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Be Nor Conformed to this World

 



Be not conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Romans 12:1


We have this sentimentality in the western church today that we need to go out of our way to live at peace with the people around us.  We need to be tolerant, accepting, supportive, and approving of everybody and every body’s lifestyle choices.  This is what we think being a Christian is all about. This is what we call love.  To compromise means to love…And those of us who call ourselves Christians have made compromise an art form. 

 I mean we compromise on everything from homosexuality, transgenders, abortion, adultery, fornication, lying, you name the sin and we western Christians will happily support it, and if we don’t, we will just stick our heads in the sand and ignore it for the sake of peace.  Even though we know that Jesus said that we cannot live at peace with the world.  He plainly said that the world will hate us.

All this talk about love, tolerance, and acceptance is a 20th century novelty. It was never taught in the Bible or anytime in church history until the late 20th century.  But we American Christians have wholeheartedly embraced it and look where we are now…

I want to tell you about 4 young Hebrew boys that refused to compromise with the wicked culture that they were forced into.  

Daniel 1:1-7

 In the third year of the reign of Jehoiakim king of Judah, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came to Jerusalem and besieged it. 2 And the Lord gave Jehoiakim king of Judah into his hand, with some of the articles of [a]the house of God, which he carried into the land of Shinar to the house of his god; and he brought the articles into the treasure house of his god. 3 Then the king instructed Ashpenaz, the master of his eunuchs, to bring some of the children of Israel and some of the king’s descendants and some of the nobles, 4 young men in whom there was no blemish, but good-looking, gifted in all wisdom, possessing knowledge and quick to understand, who had ability to serve in the king’s palace, and whom they might teach the language and literature of the Chaldeans. 5 And the king appointed for them a daily provision of the king’s delicacies and of the wine which he drank, and three years of training for them, so that at the end of that time they might serve before the king. 6 Now from among those of the sons of Judah were Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. 7 To them the chief of the eunuchs gave names: he gave Daniel the nameBelteshazzar; to Hananiah, Shadrach; to Mishael, Meshach; and to Azariah, Abed-Nego.

You see what’s going on here right?  The Babylonians wanted the Hebrew people to be assimilated into their culture.  They knew what kind of people the Hebrews were.  Everybody in the ancient middle east knew the reputation of the Hebrew people. They knew that they were Gods people and now the Babylonians wanted to make the Hebrews just like them.  They expected the Hebrews to be just like them.  

It's the same today.  This wicked culture that we live in expects us to walk and talk, and smell, and dress, just like they do and they are constantly making laws to try and force us to compromise and the sad thing is that many of us do just that.  We compromise with the world just like the majority of the Hebrews did.  We compromise to keep the peace. We compromise for the sake of comfort. We compromise for profit. There are dozens of reasons that we compromise with this wicked world and let me tell you this, compromise is high treason against God.

But listen to what Daniel did…

 But Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king’s delicacies, nor with the wine which he drank.

How easy would it have been for Daniel to just go with the flow?  Imagine how much food the king supplied.  Surely out of all that food there would have been things that Daniel could have eaten that wouldn’t have violated Jewish dietary laws.  He could have went along with the plan and just eaten the food that was kosher and not stirred the pot, but he decided from the start that he would have nothing to do with any of it.  He wasn’t going to compromise no matter what.

 In what ways might you be compromising your faith and your convictions in order to live at peace with the enemy?

Be not conformed to this world…

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