Saturday, April 11, 2020

Daniel 4:34,35–“Humble”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

34And to the end of the days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to the heavens and my understanding returned upon me and to the Most High I blessed and to the Living One of the ages I praised and I glorified that His dominion [is] an everlasting dominion and His kingdom [is] with generation and generation, 35and the all of the dwellers of the earth [are] ones reckoned like nothing and like to please Him [He is] One doing in the armies of the heavens and [in] the dwellers of the earth and none there is who can hinder in His hand and say to Him, “What are You doing?”

I want to pause and ponder Nebuchadnezzar’s opening words here: “And to the end of the days I…” or, as in the NIV, “At the end of that time I, …”

What “time”? The seven years. The seven “times” the Lord had warned him would pass until he acknowledged that “the Most High rules.”

What I see here is a literal monument of grace. People today think there is more grace in the New Testament than the Old. What they’re not seeing is that God didn’t change. Daniel’s God is the same God you and I worship. He hasn’t changed. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever. And for us humans, one of the most important attributes we desperately need to understand is grace – whether we live in the New Testament or the Old. The book of Daniel (in the Old Testament!) is shouting to us the wonder of God’s grace and where better to learn about it than to watch the Lord humble a very proud, stubborn pagan king?

What do I mean? Just look again at these simple words, “At the end of that time, I…” Who is the “I”? The king of Babylon. Babylon, the very epicenter of evil in earth history. It started as the tower of Babel, was the very nation which utterly destroyed Judah, deported the people, and burned the Temple, and remains even until the last chapters of the book of Revelation, pictured as the Great Prostitute “drunk with the blood of the saints.” And who is this man? Their king. If ever the Lord had a few extra lightning bolts lying around, you’d think He’d of used one on this guy. But He didn’t. And what did He do? He sent a dream to warn him.

Warn him? Why? Why not just blast his evilness into eternity and be done with him? No one who’s ever known of Nebuchadnezzar would be surprised to read that the Lord sent down fire from heaven and cooked him. In fact, we’d probably all cheer and be glad for it. But that isn’t what our God did. And why not? Grace. We easily forget that the Lord made Nebuchadnezzar just the same as you and me. Psalm 139 applies just as much to him as to you and me: “You created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb…I am fearfully and wonderfully made.” The Lord loved Nebuchadnezzar.

And so He deals with him in grace. He sent the dream to warn him. Then he sent one of the greatest prophets of history to explain the dream to him, to repeat the warning, and to very graciously urge him to repentance. And, in the dream, in the warning that his tree would be cut down, was also the promise the stump would be bound with bronze and iron, that the judgment would only last for “seven times.” In between the warning and the judgment, the Lord allowed him twelve months, a full year, to repent. Then even as the stroke of judgment finally fell, the voice from heaven said, “This is what is decreed for you…seven times will pass by for you until you acknowledge the Most High reigns…”

And now where are we? The “seven times” have passed. “At the end of that time, I…”

The “I” is still here. He’s still alive. Just as the Lord had said. Nebuchadnezzar is a monument to grace. And, happily, we get to see that grace won!

I haven’t studied chapter 5 yet, but if I may be allowed to rush ahead, contrast all of this with Nebuchadnezzar’s grandson Belshazzar. “O king, the Most High gave your (grand)father Nebuchadnezzar sovereignty and greatness…But when his heart became arrogant and hardened with pride, he was deposed from his throne and stripped of his glory…But you, his (grand)son, O Belshazzar, have not humbled yourself, though you knew all this…That very night Belshazzar, king of the Babylonians, was slain…”

Belshazzar was sent the handwriting on the wall and that very night he died. There was no offer of repentance, only judgment. And why the difference? This is soooo instructive. The difference is that Nebuchadnezzar experienced grace. Belshazzar abused it. As Daniel reminds him, he “knew all of this.”

Just those simple words, “At the end of that time I, …” remind us that our God is a God of grace. Belshazzar reminds us, however, that our God is no one to trifle with. Even in Nebuchadnezzar’s case, he did have to eat grass like an ox. Our God was gracious to him, but because of his stubborn pride, he still brought on himself horrible suffering. In order to enjoy grace, you and I must learn to live in humility. We believe that in fact the Most High rules in the kingdoms of men. We choose today to bow our knee and confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. We bring to Him our needs and requests, then say, “Thy will be done.”  We try to accept His rule and live humbly before Him. When we do, in fact, live in that place of humility, we get to enjoy the fruits of our amazingly gracious God. It’s down to the old simple maxim: “God resists the proud, but gives His grace to the humble.”

Lord help us to be found in the place of “the humble.”


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