverage of choice is still coffee. I don’t want anything in that coffee. Not only did I not want milk and sugar in that, I don’t want you putting orange juice. I don’t want you putting soda in there. I just want coffee. If you have your glass of milk at your breakfast table this morning, you don’t want someone, your kid dumping their Mountain Dew in it. You want something that’s pure. God wants something that’s pure. And what God wants, well, as Jesus defines it for us in Matthew the fifth chapter and in verse 8. Blessed are the pure in heart. For they shall see God. Not just blessed are those who don’t have a lot of bad things in their heart. Blessed are those whose heart and affection and devotion and dedication is set on God.

Or to rephrase as Michael led us in song. Blessed are those who want none of self and all of thee. That’s what we mean by being pure. Now we don’t have time this morning to go in depth into the book of Daniel, but I just want to go back and tell the story of two episodes out of the life of Daniel, separated by many years, and they’re episodes that are so very familiar to us. In Daniel chapter 1, which Brother Mark read for us in just a little while ago, you know how that chapter begins. Here is Daniel. He and his three friends, and many others, by the way. They’re young. They’re probably 15 years old, somewhere around that age, but they are captives. Their nation, because of their iniquity, because of their sin, they’ve been taken captive.

They’ve been taken captive by the Babylonians. God is punishing his own people, for they have turned their hearts from him. They’re not a pure people anymore. And so here is Daniel. Daniel and his friends. And they’ve been chosen to serve the king. But they have to go through this period of testing. I’m just paraphrasing the story for you. Now they’re going to go through three years of testing. And they’re going to go through training. And they’re to eat from the king’s table, the king’s provision. And that’s going to pose a problem for Daniel and his friends, for you know, and we could go back and read in Leviticus chapter 11. And it’s interesting how in Leviticus chapter 11, you have these food items. Some are clean and some are unclean.

And they were to stay away from the unclean things, but it’s also within that chapter that God says, therefore you are to be holy, for I am holy. Fast forward to the days of Daniel in Daniel chapter 1. And here is set before him food from the king’s table. Here is set before him the wine from the king’s table. And Daniel now has a problem. He, at least seems, had been keeping himself devoted to God. He was pure in heart. But what does he do now? I think his brother Sewell Hall has probably the finest lesson I’ve ever heard given to college students. And it’s based on Daniel. He goes, I think the title of the sermon is Daniel Goes to College. Well, that’s kind of the situation you have here.

Here is Daniel. He’s away from home. He’s in a foreign environment. He’s an environment where every kind of temptation is available to him. And most people wouldn’t judge him ill if he said, oh, well, you know what? He’s in a tough spot there. You know, Daniel’s just going to have to give in. What do we know of Daniel? Daniel 1 and verse 8. Depending on your translation, I’m reading from the New American Standard this morning. If you’re reading from the King James or New King James, I’m sure it reads just a tad bit different. New American Standard says, but Daniel made up his mind, and I believe the New King James and King James both read, Daniel purposed in his heart. Same idea. What was motivating and driving Daniel, his mind, his heart?

Daniel made up his mind. He would not defile himself. Again, remember, Leviticus 11, God said, You shall be holy. For I am holy. Daniel would not defile himself. Daniel would not make himself unholy by taking the provision from the king’s table. And so he is bold. He tells those who are watching over him, we can’t eat this. However, give us, test us for ten days. Give us only vegetables. Tim, you’ve got a reason to juice, I guess. Give us only vegetables and water. And see how we look after those ten days. And you can imagine that this guy, this man who’s managing them, if you will, he’s looking after them. His life is on the line here. He’s got a lot of stake. He doesn’t want to have to do this, but he allows it.

Ten days. Oh, well, ten days later, everything’s looking okay. And then when the period of those days are over, it would seem that the entire three years are over. And when Daniel and his friends are brought before the king, they have excelled more than any other. God has blessed them in this. God has blessed those who have desired to remain pure in his eyes. And so Daniel and his friends advanced far in the kingdom. Fast forward, if you will, 70 years. 70 years into Daniel chapter 6. Now there’s a new ruler. Babylon has fallen. The Persians have come to power. Cyrus is the king of Persia. You read about King Darius in Daniel chapter 6, and there’s some debate over who that was. You had Tommy Peeler in a meeting with you not that long ago, and I was taking a class of his in Daniel.

And Tommy would believe that Darius and Cyrus are one and the same. Darius was a Babylonian name for Cyrus, and that may be the case. But it’s not that important to the story as we’re telling it this morning. Daniel has advanced far. And the government of the Persians, that they’ve ruled a vast empire. He says of 120 satraps. In other words, he divides his kingdom into 120 parts. One satrap over each part, a measure of government. You’re responsible over this area, you’re responsible over this area. But then he had three governors, three men right under him, who are going to rule over all the 120 satraps. And Daniel was one of them. And in fact, Daniel was doing better than the rest. Daniel was a man of integrity.

Daniel wasn’t a man doing things against the king’s wishes and trying to do some things on his own on the side. No, Daniel was doing the work of the king. Daniel was advancing far. And that posed a problem for the others. What are we going to do with this Daniel guy? We’re not careful. Daniel’s going to be ruling over us, too. Well, we can’t find any fault. He doesn’t do anything bad, and he’s very diligent in his work for the king. What are we going to do? It’s going to have to be something with his God. That’s the only thing. He’s a Jew. He worships a different God than us. It’s going to have to be something to do with his God. So they go to the king and they say, King, yeah, it would be a great idea.

It would just be a great idea. If you could, you can make a rule. Make a law. Let’s make it a law because the laws of the Medes and the Persians you couldn’t revoke. We’ll make it a law. And we’re going to make it a law that for 30 days, King, nobody’s going to pray to anybody except for you. That’ll really consolidate your power and establish your authority. You can imagine how a dictator like the king would say, hey, that’s a pretty good idea. You know, we’ll go back to worshiping the other gods, but for 30 days, we ought to do that. Kind of the embodiment of the gods anyway, so we’ll just do that. Well, you know what Daniel thought of that rule. You know what Daniel thought of that law.

Verse 10. Now, when Daniel knew the document was signed, he entered his house. Now in his roof chamber, he had windows open toward Jerusalem, and he continued kneeling on his knees three times a day, praying and giving thanks before his God as he had been doing previously. He hasn’t changed anything. He hasn’t changed anything in his behavior. He’s still 100% devoted to God. He’s still pure in heart. Seventy years haven’t changed that. 70 years have only intensified that purity of heart. And of course, he’s found out because he wasn’t trying to hide it. He’s found out the word is brought to the king. The king is grieved. The king is somewhat despondent over this. He did not think, oh, this is going to affect my most trusted man.

But he has to follow through with what he said. He has to cast Daniel into the lion’s den. Daniel’s 85 by now. He’s still doing better than Daniel. He’s 85. And he’s going to be cast into the lion’s den. Some have said the king probably slept worse that night than Daniel did. The king doesn’t sleep at all. The king is worried. Oh, what’s going to happen to Daniel? Oh, why did I have to do this? And he goes early the next morning. Daniel, has your God saved you? Don’t worry, King. My God sent his angels, sent his messengers. They shut up the mouth of the lions. I am still here. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God. We don’t glory, I mean, sorry, we don’t honor Daniel just because he didn’t do some bad stuff.

1. Purity Is Possible

We honor men like Daniel. We look to men like Daniel as examples because they’re examples of people who did the right stuff, whose lives were devoted to doing the right things. That’s what we want in our lives as purity. Not just an absence of the bad. We want the presence of the good, the true, the noble. A few lessons just from those stories. First of all, purity is possible. I’ve made this point here before, and I was making the point to the teens yesterday. We do our teens a disservice. We do our young people a disservice when we keep on talking about how we know they’re going to mess up. Now, granted, granted, we understand we all sin, we all fall short. But we’ve almost given our kids a built-in excuse.

Well, I’m young. You know? I just expect it of me. I’m going to mess up, or I’m not going to be a great servant of God right now because I’m young. Daniel, 15 years old. Away from home. Purpose in his heart. Set his mind to the fact I will not defile myself with the food from the king’s table. Now, I know things are bad. I know things are bad. I’m exposed to enough media today to know that things are much worse out there than they were just a couple years ago when I was a kid. I know things are bad. Don’t ever tell yourself that you can’t be pure. Don’t ever let Satan win that mental battle by you falling for the lie that I can’t be pure in this godless worldly world.

2. Purity Is a Lifelong Goal

Daniel’s an example of one who was. Purity is possible. If we’ll set our mind on it. If we’ll say, this is what’s most important to me. I am going to be pure for my God. And then act accordingly. Purity is entirely possible. Second, purity is a lifelong goal. We oftentimes, when we talk about purity, okay, that’s a teen topic, that’s a teen subject. No, purity is a lifelong goal. We honor Daniel. Because Daniel was pure when he was young. And Daniel was pure when he was old. Daniel maintained that purity up until 85. You know, where we worship now and work. We have about 80 college students. And they’re some fantastic people. Now, granted, when I talk about attendance, I know I’m only touching the outer crust of one’s faith and devotion to God.

I tell you why I hate the summers in Tampa. You know, summers here were fantastic. You had all the Disney visitors and just kind of packed room every Sunday morning just because you never knew who was coming from across the country. We don’t really get a whole lot of vacationers where we are in Tampa. And we lose all the college students. I tell you, those 80 college students, they’re all there on Wednesday night. They’re all there on Sunday night. In their lives, this is just what we do. We’re going to go to church. It’s a great time. We get to go to church. We’re going to go to church on Wednesday night. We’re going to study the Bible on Wednesday night. We’re going to see our brethren on Wednesday night.

Fantastic. For some reason, the people my age and the people older than me, it’s like, ah, Wednesday night. Not that big a deal. It’s oftentimes when we get older. And we’ve got more on our plates now. And we’ve got more responsibilities, and we’ve got more obligations, and we’ve got more things tugging at us than we had when we were younger. That that’s the time that purity becomes an issue. It may not be the sexual problems that we associate with youth, but when we talk about purity, we’re talking about one who’s wholly devoted to God. It’s oftentimes in our later years that sometimes that begins to slip. Oh, well, yeah, I know my life needs to be devoted to doing God’s will, but boy, am I busy.

3. Purity Is Important

I know that I ought to be spending much time in Bible reading and prayer every day. I know I ought to be spending much of my time in service to others, but man, have you seen my schedule? I know that God holds me to a high standard. But where I work, there’s just going to have to be some compromises that I make. Purity is a lifelong goal. Being pure in heart and devoted to God isn’t just something for the kids. It’s something for me and something for you. Finally, purity is important. It was important to Daniel.

In fact, Brother Peler would say and would quiz you on this. He would ask you, what’s the gospel of Daniel chapter 1? And the answer would be the gospel of Daniel chapter 1 is God gave. Well, God gave a lot of things in Daniel chapter 1. First thing is that God gave Judah into the hands of Babylon in Daniel chapter 1. Now later on you’ll see that God gave Daniel favor. But the story begins with God gave Judah into the hands of the Babylonians. Why is Daniel in captivity? Because God allowed it. God did it. Could Daniel have sat back and palladed and said, Woe is me? God’s just kind of left me here. Forsaken. It wasn’t Daniel’s attitude. Daniel made up his mind. He would not defile himself.

Furthermore, you we noted already in Daniel the sixth chapter. In Daniel the sixth chapter, and we see this declaration, this law has been signed that no one would pray to anyone save the king. What did Daniel do when he went to his God in prayer in Daniel chapter 10, in Daniel chapter 6 and verse 10? He did not just go to God in prayer and ask for another deliverance. No, it says he continued kneeling on his knees three times a day, praying and giving thanks before his God. That even in these trying circumstances, his life is on the line. He’s now violating the dictate of the king. He’s giving thanks to his God. Purity is important to Daniel. Being pure in heart, devoted to God is important to Daniel.

You know the answer why.

Smitten. Smitten, young woman. I like that girl. He’s got a job, working hard, saves money, buys her a present. She takes the presence and oh, thank you. Thank you. What I always wanted. Beautiful, beautiful. Puts in the trash. What? That was important. Your brother or sister or wife needs a kidney. And you’re a matching donor. All right, I’ll give you a kidney. Because you need that. You need it to live. Thank you. You’ll never know what kind of debt I owe you. And so the surgery happens. Both of you recover. Things have gone well. And your sister, your brother, your loved one begins to drink, smoke, do everything else to destroy that body. You’re thinking, what on earth are you doing? I just gave you part of me for you.

How would you feel? The story of the Bible is pretty simple. We’ll come back to it in our third hour this morning. We were created pure. We were created in the very image of God. That is pure. That is holy. Now, what we did was we messed it all up. Each one of us, by our sins, we defiled what God gave us. But God redeemed. God redeemed. Through the blood of his son, he loved us so much he gave his son to die on the cross for our sins. He redeemed us so that we could be holy as he is holy. How does God feel when I’ve taken that which is holy and defiled it? How does my God feel when I have taken that which is holy and I use it to serve anything else than Him.

How does my God feel when I take that which He has given me, the most precious gift possible. And yet He is so far from my thoughts and my life and my actions. Daniel knew his God was worthy, deserving of his service. And so he gave it to him. He’s not a perfect man. We talked about that yesterday too. None of the Bible figures other than Jesus are perfect. He was a man who devoted himself to his God. The reason why you and I, we need to abstain from so many of the lusts of this world is not simply because our great God and Father in heaven says, don’t do that. He says don’t do that, and he says it for a reason, because he created us holy.

Conclusion

We need to stay holy. The reason why our God in heaven says, follow me. Mold your character according to my character. Put on the fruit of the Spirit that you read about in Galatians chapter 5 and the kindness and the peace and the joy and love and all these other things. To mold yourself after that kind of standard. It’s not just because he’s up in heaven and saying, let’s see how far they can get. No, he created us in his image. He redeemed us in his image. And we’re to be pure. We’re to be holy. Would you go to God and Father, our God and Father in prayer with me at this time? Our great God and Father, we thank you. For you have thought so much of us that you made us in your own image.

Clean, pure, and holy. And Father, we thank you that even though we sinned, we transgressed, we departed from you. You redeemed us through the blood of your Son. What marvelous grace you have bestowed upon us. We cannot but praise and thank you, Father, for all that you have done. And Father, we would ask that you continue to forgive us of our shortcomings. Forgive us of the things that have defiled our lives. Forgive us, Father, for the times which we have not taken note of you, to put you first and foremost in our lives. Forgive us, Father, when our hearts and minds have not been solely set on you. Help us, Father. Help us to be pure. Help us to take you with us to the workplace.

Help us to take you with us to school. Help us to take you with us, Father, to our families. Help everything that we do to be influenced by you, set on your will to execute whatever tasks that we have in life, doing such in a way that brings glory and honor to you. For you redeemed us, you recreated us in your image. May we be holy, may we be pure. It’s in your Son’s name that we pray. Amen. Alright, so we’ll go to class at this time, and up to sixth grade it goes to class. Is that correct? Is that right? Alright. So up to sixth grade goes to class. Everybody else stays in the auditorium.