Daniel Refused the King's Food and Outlasted Four Kings

Sermon outline

Like Daniel, you are strategically placed to take territory, and you take it by refusing to defile yourself, relying on God for wisdom, confessing what His word says and decreeing His law in your own home.

1. Principle one: choose the right team

   Nebuchadnezzar handpicked young men without blemish, gifted in wisdom, quick to understand and able to be taught. When God appoints you to something, you do not build a team because people are your friends or your family. You bring a God-ordained team, prayerfully put together, strong, diligent and committed to the cause, to take the territory with victory.

   Illustration: If you are starting a business and you know Uncle Bobby has long fingers, why would you put him in charge of your finances?

   “We don't appoint people according to where they were in our life. We appoint people that God has ordained in order to take the vision forward.”

   • Daniel 1:1-5

2. Principle two: do not defile yourself

   Daniel purposed in his heart not to defile himself with the king's food and wine, asked for a ten-day test of vegetables and water, and came out looking better than all the others. In every dealing choose God, not the world, whoever is offended and whoever calls you a sellout. You have a code of ethics. No deal or contract is big enough to take the Lord's day, and believers go only into business that advances the kingdom.

   “In every dealing that you do, don't choose the world. You choose God.”

   • Daniel 1:8-16

3. Principle three: it is God who gives the wisdom

   God gave the four young men knowledge, skill in all literature and wisdom, and Daniel understanding in visions and dreams. The Lord gives the resources, the health, the finances and the wisdom needed for the season you are in, and the level of wisdom changes as His call changes, provided you are in right standing with Him and working to His purposes.

   “So your wisdom, your knowledge, and understanding will come from the Lord.”

   • Daniel 1:17

4. An excellent spirit, a custom of prayer and confidence in the den

   Under Darius, Daniel distinguished himself because of an excellent spirit, which grew from his constant prayer, fasting and consecration. Jealous governors could find no fault in him except concerning the law of his God, so they had a decree signed to trap him. He went home and prayed three times a day as was his custom, not as a victim. In the den God shut the lions' mouths, and Daniel came out unhurt because he believed in his God. God could have stopped it, but He had a purpose for Daniel being in the den.

   Illustration: The king who signed the decree spent the night fasting with no music and no sleep, and ran to the den at dawn. Daniel still greeted him with honour: O king, live forever.

   “You will not be found wanting when your confidence is in God.”

   • Daniel 6:1-24

5. Strategically placed: authorised and deputised by heaven

   Taking territory needs movement, not fighting, manipulation or control. In a corporate job where nobody listens, remember that Daniel was a captive and yet always the right man at the right time. Stop feeling insignificant, be faithful in every menial task, keep an excellent spirit, and at the right time the Lord will reveal you as the problem solver who turns the place around. Believers are kingdom citizens, authorised and deputised to establish God's culture on the earth.

   Illustration: People may see you as a cockroach or a fly on the wall, but you are not one. You are placed and manoeuvred to know the time and the season.

   “You are strategically placed and maneuvered in order to know the sign, the place, the timing, and you are the problem solver in that place.”

6. Point one: master your confession

   Do you confess the problem or the God who made heaven and earth? Confession, homologeo, means saying the same thing the word says and agreeing with heaven about what has been decreed over your life. It applies to the broken light bulb at home, the car with holes in the floor and the salary taxed at 45 per cent. Israel took forty years over an eleven-day journey because fear, doubt and unbelief do not belong in the promised land. Our job is to get before the Father and call Him on His covenant; the doing is His job.

   Illustration: Discipleship is like learning to drive. At first both hands are at ten and two, but over time one hand is on the window and the other holds a coffee. Juggling family, work and bills, every part is busy but the focus is gone, and that is when confession goes haywire. Discipleship teaches the rules of the road again.

   “Confession is agreeing with Heaven by what has already been decreed over your life.”

   • Numbers 13:30
   • Deuteronomy 1:2
   • Romans 3:4

7. Point two: establish kingdom laws through decree, starting at home

   When you speak in faith you are legislating in the spirit realm, and you have the authority to overrule generational curses such as cancer or broken families running through a bloodline. It all starts at home: you cannot dominate your family and expect love, or keep cutting your husband down and expect the children to respect him. Call a family meeting, name what will no longer continue, decree it over communion, and then confess it daily. Do not make church optional, and train a child in the way he should go.

   Illustration: When he brought home his first salary at eighteen, having packed shelves since the age of twelve, his father told him to pay his tithe or pack his bags and pay rent elsewhere. That decree became law in his own family. Years later one of his children, raised hearing him pray in tongues at night, could tell at once that someone else's 'tongues' were not of God.

   “Confession is constant and decree is putting laws in place in the home.”

   • Job 22:28
   • Joshua 24:15
   • Proverbs 31
   • 1 Corinthians 13:8
   • Proverbs 22:6

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