Ninth, to dare to be a Daniel means to include other believers in opportunities God provides – Daniel 2:49 and Daniel 3. Daniel did not hog the spotlight. He involved others and delegated authority to them: When you serve God faithfully in small things, He may choose to use you in more public areas (e.g. Luke 16:10-12; 19:17). To dare to be a Daniel means to be willing to serve God in public. But public ministry is prepared for in obscurity. The issue is a willingness to serve the Lord wherever He desires to use you. Serve in faith wherever and whenever He calls you to serve. Christians with a basic knowledge of the Bible know it is full of stories of people who have done great things in the service of God. They've heard of these men and women of renown in sermons, in Sunday school, in vacation Bible schools. But perhaps you have wondered: is there nothing more to the Bible than these tales of bravery and heroism? Isn't there more to the Bible than mighty heroes carrying out mighty works for God? What about God saving sinners? Is there hope for the very un-heroic among us?

Although Daniel adjusted and accommodated to his new environment, he didn’t conform to Babylon. But Daniel didn’t compromise in matters of faith. Babylon's goals did not become Daniel's goals. Babylon's glories did not become Daniel's glories. Babylon's gods did not become Daniel's gods. Daniel didn’t disobey the Word of God. He didn’t compromise in his faith or conform to this world. Daniel dared to be faithful. The struggle in Ireland first gave me a deeper urge than ever to answer my boyhood questions. But what other impressions did I have after two or more years as apprentice? I saw the office, the ‘superior’ staff, treating all other staff with the greatest contempt, except the Manager, whom they fawned on with the utmost servility. The waiters, feeling this, wished to get even with the remaining staff, so the kitchen staff, in the eyes of these ‘superior persons’, were dirt. But one could watch the cringing of the waiters to the manager and customers. No doubt their method of slavery made them so servile. The kitchen workers, not coming into with the customers, had a spirit of comradeship amongst them. We talked of ‘Bloody Sunday’, we studied the Chartist movement and gradually we increased our numbers. About this time, I was a full-blown cook at 21 years of age, when a strike of waitresses at a West End restaurant occurred. All of us went to their aid but in spite of a splendid fight the strike failed, because the girls came out. The stay-in strike was our policy. A few of these girls opened a cafe in the West End without help, calling it Ken’s Cabin. Others got good jobs under other names, but all became members of our union.Abolition of petty fines for breakages, lateness to work etc. This also decreased profits, as every week large sums were stopped from wages and added to income. How exciting! Why ruin such a future by verbalizing their faith in the one true God? Why risk their lives when a little compromise would eliminate so many problems and so much stress? At the very least they could conform to the king’s commands and eat his top-notch food! And if they were silent now, maybe they could get a word in for God later - after they had established a reputation for good behavior. A little compromise now might even be a subtle way of reaching the Babylonians when the time was right. Why force things? Why go against the flow? Why be outspoken about their faith in the God of Israel?

In sum, the New Testament has much to say about following the example of those in the Old Testament, whether positively or negatively. Looking at these kinds of texts gives us an appreciation for the variety of ways the Bible urges believers to pursue holiness. Sometimes holiness is urged because of the blessings and true joy found in walking faithfully before the Lord (Psalm 1; Matt 5:3-10); sometimes through warnings of God's future judgment on the unrepentant (1 Cor 6:9; Gal 5:21; Heb 10:26-31); sometimes, as in texts such as Hebrews 11 and 1 Corinthians 10, holiness is commended to God's people through examples that set forth the positive or negative responses of people in the Old Testament to God. The latter of these motivations sometimes gets a bad rap because it is feared that pointing to examples will lead to moralism or a quest for self-salvation. Far from it: God alone saves, and He saves by faith alone. The only faith that saves is true faith, that is, a living and active faith (James 2:17), and this is precisely the kind of faith displayed in Hebrews 11 (and that is absent among the Israelites in the texts Paul recounts in 1 Corinthians 10).A clean, airy and dry dressing-room, both for male and female staff. This was aimed at the cooks’ cubicle with sweating pipes. Other staff had no dressing rooms before this action.

Daniel was one of four teen or college-age captives who decided to remain faithful to God in this foreign situation - no matter the cost. These four guys were a minority, for sure! The rest of the captives apparently couldn’t withstand the pressure, and submitted to Nebuchadnezzar’s commands. Hebrews 11: in this chapter the author recounts for us over twenty examples of believers in the Old Testament who had faith in God and thus "received their commendation" (11:2). Genuine faith is what made Abel's sacrifice, rather than Cain's, acceptable to God (11:4); faith led Noah to build, and eventually enter, the ark and thus be saved from God's judgment (11:7); faith taught Abraham to look away from the things of this world and to fix his eyes on "the city that has foundations" (11:10), that is, on the heavenly inheritance that God had prepared for him; faith caused Moses to leave the luxuries of Pharaoh's court, which are described as "the fleeting pleasures of sin" (11:25), because "he considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt" (11:26). Clean dining room and rest-rooms for kitchen and waiters, other rooms for female staff. This stopped porters having to sit on baskets with their meals on their laps. Sixth, to dare to be a Daniel means to testify to the sovereignty of God – Daniel 2:28 and 44. Daniel testified to the glory of God. He pointed people to God’s sovereignty and His Holy nature. When Daniel spoke of God, he conveyed the superiority and supremacy of God to those he spoke to:Daniel 1:8 (NKJV) – 8 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; therefore he requested of the chief of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself. Dan 5:17 Then Daniel answered the king, "You may keep your gifts for yourself and give your rewards to someone else. Nevertheless, I will read the writing for the king and tell him what it means. The AFB set up a publishing division, taking the name of the old Freedom Press (1886-1935). It was infiltrated by many bourgeois literary careerists who gradually, hived off FP as their own, leading to a split. I was born in 1877, watched Queen Victoria’s Jubilee in 1887, left school at twelve years of age, got a job at a hotel in Westminster Bridge Road, working from 10 a.m. to 2 a.m., sixteen hours a day for five shillings (25p) a week and ‘board and lodging’. I became an apprentice cook and an apprentice to all this strife and poverty around me, i.e. the class struggle. Daniel 3:17–18 (NKJV) – 17 If that is the case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king. 18 But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up.”

There is something very important in these questions. They get at the heart of how Jesus Himself commanded that we read the whole Bible; namely, as being about Him. We see this in Luke 24:44-47 (among other places): Except, that it wasn’t just about daring to be like Daniel. I mean, the people who were hearing these stories for the first time – were going thru tough times. They were captives in Babylon or were facing one of the other challenges that followed their return to Judah. Life was difficult. The enemies were big. The fields had been fallow for 70 plus years. The point of the story isn’t his wisdom or his bravery but that he had all of those things because he recognized who was in charge of the universe and he acted accordingly.It was just about this time that various Anarchist groups were formed in many parts of London with their paper Freedom, edited by Tom Keel. Many times I went to The Grove, Hammersmith, and Willesden, to speak and to learn. I knew governments exist by force in the interest of the ruling class. Freedom is the only thing worth fighting for, all else is illusion. What a sight met the eye! It was just a room about five yards by five with one small window, sawdust on the floor, gas, hot-and-cold water pipes all along the walls, alive with rats at night, mice and beetles on the floor. That was the general scene of all kitchens in the City of West End. Some were on the top floor, some in the basement, some a little larger. That is all that might be slightly different. Daniel was a prophet during a time when God’s people were living in captivity. He served under two world empires, The Babylonian and Medo-Persian. His life is a testimony about how to live in enemy territory or territory that is contrary to God.