0255. Daniel's Holy Purpose

Daniel’s Holy Purpose

"And Daniel purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king’s meat, nor with the wine that he drank" (Dan_1:8).

Many young men want to have their fling; they seem to have a craze to try out the sinful pleasures of this world.

Even Solomon said: "Go to now, I will prove thee with mirth, therefore enjoy pleasure." Solomon also said: "I sought in my heart to give myself unto wine, yet acquainting mine heart with wisdom."

But not so Daniel. Daniel refused to defile himself. Daniel’s way proved far the wiser. Solomon sinned in many things. He grievously departed from God. Daniel never did. While, in after years, Daniel said in one of his wonderful prayers: "I prayed unto my God and made my confession, and said * * We have sinned;" the striking truth still remains that Daniel is one of the few characters in the Bible, which are treated with any fullness, against whom not one condemnatory word is recorded.

It is utterly false that a young man must sow his wild oats; that he must taste the world in order that he may realize its folly.

Young men may live and die without ever having transgressed the highest ideals of rectitude. Nor need any one doubt but that such a course of action always pays–pays immeasurably.

How many homes today are wrecked and ruined because the father sinned in the days of his youth. He sowed to his flesh; and his children and his beloved wife, in after years, suffered the harvest of his deeds.

Daniel’s course is the sane, the safe, and the satisfying course to pursue. It is the best in the end, the best in the beginning, and the best all the way along.

It never pays to defile one’s self in any way.

The young man who smokes, swears, keeps bad company, plays cards, goes to the theater, drinks, gambles, will find out some day to his sorrow, and to the sorrow of all those intimately associated with him, that sin does not pay.

The wages of sin is death. Therefore let us, like Daniel, refuse to defile ourselves. Let us "enter not in the path of the wicked and go not in the way of evil men." Let us "avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it and pass away."

Sin will darken your countenance, destroy your character, degrade your morals, and lead you to the doom of darkness and eternal despair.

Autor: R.E. NEIGHBOUR