Life Matters - August 7, 2024
The reason we have so many insane ideas permeating American culture is because God’s Word has been, and has been for many years, sidelined, ignored, and in some cases, even openly mocked. No other religion is so tolerant, and I fear at times that we (as in the umbrella term of Christianity) have become more tolerant in hearing the abuse of God’s Word than we would be about any abuse of our physical being or its emotions. If that be the case, we had best repent and speak up, lest we find ourselves in that most awkward of positions, having the cart before the horse. Christians, as well as horses, are for pulling, not for pushing. Spiritual life should come first, taking the lead.
Daniel chapter 4 is the testimony of a ruthless dictator finding God. His personal testimony, as related by himself. Nebuchadnezzar had met God before, by hearing His Word as spoken by the prophet Daniel, and was so convinced that there was no god more powerful than ‘’your God’’ (speaking to Daniel) that he made Daniel a great man in his kingdom, making him ruler over the whole province of Babylon. But God was still “Daniel’s God,” a distinct, powerful entity to be admired, but from a distance. And that distance was to show itself when Nebuchadnezzar made an image of gold, 60 feet high (presumably including the pedestal), nine feet wide, set it up in the plain Dura, in the province of Babylon, and arranged a dedication ceremony for the image. The image (again, presumably) was fashioned after the image in his dream, with one mind-bending, self-exalting difference. The head of gold.
Daniel had interpreted the head of gold to be Nebuchadnezzar and his kingdom, to be followed in time by lesser kingdoms, symbolized by its breast and arms of silver, its belly and thighs of brass, legs of iron, feet part of iron and part of clay. To make matters worse for Nebuchadnezzar and his earthly kingdom there was a stone ‘’cut out without hands’’ that smote the image at its weakest point, its feet, bringing the iron, the clay, the brass, the silver, and the gold crashing down, breaking in pieces together and the wind carried them away like the chaff of the summer threshing-floor. But…’’the stone that smote the image became a great mountain and filled the whole earth.’’ (Daniel 2:31-45)
It is hard for us ‘’macho’’ men to accept our limitations and Nebuchadnezzar was no different. Oh, he tried. He honored and promoted Daniel. He honored Daniel’s God.
But God was still ‘’Daniel’s God’’ and Nebuchadnezzar was willing to defy providence via his image of gold (never mind the silver, the brass, the iron, and for sure not the clay) by setting it up, calling together all the great leaders of his empire, and, through a herald, commanding them to fall down and worship the image at the sounding of instruments of music. Three young Jews refused. They did not bow. They were caught, brought to the king and accused of being disloyal to the king. Such acts were a political affront and considered treasonous. Nebuchadnezzar was furious when he gave them another chance and they still refused, assuring him that their God was able to deliver them from the king’s decree. ‘’But if not,” they continued, ‘’we will not bow.’’ Now the king’s fury was out-of-control hot. He commanded his men to cast the three Hebrew young men into the burning fiery furnace after heating it ‘’seven times hotter than it was wont to be heated.” So hot it was that the men casting the Hebrews into the oven were killed by its heat even as the three young men ‘’fell down bound in the midst of the burning fiery furnace.’’
But then… the young men got up, loosed from their bonds, and walked about, unharmed, in the fire. The king was astonished in seeing them alive. Not only were they alive, but there was a fourth man, whom the king recognized—in what must have been a personal revelation from God—to be ‘’like the Son of God.’’ The king called the men out of the furnace and they came out. Now there were three again, unhurt, not a hair singed, not a thread burnt, nor even the smell of fire upon them. The king was impressed. This time he promoted Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the province of Babylon and decreed that anyone who spoke anything against their God did so at the peril of their own life and to the destruction of their own house.
In Daniel chapter 4 things get very personal. Nebuchadnezzar has another dream. He calls Daniel to interpret. Daniel is astonished, so much so that he is silent for one hour and then only speaks at the request of the king. And he begins with these words, ‘’My lord, the dream be to them that hate thee, and the interpretation thereof to thine enemies.’’
The dream saw the humiliation of the king in losing his sanity, being like a beast of the field, becoming totally unkempt and eating grass like the oxen.
Nebuchadnezzar forgot. Pride got the best of him again, God stepped out of the way, and the dream became reality. ‘’Seven times passed.’’ Then Nebuchadnezzar turned his eyes upward to heaven and his sanity returned. He was now a humbled man with a sound mind. And his sound mind saw himself through the eyes of reality. He saw God as He is and this is how he concluded his testimony, ‘’Now I Nebuchadnezzar praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, all whose works are truth, and his ways judgement: and those that walk in pride he is able to abase.’’
Nebuchadnezzar lost his push when he was, as in Matthew 11:29-30, yoked together with Christ. He became a leader.
Life Matters!