Refusing To Eat The King's Meat

As children of God, our lives are to be set apart unto God.  There are certain things which we must disassociate from the lives we live before God and the world.  We must not love the world neither the things which are in the world.  We are called not to be conformed to this world in any way.  

There are many things we must refuse, when it comes to us defiling ourselves with the things of sin.  Just as Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah refused to eat the king's meat, so must we refuse to eat the king's meat of our day.  The world's way is not the way for God's children to live.  This message will bring more understanding to this sacred lifestyle.

Transcript

Pastor Rickey D. Dixon 0:35

We give honor to God this morning. So glad we all be here to thank God. Thank you, God. I welcome you to Holy City Spirit of Truth Ministry and to another episode broadcast of our Bearing Witness to the Truth podcast. This morning, thank God for this fourth Sunday of April 2026. So glad to welcome you. I'm your host, pastor, and teacher, Ricky D. Dixon, humble servant of the Lord. We're going to get into the word this morning because I want to deal with an area that I pray will be totally an eye-opener and a blessing to you this morning in today's message. Okay. Let this knowledge and awareness, I pray, I pray, Lord, be received by those who have ears to hear. And may the seeds of it be sown in the spirits and hearts of those which are called by thy name. Let this truth which we are about to hear be among our main focuses while we are here on this earth. Many will be fixed in their hearts, and I pray that all of us that we may be fixed in our hearts, in our inward main, that would be unmovable and anchored in the Lord, in what we believe and what we profess, in the spiritual knowledge of our knowing and our living, not as being conformed to this world, but being pilgrims in this land. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Being not of this world because our Lord and our Savior is not of this world. He said that. And I want us to be very uh, very understanding when it comes to this here truth. I'm about to tell you that there is a difference between being in this world and being of this world. That's a difference. We are in this world. I'm talking about the children of God. We are in this world, but we through Christ are now no longer of this world. Our lifestyle should not be the same lifestyle as those who live haphazardly in any kind of way in this world. Because if Jesus has come into your life, your life has changed. So he does not consider you in a sense no longer of this world, but you are in it. We are still here because we're waiting for his return. See, this area of spiritual understanding must become a part of the foundation by which we stand and live before God. Hallelujah. See, this understanding and truth being, this is the understanding and truth I want us to grab this morning. That we must not allow ourselves to succumb to this world's influences. We must not yield ourselves to the temptations which are produced and manufactured here in this world. We must not allow ourselves to feast on what is being served on the enemy's table. We must abstain from everything which is not pleasing to God. We must do this. And I'm gonna start you with this hymn, peace of word. As Brother James states in the book of James, chapter 1, verse 27. I'm gonna lay this for you. In James 1 and 27, he says this. I know a lot of us believe that we got religion. A lot of things, religion, religion, religion, and don't even know what religion is. But the Bible says pure religion. I mean that real religion and undefiled, hallelujah, before God and the Father is this to visit the fatherless, those that are orphans, and widows, those whose husbands have died, wives have died, visit the fatherless and the widows in their afflictions. Basically, what James is saying, our main religion should be to try to help somebody, especially those that are in need. But this numbers two thing is this, he writes in James 1 and 27, and to keep himself unspotted from the world. That means keep yourself away from this stuff of sin and stuff that's gonna stain your life before God and leave certain spots of evil and wickedness and worldliness in your life. Keep yourself unspotted. Now, a lot of people might say, well, he said for me to keep myself, there is a way for us to keep ourselves unspotted in the world, and that's gonna be through Jesus. But this mindset must be realized in all of us to, if we claim to serve the Lord, to strive and keep in ourselves unspotted and allow things of this world to stain our lives with more and more sin that we don't need, that more and more wickedness that we don't need, more and more corruption we don't need. My brothers and my sisters, our calling and election is to not be like the world or be conformed to it in any way. A lot of people say that's hard to do because we're around this stuff, foolishness all day long. Yes, you're around it all day long, I'm around it all day long. But see, our focus must be maintained by keeping our eyes on what the Bible said, looking under Jesus. We gotta keep looking to Jesus. See, so many times we're going through stuff because we don't take our eyes off the Lord, or we don't let our mindset drift to an area, a mental area where it don't need to be. We got to maintain a focus because the minute we get in arguments, the minute we get heated and mad and upset and afraid and fearful and in despair and Dr. Blues and our mindset goes to so many different other unsafe mental areas that we don't need to be even spiritually. My concern this morning is the appending and approaching. There's a threat approaching, the approaching threat and the approaching danger of our weaknesses among God's people. Because we are too many of us are indulging in the provisions this world has been offering and setting before us. And we have found so many have found ourselves indulging in stuff we don't need to be indulging in. We don't need to be partaking in. I say unto you, in this morning's message, that we must refuse. Listen to me. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. That we must refuse all of it. All of it. If it ain't got nothing to do with God, we need to refuse it. If it goes against God and his statutes, that means his concept, his instructions, his commandments, you need to get away from and refuse it. Because if we truly, if we truly proclaim to love the Lord our God, we will keep his words and we will live by them. This morning's message: refusing to eat the king's meat. And when I say the king's meat, I'm talking about the devil. I'm talking spiritually this morning, the king of this world, the prince of this world. And the meat is the stuff that he is, how can I say, sifting or producing in this world that is tainting and staining the lives of God's people in the form of stuff we are letting into our spirits, stuff that our spirits shouldn't be eating, stuff that our spirits shouldn't be drinking, that he is producing through his imps and those who serve him, that they will serve it unto us, refusing to eat the king's meat. That's what we're gonna talk about this morning. See, we must definitely, most of us most definitely, have the power and the will to refuse whatsoever we want to refuse, if we so desire. See, when our hallelujah, hallelujah, when our desires are not for a thing or for a person, our minds and our decisions can be rock solid resistance. Because they ain't what we want. That ain't who we want. We ain't got no problem turning them down. But the problem comes in when we fall weak to what the flesh wants, to around certain crowds of people, we hang around. See, but in the area of what we have been influenced by and what we have messed around and allowed our spirits to get a taste of. So once you, I say this to a lot of people, I'm gonna say this. Some of us, once we got a taste of sin and our flesh liked that taste, some of us have found ourselves going back to get another taste. And that's where we messed up. A lot of things we would have been better off had we not even sampled with it in our lives. Because, see, some of those things now that what we have sampled over the years have for a lot of us become addictive. A lot of those things now we have tasted when it comes to sin have become now a part of our diet and our lives. And those things, see, that that that we've gotten a taste of ruin our spiritual lives with God. It will set up hindrances and stumbling blocks. We don't need nothing. Trust me on this, in this generation we're living in, we don't need nothing hindering our relationship with God. Because we're gonna need them before this thing over. Can we not see what's going on in this world? Because so many of us have gotten a taste of sin and we done ate the king's meat and what the devil done put on the table, our lives are not as they ought to be. I'm gonna say that again. Some of us have messed around and allowed our spirits to get a taste of. And those things we have found to be pleasant and good to our flesh, the power of our wills can be tempted and enticed the wrong way. See, being in this world, the influences of sin, things which make the flesh weak, hallelujah. The worldly things of which our spirits can consume and devour, those things are endless. Because the enemy makes sure this world has plenty of sinful things to go around. That's the king's meat that you don't need to be eating. The children of God are those which will be faced with a tedious and contrary fight in the refusing to indulge and eat the king's meat. Well, listen to me. But we can refuse. And refuse, we must. No matter how hard the fight, no matter how contrary the wrestling with certain things are, we must do this through Christ Jesus. I'm gonna tell you, let me tell you a story, which I know a lot of us know this story. Let me tell you the story about some young men in the book of Daniel. If you got your Bibles, Daniel chapter one. Daniel's chapter one, and I'm gonna, I'm not gonna read the whole chapter. You have to do that in your study time, please do. But I want to share with you some very important, crucial points in chapter 1, verse 5 through 8. Then I'm gonna skip to verse 12. Now, let me set the stage. Now, Daniel and his friends, the brothers, and a lot of the uh Hebrew people have been taken captive by this no good king. I can tell y'all some stuff about Nebuchadnezzar. King Nebuchadnezzar, I can tell y'all something. But I ain't got this, ain't no Nebuchadnezzar uh mention, but he does symbolize Satan or the devil in this particular text because of what he's gonna do. And we're gonna see the same thing he's doing and what the devil is doing today in modern times. But they have been taken captive. Now, here, if you read the story, you're gonna find out Nebuchadnezzar, he had a plot and a plan, just like the devil. He chose what he thought were the best children and young people out of the Hebrew population, which included Daniel and uh Shadrat, Meshach, and Lebinogon, and several others that were prime young men and people, young folks that he thought he could take into his kingdom and change them to suit his purpose of what he wanted. Some deranged purpose, no doubt, whatever it would be. So, but here they are, these young men have been taken captive. But here's the one thing I'm gonna tell you something about Neverchines, I'm gonna tell you something about the devil that they don't realize. What Neville did not realize was these young men had been raised by the people of God to stand for God and to live for God. And one thing the devil don't know about a lot of us, that a lot of us also have been raised to believe and trust in nothing but God. And you ain't gonna change that in them, and you ain't gonna make them start second guessing just because you're gonna threaten them to do something to them. And that's what devil Kenizah thought. Well, I'm sure let's read a little bit of it. They ain't captain now, they're a long way from home. They they they they're foreign, they don't know what's going on in their place. But let me tell you something before I get through this morning. I want to let you know it don't matter where you are in life, it don't matter where you are relocated to, you can take the Lord whesome ever you go. In the book of Daniel, chapter one, I'm gonna start at verse 5, 6, 7, and 8. And like I said, I'm gonna go to verse 12. In verse 5, here it is. He already did. Nebuchadnezzar got them already captured. And he said, the king, he's talking about Nebuchadnezzar. And the king appointed them a daily provision. So he already wants them to eat what he wants them to eat. He done appointed them a daily. This is what he wants, and the devil wants us to eat sinfully every day. He wants us to engage in evil works every day. Because he has appointed a daily provision for those he is trying to draw away from the Lord and stop living for the Lord. So this is the king Nebuchadnezzar, he done appointed them a daily provision of the king's meat. Listen at that. And of the wine which he drank, the same evil meat that King Nebuchadnezzar ate the same wicked wine that he drank, he wanted them to drink it. Because he wants them to be like them. Listen, did you see that? Because why the devil is doing what he's doing? Because he wants y'all to be like him. I ain't finna be like, I'm not finna be like the devil. And you will soon become like the devil if we continue to indulge in the sinful acts and ways of this world, which is the devil's meat. The king appointed them a daily provision of the king's meat and of the wine which he drank. So nourishing them three years. He's gonna feed them this and this, three years. So he thought. Now, how many years the devil has been feeding you what he's been feeding you? That's something you gotta ask for yourself. Don't don't don't say nothing. So nourishing them three years, that at the end thereof, them three years, they they gonna come before them and stand before him, and he's gonna see how they look. You know what he won't look, what he's gonna come want to see at the end of three years? If they look like what he appointed and what he has devised for them to look like, based on what he has fed them, based on what he had given them to drink. They should look a certain way. See, after you've indulged in sin for years, you're gonna look a certain way. After you done drank sin for so many years, you're gonna look a certain way. But flip that thing over. If you've done fed on the word of God, hallelujah, you're gonna look a certain way too. If you're gonna drink, the Bible says his blood and what he has for us to drink and through his word, we're gonna look a certain way too. But Nebuchadnezzar had other plans for the evil, but like I said, he didn't know that Eboy had been raised by people of God. Let's read, let's let's talk about it. Let me just let me take that digest, cut up that verse 5, right? See, some of us don't even have a clue as to what the prince of this world's intent is for mankind. How about God's creation? Us. Let me help somebody who may just be greedy enough and glutton enough with a worldly appetite to eat the king's meat, living and feeding off of what this world has to offer can leave you only one way, and that is to be conformed and changed into the very spirits that are feeding you. Did you hear what I just said? The devil is trying to change us into devils, but he just lie. I know that see my Bible said the devil is a liar and the father of them. But for those who don't know the truth, for those who will not live in the truth, you see devils. Come on now. Let's be real. In the course of a day, do you think you see more devils in the course of a day or more people of God? But think about that. And then I'll let you know and show you just how much the devil and his meat, the king's meat, has changed a lot of people already. You can see the devil on some people. You can see the devil in a lot of people. And they don't even have a clue that it's because they have been eating and sitting down at the devil's table, eating the food that he has appointed for them to eat, and drinking the drank when he has pointed them to. Let me say that again. Living and feeding off what this world has to offer can leave you only one way. That is to be conformed and changed into the very spirits that are feeding you. I'm talking spiritually this morning, not natural. Daniel and the Hebrew boys knew this and they saw this. Now I got to ask us why can't some of us see it and know it? See, when the king's meat and drink is set before us, his spiritual diet of death is basically what it is. Served unto us by his imps or false teachers and false preachers. They expect after a period of time for us to be changed into the servants of sin, becoming as they are, that'll never happen. I refuse. See, that's why I say we got to refuse. You got to refuse. But first, you got to know what to refuse, so when you see it, you know to refuse it. We're gonna get to that a minute. Verse 6. Let me get verse 6 out the way. I'm laying a foundation more. Now, among these were the children of Judah. Did you catch that? I liked it when I read that. They were the children of Judah, meaning that they were descendants. You know, Jacob had 12 sons, one of them being Judah. I think Judah was number four. Uh, and what caught my eye, not because Daniel and Hananiah and Meshael, uh, Azariah, which were their real names, born from Judah, but because I know that's the line which comes, which Christ came through, the line of Judah, the tribe of Judah. But Daniel and their real names, I'm gonna tell you about their names in a minute. Daniel, Hananiah, Meshel, and Azariah being their real names, unto whom the prince of the eunuchs. The prince of the eunuch is who the king had put over them. But being that he was a worker and a servant of the king, his mindset was just like King Nebuchadnezzar. But what caught me about this prince of the eunuch, meaning the one in charge over these young men, he felt he needed to change their name. Don't you see the devil? Look at the devil now. Serve the devil long enough. He wants to change your name where you no longer act like who you were born to be. What do you need to change my name? For my mom and them name it is this is my name. I don't need you changing my name to nothing. Because when the see when the devil tried to change your life, he wants to change your name. He doesn't like the name that you carry around with the name of Jesus on you. He don't like you being called by that name, children of God. So his his also intent is also to change your name while you're changing your diet and changing your drink is to change your name. Listen to verse 7. Unto whom the prince of the units gave name. Now, verse 6 just told her they name what they name wood. They need no name change. He said among these were the children of Judah: Daniel, Hananiah, Meshael, and Azariah. Then that's their name. But the eunuch, prince of the unit, felt like he needs to change their name. For he gave unto Daniel the name of Belshazzar. That ain't his name. And to and Meshel, Meshach, and Azariah a Bendinga. Watch it now. Watch it. When you start eating the king's meat. And dranking the Cain's drink, afterwards, he is going to want to change your name. And in changing your name, he's going to want to change your identity. That your identity no longer identifies with Jesus. That your identity and your name no longer identify with God and righteousness and things that are good. See, this is the see this is possible because he has put something, listen to me. He has put something sinister in the meat, and there is something evil in the drink. Listen, this stuff that this world is produced and someone's so blind and dumb, we don't realize that it has been laced with something. Spiritual, I'm talking about. It's tainted with something and it's messing our lives up. See, listen, he does not want you to be called by any longer by the name of our Lord, whose name is above everything. Since he is the one that is feeding you, he wants his name upon you and want his countenance associated with you. His countenance means he wants you to look like him. That's why the three years King Nebuchadnezzar wanted them to bring, because he feels after pumping them full of his meat and drank for three years, they lies should look like me. Verse 8. Now here, here, here us. Let me show you us where our hope lies. And where King Nebuchadnezzar failed because he didn't know the whole story about these young men's lives. Just like the devil don't know the whole story about your life. And a lot of people don't know the whole story about your life when you have given your life to the Lord. They think you ain't gonna be able to take certain things. They think you ain't gonna be able to go through certain things and then do certain things. But see, they fail to understand that you have the strength of God. They fail to understand that you've been through a lot of things that has increased your faith, that has built you up to stand strong and be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Verse 8, the Bible said, But Daniel, this is what he did. He saw what the devil was trying to do. He saw what the ones he had in charge, the prince and the youth tried to do. Uh-huh. Y'all don't put this food for me now. He comes and talking about changing my name. It's something about it's something up, it's something up in him. There's something right about this him. And his antenna, his spiritual antennas picked it up. He said, But Daniel, he purposed in his heart. That means he done made it up in his heart. From this point on, I see what they're going with this. I see now I'm finna make up my mind and put in my heart that I'm not finna fall for this foolery. I'm not finna fall for this evil. But Daniel purposed in his heart, what you and I got to do. Got to make up in your heart, gotta make up in your mind. That he would not defile himself. Evidently, Daniel had enough spiritual sense to see that if he was to obey what these folks is trying to get him to do, and what he's trying to get him and his friends to do, it was gonna defile him before his God. Because somebody just ain't right. Trying to give us no meat and give us no wine and change our names and stuff. Daniel purpose in his heart. And in order for us to make it, y'all, in this world, especially with the way this world has become, I mean we're gonna have to have a strong, rooted purpose in our hearts, hallelujah, in our minds, that we refuse to defile ourselves, and then we're gonna refuse to eat the king's meat and drink whatever he's trying to put on in that glass for us to drink. He purposes, I will not defile, he will not defile himself with the portions of the king's meat, nor with the wine which he drank. Therefore, see, when you stand up for God, let me tell you something about that. See, some of y'all, let me let me let me take y'all slowly. Those of us who choose to live for God, and when you go through a trying situation or through a time of testing and being faced with certain evils, trust me on this, God will not only give you the strength to endure it, he will also give you the wisdom over what they're trying to do to you. See, Daniel saw what they were trying to do to him, but he was there, but then he knew he'd already saw an opening and a weakness in the prince of the eunuchs. And he took advantage of that and he requested, the Bible said, therefore he requested of the Prince of the Eunuchs that he might not defile himself. He went to him told, See, you ain't got to be saying when you tell somebody I'll stand up for the Listen, I'm saved, I stand up for the Lord, and I don't, I don't partake in that kind of stuff. That ain't what I do. That kind of places ain't where I go. I don't go to the club, I don't hang out in the bars, and I'm not, I refuse to defile myself around this foolery and this kind of atmosphere. He just went up to the man and told him straight up, I was I don't want to defile myself. Well, I'm asking you, I'm a queer, I'm putting in my queer. I'm not gonna defile myself. Now, you got any other thing, any other plan you can go, we can do. But the eunuch didn't have a clue because all he knew was to obey King Nebuchadnezzar, or he would get in trouble with the cane. Listen to me. Just like ancient Babylon, this is what it was, the moral climate and fiber of this generation and world of which we live is becoming more and more, listen to me, heathenistic. A bunch of heathens. But the more heathenistic it becomes, the more aware and resistant we must become to it and its ways. You've got to put up a resistor, or the devil will have you to lose your soul in hell. You've got to put a resistance because it's not right. You've got to put a resistor because your loyalty and your commitment you have dedicated to the Lord. So what if they talk about you? So what if they don't understand? You got to stand before God one day, not people. See, we can be sure that what Daniel and his friends were being taught and instructed to do contradicted what they had been taught by the people of God from where they were raised. This ain't how we were raised. They knew it went against God's word and his righteous principle. And these young men were not having none of it. No, we ain't gonna go down that road. Ain't no way. He said what you want to do, do what you want to do. You go tell it up with me. We're not going down this road here. But in Daniel's wisdom, because he was very wise, young man, to be so young, he's very wise. This is what he said in verse 12. This is what he said in verse 12. He says unto the prince of the unit, he said, Prove thy servant. In other words, test us, just test us out. I know he's trying to make us look like him after three years because we're eating this stuff and drinking. He said, But just test us. Just this, he said, I beseech thee, just give us 10 days. Just give me 10. Can I get two weeks? Can I get two weeks? Give us 10 days. This is what Danny said to the prince of the unit. And let them give us pulse to eat and water to drink. Pulse. That means that's messing us up from vegetables and peas and some mean. And we don't need no water, we don't need no wine. We just need water. Listen at this now. See, this is what a lot of us get in trouble. We don't want anything got no meat in it. See, pulse ain't got no meat in it, it's just a vegetable, a vegetable diet, beans, lentils, peas, stuff like that, and water. See, if this was a natural, if this was, if I was talking natural to you all day, a lot of us wouldn't make it. But I'm using this natural means, even though this actually happened to Daniel, but I'm giving you a spiritual connotation. Daniel said, just give us pulse, which is vegetable, mash up vegetable, peas, bean, whatever, and just give us water. Just give us 10 days. Then come back and look at us and see how we look. And if you read the rest of that chapter, because I got to move on, you'll see that after 10 days, they looked so much better. Their skin was more clearer than them other people in the group that was eating the king's meat and drinking the king's wine. And if you keep reading the story to tell you that the eunuch saw that how good they were looking, he changed everybody died. Did you see that? God will have those who mean things for your evil. He'll flip it and let it be for your good. And in blessing you, he'll bless all those around you. Everybody else got blessed. Put everybody on vegetable and water. See, we too must see that this world is not offering us anything that will deepen or further our relationship with God. This stuff, this sinful stuff, y'all, we've been doing and how the world we live, it ain't getting the world no more closer to God. In fact, it's pushing and pulling people more away from God. Too many people don't even feel God no more. They don't have the fear of God anymore. They don't recognize God anymore. Too many comedians are cracking religious jokes about God. Now, like they like they have no fear. I can't play with God like that. And the world is gonna get more and more like that. But I'm gonna tell you, but those who are his, those who belong to the Lord, are still gonna stay the course. Those who are belonging to God are gonna stay focused, no matter what the others in this world may do. If we conform to this world's spiritual eating way, hallelujah, hallelujah, you can be sure that the king's meat will be poisoned and laced with deadly and ungodly evil, which none of us need in our spirit. And he is hiding these evil things and a lot of the stuff that we are take pleasure in, social media, society's opinions about certain things, consensual sex. Well, we're grown, both of us agree, but this is what God wants. Living how we want to live, because I'm grown. Well, show me a tell me who is more grown than God. Huh? Those of us who have already tasted and fed upon this world's ways, and those whose spiritual diet has been seen must now be purged of these spiritual toxic and be cleansed of these spiritual impurities. You gotta, in other words, I'm saying you it's a lot gotta come out of us. Because we done indulged and aid at that table of sin a long year, many long years. And it has caused certain our lives to be in certain ways because we will, but we see we the enemy has us blind to it and oblivious to the results and the effects of sin. The effects and results of sins are devastating. And a lot of damage that has been done as a result of sin, a lot of those areas in our lives are irreparable. They can't be repaired. Yeah, we can be forgiven, but the damage is there. Get shot with a bullet now. Oh, they can get the bullet out, but you're still gonna have the scar of it where the bullet went in and came out. That cannot be changed. That you have been wounded in an area, though it, even though it may be healed up now, but you still see the effects of it when it happened. The same food and wine served to King Nebuchadnezzar was served to them. Food and wine that may have been offered to idols. That's another thing we've got to be careful of. Before fed to them. King Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonian people were idol worshipers. And idol worshippers performed certain types of ceremonies over the stuff they eat and sacrifice to their idol gods. What are the rituals? Hallelujah. And procedures on the things which come before us in this world today. That we don't know what we just know is new and it's come out with something new and we buy it. But we don't know what they did to this stuff, what they're important stuff. For years, a lot of people didn't know that they was placing certain locator things in cell phones where they can find you no matter where you are. They don't tell you that on the box on the box. And see, if they're doing that, what else is they doing? They can track you and tell where you're at anywhere this cut. Who has produced these many social media platforms of evil? But we know we get the joy out of them, get pleasure out of putting our business out there on Facebook, get pleasure out of being on the tick and talking. And with what such evil have they done this behind this? See, we think it's the Zuckerbergs, we think it's uh the Bill Gates, we think it's the Elon Musk. But who do you think is behind them? Spiritually, I'm talking. Do you not know the king of this world, the devil, is behind all of them, influencing those evil minds and evil men to continue to produce. See, that's why I like if you get time, read the first chapter of Romans. If you ever get a chance, remember, read that first chapter. And it'll tell you in these last days, there are going to be inventors of evil things. Oh, we think they're good because everybody's doing it, because everybody got one. But there is also some evil in a lot of these things that has been invented and placed on society's table for us to indulge, purchase, bring into our homes? See, what has been who has decided to approve such immoral, immoral programs broadcasted on our TV? Who's behind all that? What has this world done until certain things we purchase? Well, what they do until before they put them in the box, come out them plants, before we place them in our home. They come into our homes with spirits. I was listening uh uh to some people talk about how many women buy all this hair weave and from these different places, especially when they buy real hair. And I I heard somebody say that a lot of them don't realize the hair that is being cut from the heads of some of these people to sell have had certain spirits on them. And when the hair is sold, part of that spirit is yet in the hair. And now you don't place it on your head and glue it to your skull. And wonder why certain spirits you got to keep on buying, you got to keep on this and keep on doing more and more of it. Because we are aware of the spirits behind a lot of things that we have on us in our homes and the things we do. We are even, are we are we even aware of the behind the scenes imps which carry out the demonic king of this world's plans and purposes against us? Do we not see the deception and falseness of those in demonic disguise standing over the people in this world, in leadership, in authority, those that are the king's eunuchs and servants. Daniel had made it up in his mind from the start that he would not defile himself, he would not compromise his convictions, even if it meant death. Even if it meant his death. I truly love and admire the conviction and godly stance these young men took in their refusing to defile themselves in the place of which they had been taken captive. It did not matter to them where they were, being a long way from home. It only mattered to them that they knew they had an obligation to their holy king, the Lord God Almighty, and not to the heathen king of this world. Are we not also a long way from home? Being that now we're in Christ, we're no longer of this world, being not of this world, doesn't it all so matter that no matter where we are, that our conviction is to Jesus and our loyalty is to God? These young men, faithfulness was their center focus. Their loyalty to God was paramount in their lives, and they stood firm in the face of whosoever and whatsoever would attempt to move them from what had been planted in their hearts by God. Ain't nothing, they wasn't gonna let nothing get out of their heart. Their loyalty and their commitment to God. Those of us who are determined to remain faithful to God when confronted with temptation, when confronted with the choice to eat the king's or the devil's meat, will be given the strength to stand firm for God. But be warned and be aware. Those who have no true conviction, those who have not previously decided to stand and remain true to God and his word, will find it difficult to resist the king's feast or aboard conforming to the ways of this world. Because they've got a taste of it. Something David said in Psalms 141. Let me give you some more words. Psalms 141, verses 3 and 4. He says this in verse 3. He says, Set a watch, O Lord, hallelujah, before my mouth. Watch my mouth. I don't just want anything going in my mouth. He said, Keep the door of my lips. You ain't got to let certain things come in your mouth, spiritual mouth, over your spiritual lips. Devil because the devil got it on the table. Listen at verse 4, though. This is what I want you to get. He says, He's praying to the Lord, he said, Incline not my heart to any evil thing. Don't let my heart be turned toward any evil thing. To practice wicked works. Listen to that. Listen to that. Don't let my heart go toward any evil. Because I ain't, I don't need to be practicing no evil work, no wicked works with men that work iniquity. I don't need to be associated with somebody that's out there doing wrong. Because then all they're gonna do, all it's gonna do is influence my flesh and that man, that part of me that won't sin. And I don't need to be around that. But here's the part I want you to remember that last part, verse 4 said, And let me not eat of their dainties. See that word dainty, the old word delicacy. See, the devil got on his table. It looked like a delicacy, it looked like something, ooh, that show look good to eat. He'll make that look good to your spirit, man, so that you can go there and indulge it. But David also, just like Daniel and the three human boys, picked up on that. David also picked up on and said, Lord, let me not eat of their dainties. I don't I don't need to be eating what I don't need to be eating spiritually. I don't care how much of a delicacy it may look to my spirit. I don't want no one. Uh-uh. Put a watch Lord on my mouth, keep the door of my lips, my spiritual lips, my spiritual mouth. Those of us who say we love the Lord should pray that God will keep us from desiring, from speaking, or doing anything evil. We must shun all compromises with the wicked people and refuse to be entertained or indulge in their dainty, their delicacy. I also like the way Brother Solomon said David's son in the book of Proverbs, chapter 23, before I let you go. Proverbs 23, 1 through 3. This is what Solomon said, and I do relate to this. He said, When, number verse 1 said, When thou sittest to eat with a ruler, watch it when you sit around devils now. Consider diligently what is before thee. You better look at what they put on your plate. You can't eat everything. Watch what they're doing because of the ruler, you think they're gonna serve good eating. But you better watch them, watch them. Nebuchadnezzar could get a hold of the best food. But Daniel knew, watch it. Uh-uh. If it's coming from you, it's a minus. He says, When thou sittest to eat with a ruler, consider diligently what is before thee, and put a knife to thy throat. You're talking spiritually, not real knife, and put a knife to thy throat if thou be a man given to have the. In other words, he said, If you see something on this table, he's trying to feed you. In other words, he's saying, stop your own throat from trying to eat it and stop your own appetite. Stop yourself from eating it. And he describes it as like put a knife to your throat, meaning stop it. Okay, how home you is, okay. This is like here, spiritually talking. When we go in some of these churches, just because they got a beautiful edifice, just because the preacher can speak so eloquently, you still need to be aware and watchful of what they're saying, that if it's the word of God, and how they're presenting themselves. Because it just might be some hidden truths, hidden untruths spoken. Come on now, it didn't even the devil try to use some messed up word on Jesus and try to tell him, ain't it written that if you dash your foot against stone? Trying to quote some words of Jesus. Now, come on now, that's bold. But see, we also must be watchful and make sure what we are being fed and what we're hearing is truly what God wants us to have. You go around, he said, consider diligent what is before you, what they said before you, and let it be like you put a knife to your throat to stop yourself from eating. If you give them to appetite, we're home, we're gone. But verse 3 is what I want you to remember. He said, Be not desirous of his dainties. That means them delicates on the table, them sweets and eats, cakes and pies and dressing. Spiritually, I'm talking. Be not desirous of his dainties. For they, listen what he said. The psalmist said, for they are deceitful meats. I mean, there's something in them. There's something wrong with what that preacher's saying. There's something wrong with what that sister missionary talking about. See, Paul spoke words about human sinfulness on God's condemnation. There's a condition equally as serious as the practicing of sin itself. That's another condition. It's when we start liking and approving of the immoral and perverted practices and acts of others. See, some of us don't do a lot of things we other folk do, but we like watching it. We like being around it. We like kiki keying and giggling because it's comical. We like simply been watching it, even though we don't do it. But you you're watching is approving of it. You're watching is agreeing with it. See, many have pleasure in seeing in the sense of taking pleasure in the immoral actions of others as dramatized in books and movies, videos. TV entertainment. You ain't no actor, but you love seeing actors acting fool and do and say certain things on their screen. See the word have pleasure in the Greek means you agree with it. The word have pleasure in the Greek means you consent to it. You're okay with it. You're fine with it. Points to the casual enjoyment of the sins of others that prevails in human society. This is also a form of eating the king's evil meat. You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and a cup of the devils. You cannot partake of the Lord's table and the table of devils. All you're doing and will strive to do is revoke God to anger. In this day, as well as in biblical times, there were and are many errors in failing to distinguish between righteousness and unrighteous, between that which is holy and that which is defiled, between that which is of Christ and that which is of the devil. So many are not even aware at this point in their lives that it is King Nebuchadnezzar, which is the form of the devil, and not King Jesus, that they are serving and worshiping. If we would commit ourselves to Jesus, there is a place in him where we would only hunger for him and only thirst for him. But he tells us that we must come to him. Listen to what he says in the book of John, that's sixth chapter, verse 35. Jesus said to him, I am the bread of life. He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. I am that bread of life. Jesus, listen to me, is the only bread which can truly sustain our lives. He is the living word of God, and the Bible is the written word of it. This is why reading and studying God's word is so important, because it alone feeds us righteously before we can feed on those things which be unrighteous. Jesus calls himself the bread of life, and man shall not live by bread alone, talking about natural bread, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God, which is him, the living bread. We cannot live and will not be able to spiritually survive by eating the king of this world's meat. We must refuse to eat the evil meats and refuse to drink the evil drinks set before us by the king of this world. Refuse to eat the king's meat. God bless you.