Daniel 4:28-37

The Epistle of St. Nebuchadnezzar to the Babylonians: Part Two

A sermon by Pastor Joe Haynes

Preached on February 12, 2017 at Beacon Church

A true story…

Verse 28 is kind of like line at the beginning of your favourite TV show, “previously in Babylon..” and in reminding us about everything he had already said in his letter to the Babylonians, King Nebuchadnezzar also reminds us that what we are about to read is a true story. “All this came upon King Nebuchadnezzar,” (Dan. 4:28 ESV). The first 27 verses of the king’s story in this chapter tell about the dream he had that made him so afraid, and about Daniel’s interpretation of the dream, ending with Daniel pleading with Nebuchadnezzar to repent of his sins before it’s too late. But, as the king continues telling his story, without trying to make himself look good or put a nice spin on those events, he humbly admits what happened next in his own words…

What I did

“A year later I went for a walk to admire how great I thought I was…” “29 At the end of twelve months he was walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon,  30 and the king answered and said, "Is not this great Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of my majesty?"  (Dan. 4:29-30 ESV). This is not the story of a man who listened to Daniel and turned from his sinful ways; this is the story of a man who ignored Daniel’s warning and whose godless pride went from bad to worse. But why? Why didn’t he listen? Why didn’t he take God’s warning to heart? There are three things you should observe here:

1.       If God had not interrupted the king, it seems he would never have repented (the point of mentioning the 12 months), because…

2.       12 months later he was worse: not less proud but more proud. The way verse 30 doubles up the verbs about speaking, “answered and said”, (I agree with Calvin) is in order to emphasize that these thoughts are sincere, brutally honest (no pun intended), and show what was really in his heart. Like an acorn grows into an oak tree according to its nature, Nebuchadnezzar was growing into a proud, enemy of God, according to his nature.

3.       That the king’s boast about his own greatness and the work he has done to “build” Babylon is pretty ironic considering he’s looking out over the city built around the unfinished “Tower of Babel” (in fact, the name of the city he uses in verse 30, in Aramaic, is “Babel”). The sin in his heart twisted the way he saw things so much that it became obvious, in hindsight, that his outlook on reality was warped and self-serving—in a word, high-functioning insanity.

What God did "for me"

He made known to me his decree (so that I would know who was responsible for what happened to me next), and he disciplined me…

He gave me His word (vv31-32)

I said a few moments ago that “God interrupted him”, because in verse 31, “the words were still in his mouth” when God’s decree fell on him—interrupting his boast. But this was an interruption that, miraculously, Nebuchadnezzar was later very happy about—very grateful for: he praised God for this miraculous intervention in verses 2-3: “2 It has seemed good to me to show the signs and wonders that the Most High God has done for me.  3 How great are his signs, how mighty his wonders! His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and his dominion endures from generation to generation,” (Dan. 4:2-3 ESV). “Wonders” are miracles. Grudem defines “miracles” as “a less common kind of God’s activity in which he arouses people’s awe and wonder”.[i] And what God did “for” Nebuchadnezzar is then a textbook case of a miracle causing awe and wonder, just as he said at the beginning of his letter (v2). Before we read what God’s decree said, notice that the king was happy about it later on (v2), even though the decree announced in detail that God was taking everything away from the king—even his sanity, in order to teach him that anything we have is merely because God chose to give that to us—not because we deserve it, but because of His grace.

31 While the words were still in the king's mouth, there fell a voice from heaven, "O King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is spoken: The kingdom has departed from you,  32 and you shall be driven from among men, and your dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field. And you shall be made to eat grass like an ox, and seven periods of time shall pass over you, until you know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will."  (Dan. 4:31-32 ESV)

He humbled me (v33)

This time God’s Word is fulfilled not 12 months later, but “immediately”. “Immediately the word was fulfilled against Nebuchadnezzar. He was driven from among men and ate grass like an ox, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven till his hair grew as long as eagles' feathers, and his nails were like birds' claws,” (Dan. 4:33 ESV). But this is consistent with what we learn about God from all the rest of Scripture: there is a frequent theme in the Bible along the lines that God makes war on the proud but makes peace with the humble—from the oldest book in the Bible, and throughout the New Testament:

·         For when they are humbled you say, 'It is because of pride'; but he saves the lowly. (Job 22:29 ESV)

·         For though the LORD is high, he regards the lowly, but the haughty he knows from afar. (Ps. 138:6 ESV)

·         Toward the scorners he is scornful, but to the humble he gives favor. (Prov. 3:34 ESV)

·         All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be, declares the LORD. But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word. (Isa. 66:2 ESV)

·         For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted." (Lk. 14:11 ESV)

·         But he gives more grace. Therefore it says, "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." (Jas. 4:6 ESV)

·         Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you. (1 Pet. 5:5-7 ESV)

John Calvin’s insight was on the money when he explained that the reason “why God declares war on all the proud” was because whenever we push ourselves up even a bit, we are “declaring war on God”. Since God is the Creator of everything, and sustains all things by His power, ruling over all the Earth according to His will—what He wants—then whenever we claim any credit for ourselves, we are robbing from God.[ii]

He changed my heart (vv34-35)

Finally, at the proper time, Nebuchadnezzar has a complete change of mind about God, and repents. But he doesn’t take any credit for that change: he gives all the glory to God!

34 At the end of the days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High, and praised and honored him who lives forever, for his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation;  35 all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, "What have you done?" (Dan. 4:34-35 ESV)

It’s not just the New Testament that teaches about sinners being “born again”—the Old Testament does too, which is why Jesus asked one Jewish scholar, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?” (John 3:10). (c.f. Deut 30:6; Jer 24:7; 31:33; Eze 11:19-20; 36:26, etc.) God said through the prophet Ezekiel, “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh,” (Ezek. 36:26 ESV). What is shocking here though is that not only does God “regenerate” a Gentile, and a sinner, but the arch-enemy of God’s people, the man who destroyed Jerusalem and the Temple of God! That was a miracle of grace!

St. Nebuchadnezzar’s words here reveal 3 attitudes toward God that always belong to truly converted, born again believers in God: he says in his own words, that he “blessed,” “praised,” and, “honoured” the “Most High”. A) The word for “blessed” comes from the word “to kneel”, showing like in Philippians 2:10, that true believers bow to the authority and rule of the Lord: “so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Phil. 2:10-11 ESV). B) When he says he “praised” God, in verse 34, that word means he didn’t keep it to himself; he confessed with His mouth, and praised God out loud for others to hear. C) The Aramaic word for “honour” is about a heart attitude that wants to magnify God, and see God get all the glory.[iii]

It’s fitting, isn’t it, that in his pride, King Nebuchadnezzar looked down on Babylon from his rooftop, but in the end of his testimony, he “lifts his eyes to heaven” (v34). One writer says, "As long as he looks down on others, God is distant; but when Nebuchadnezzar looks up in desperation, God provides his grace. The words remind us not only that “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6), but also that there are none so evil or so destitute that the grace of God cannot reach them (Dan. 4:37)."[iv]

What God can do for you

It's as though Nebuchadnezzar is saying, "I’m Living Proof that 'Peace can be multiplied to you!'" (v1) Sometime, it seems, during the final decades of King Nebuchadnezzar’s rule over Babylon, God performed, “signs and wonders for [Nebuchadnezzar]” (v2), and the king was born again as a true believer in God, saved by grace. He went from being, as Calvin said, “at war with God” to finding peace with God. And that’s the peace he says in verse 1 he wants for all his people—the Babylonians in the 6th century before Christ. But when Daniel included this letter in his book, this became an invitation for the whole world, everyone who listens, to come and find peace with God as well.

There are quite a few times in the Bible where we discover evidence of a pattern showing us that God has always had a great plan of salvation, and that the whole Bible reveals that plan. Prophecies announce what God is going to do before He does it, and sometimes God does things in the lives of people in the Old Testament to be a living sign predicting something greater God will do in the future.[v] It’s important that we see God was making Nebuchadnezzar into a sign, to preach to both Jews and Gentiles a warning to repent from sin and believe the Good News of God’s grace. So the king’s dream in chapter 4, and the king’s punishment in chapter 4, each make a distinct point that I believe we need to understand: the fulfillment of the dream proved that God rules over all the Earth according to what God wants; the bizarre way God made the king repent and enabled him to love and trust God in the end, preaches to Jews and to Gentiles about the way God’s grace saves sinners and makes them into saints. So God made the king become a bizarre living sign,

1.       predicting the 7 “times” of the Gentiles’ war against God.

The king’s arrogant pride was a sign that for many centuries, Gentile governments would make war on God’s people and reject Christ, reaching a boiling point in “Babylon the Great”, the last and greatest enemy of the Church of Christ—they would be chopped down too. Revelation 14:8; 16:19; 17:5, and 18:2 use Nebuchadnezzar’s own words, (lit.) “Isn’t she Babylon the Great” (c.f. NASB), and use that name for a religious institution based in the city of Rome that, like Nebuchadnezzar, would persecute those faithful to God, become the height of pride and arrogance, and need to be “chopped down”. Comparing the future Babylon the Great to the tree in Nebuchadnezzar’s dream (c.f. v12), Revelation 18:2-4 announces the time when Babylon the Great will fall, she who gave shelter to not just beasts and birds and people, but also to demons, and ends with a call for everyone who will listen to “come out of her” and be saved.

2.       preaching salvation by grace alone

The king’s insanity and redemption was a sign that apart from God’s grace, the nations that come and go will not bow to Christ as their Lord or believe in His name. But that like Nebuchadnezzar, God’s Spirit will graciously change the hearts and minds of many people to repent and believe the Good News of Jesus.

3.       promising the joy of believers will be God’s glory

The king’s praise for God was a sign that at the end of all this world history, when Christ comes back, an incredible multitude of believers miraculously saved by God’s grace, will confess aloud and with one voice, “Hallelujah! Salvation and glory and power belong to our God, for his judgements are true and just…!” (Rev 19:1-2). Not just a few believers, but the deafening, happy shout of millions, declaring the glory of God in what He has done through Jesus Christ our Lord:

“Then I heard what seemed to be the voice of a great multitude, like the roar of many waters and like the sound of mighty peals of thunder, crying out, "Hallelujah! For the Lord our God the Almighty reigns.

 7 Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready…”  (Rev. 19:6-7 ESV)

That’s the invitation of Nebuchadnezzar’s letter—like Daniel begged the king to repent in verse 27—St. Nebuchadnezzar, in sending out his letter, invites his readers to listen, to respond, to obey God and trust Him now. Like what God did for Nebuchadnezzar, God's gives us His Word, God disciplines us whom He loves, God grants us repentance, God restores us, so we can declare, “To God be the glory, great things He has done (for us)!” “Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, for all his works are right and his ways are just; and those who walk in pride he is able to humble.” (Dan. 4:37 ESV).