Nebuchadnezzar’s Food – II

“But Daniel made up his mind that he would not defile himself with the king’s choice food…” [Daniel 1:8a].

Jesus talks about a time when men’s hearts will fail them for fear. Yet he also says to his disciples, “In the world you will have tribulation, but rejoice, I have overcome the world…My peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you.” Jesus prays to the Father, “I do not ask you to take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil that is in the world.”

The king’s food is the food of this age; it is food that has been offered to the gods of this age. Success, wealth, power, sexual promiscuity, mind-numbing entertainment, fame, narcissism in myriad forms – the list is endless. It appears as if society will eat anything; it is critical that the disciples of Jesus partake only of Him as their living bread and water.

To be a Biblical Christian is first and foremost to follow Jesus Christ. This is Biblical repentance – to turn to Jesus Christ and follow Him. A person can be sorry for sin and yet not turn and follow Jesus. A person can be a faithful church attendee and yet not turn and follow Jesus. A church may have wonderful music and fine rhetorical preaching and its people may leave on Sunday mornings feeling good – and yet it may not be following Jesus Christ. Following Jesus Christ in obedience to Him is Biblical Christianity, it is the Christianity that Jesus taught. Jesus says to us:

“He who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me; and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father and I will love him and will disclose Myself to him…Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love. If you keep my commandments you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.” [From John chapters 14 and 15.]

The king’s food can be the traditions of man, it can be the amorality of the age, it can be the latest and greatest popular Christian movement, the latest Christian answer to all of our problems; but there is only one food for the disciple of Jesus Christ and that is Jesus Christ. As Jesus says in John Chapter 6, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.”

Yes, Daniel and his friends had a simple diet, and yet that simple diet gave them clarity of mind, purity of heart, and insight into their surrounding culture; the diet of the heart manifested itself in the diet of food – their hearts fed on the true and living God, they devoted themselves to Him alone, and such was this devotion that when questions of life and death presented themselves they were quick and firm and certain in their response – they would be faithful to Him alone even unto death.

Paul writes, “You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons; you cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons” (1 Cor. 10:21). “…what agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; just as God said, “I will dwell in them and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. Therefore, come out from their midst and be separate,” says the Lord. “And do not touch what is unclean; and I will welcome you. And I will be a father to you, and you shall be sons and daughters to Me,” says the Lord Almighty”” (2 Cor. 6:16 – 18).

Of course Paul is not saying that we should physically leave the world (see 1 Cor. 5:9ff); he is saying that where we go and what we do and what we set our hearts and minds upon matters (Rom. 12:1ff) because we are the collective temple of the living God and because God calls us to be holy – if we believe that the Trinity dwells within us then we ought to live like it, we ought to be holy as God our Father is holy (1 Peter 1:13ff).

Nebuchadnezzar’s food deadens our hearts and minds, the table of Jesus Christ not only revives and restores our souls, it gives us living bread to share with others. As we partake of Him, others may partake of Him in us.

Which table are we eating from today?

Which Image?

When I was a boy I recall seeing drawings in history books of American revolutionaries toppling the statue of King George III. Since that time I have seen similar images whenever a people rise up against their rulers – destroy the photographs, destroy the paintings, destroy the statues of the ruler is an impulse to which crowds give vent when they rebel (rightly or wrongly) against rule and authority.

God, unlike most earthly rulers, prohibited the making of drawings or carvings or statues purporting to be His likeness when He gave His Law to Moses. No doubt an element of this prohibition was the fact that it would lead to the type of superstitious demonic idolatry which the peoples of that era practiced. But perhaps an even more important element of this prohibition is the fact that God created mankind in His image, male and female He created us. Thus, to recognize His image in one another and to honor that image is, in a way, to see the image or likeness of God.

Of course, Adam and Eve desecrated that image when they refused to believe that they were created in the image of God; they sought something different, they sought something they thought was better, they lusted after a grand self-improvement project – and in that lust they defaced the image of God within not only themselves, but in all of their descendants. In an earthly sense, Adam and Eve toppled the image of God in mankind.

However, defaced as we might be, vestiges of His image have remained in us through the ages, sometimes shining brightly, sometimes ever so dimly. In Bethlehem, some 2,000 years ago, we see the pure image of God walk this earth – and what did we collectively do in response? We murdered Him; but He came to lay His life down for us, and laying His life down He took it up again on Easter morning – thus bringing the offer of a restoration of the image of God to humanity.

And so mankind has pursued its desecration of God’s image, sometimes subtly and subversively, often in the guise of religion, often in the guise even of what passes for Christianity, sometimes in the guise of high-culture, sometimes in the guise of popular culture, often in the pursuit of wealth and power and pleasure – the ropes cast around the image to pull it down are woven with diverse fibers, and those pulling on the ropes come from all cultures and races and beliefs. While the revolutionaries may argue with one another about the best rope to use, they do not argue about the goal. Perhaps they have not realized that if they will all get on the same side of the image and pull together, rather than against each other, that they might be able to pull the image of God down with such a crash that it will never rise again.

In Romans Chapter One Paul describes the downward spiral of mankind as it repudiates the image of God, the image that God placed within mankind. One can only weep at our concerted attempts to destroy, once and for all, the image of God. But perhaps we can do more than weep, perhaps we can hear the laugher of God in Psalm Two, for as David writes, “He that sits in the heavens laughs” at the attempts of this world in rebellion to loosen its ties to the true and living God.

As the beast in its collective and coercive fury rises out of the sea of mankind to erect its image in opposition to the image of God, as it seeks to displace the image of God in mankind by its own perverted and twisted image – who will remain faithful to the express image of God in Jesus Christ?

There is a stone cut without hands, a heavenly stone, that will destroy all of the images of mankind [Daniel Chapter Two] and that stone will fill the entire earth – which image shall we bear? The image of the beast of Revelation Chapter Thirteen? Or the image of the Lamb and His Father of Revelation Chapter Fourteen?