Word of Salvation – Vol.50 No.1 – January 2005
The Moment of Truth
Sermon by Rev J De Hoog on Daniel 4
Scripture Readings: Daniel 4
Suggested Hymns: BoW 93a; 450; 441; 528; Rej 326
Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ…
Why should we read the Book of Daniel? Yes, it contains exciting stories like Daniel in the lion’s den and Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego in the fiery furnace. But we don’t read this book only for its exciting stories. We read this book because it is part of God’s Word, because it contains the words of life, because it reveals Jesus Christ to us, because it contains teaching about how we should live as Christians, and because it confronts and challenges unbelief and idolatry.
But still you might think that Daniel is such a long way away from us. How can this book really address our context in our world?
It’s true that Daniel is distant from us. It is distant in three ways.
1. It is distant from us chronologically. The Book of Daniel was written more than two and a half thousand years ago. Times change. Look at a television programme made in the 1960s to see how much things have changed in just forty years. The whole nostalgia business takes the heroes of earlier times and makes heroes of them again today – Superman, Spiderman, the Phantom, even the Hulk. We hark back to our childhood and enjoy our super heroes all over again. But we know how much times have changed over forty or fifty years. How can something written two and a half thousand years ago address us today?
2. It is distant from us culturally. Daniel is addressed to Israelites living in Babylonian exile. Daniel lived in the Ancient Near Eastern world. Our postmodern Western culture is so incredibly different. How can we relate to Daniel?
3. It is also distant from us redemptive-historically. Daniel lived in the world before the coming of Christ. He is part of the community of Israel in exile, being punished for the sins of the nation. God is punishing and purifying and moulding and preserving a faithful remnant of His people in exile so that they can eventually return to the land to lead up to the coming of Jesus Christ into the world. We live after Christ, after He has lived, died, risen again and ascended to the right hand of God. We look back on the most significant event in the history of the world – the work of Jesus Christ. What can the Book of Daniel, written in the shadows, before the coming of the great light, possibly say to us today?
If you read the Book of Daniel as a whole, there are three major truths about God and His people that come through with great clarity. The first and major truth is this: In spite of present appearances, God is sovereign, God is in control. It might seem from appearances that God is no longer worth worshipping. But time and again in Daniel, God proves that He is still the only true God.
Second, this sovereign God will not abandon his people, no matter what circumstances might appear to say. In Daniel’s time, God will be faithful to His people because He loves them, and because through His people He is preparing the way to send his Son into the world to finally save His people from their sins, which He will do because He loves His people. In our time, God will not abandon His people because He loves them, and because He has sent his Son into the world to finally save His people from their sins. And since Jesus has finished His work of salvation and has died and risen again for every single individual one of His people, so it is impossible that God would abandon any single individual one of His people. To do that would be to reject the work that His own Son, Jesus Christ, has already finished on behalf of that one.
Third, since God is in control no matter what appearances might say, and since this sovereign God who is in control will not abandon even a single individual one of His people, therefore the only sensible thing to do is to trust in this sovereign caring God no matter what the circumstances might suggest. This third point from Daniel is this: “Go and do likewise.” Daniel and his friends are role models for us. We should be like them.
This third point divides into two applications: To believers it says – do not let go of God. Continue to embrace Him and trust Him through Jesus Christ. How foolish it would be to abandon your faith!
And second, to unbelievers it says – realise the utter futility of your position! How foolish to hear the good news of the one true God, who is in control, who does not abandon His people, but who loves them, and who has acted to save them; how foolish it is to hear this good news and to reject it!
Even if you are as successful and as powerful as a Nebuchadnezzar, which none of you ever will be, but even if you are, do not be fooled by the apparent success of this world. It is all only so much fantasy, which will be taken away in a single moment. Rather, embrace that which is eternal – God Almighty, who sent Jesus Christ, His Son, to save every single individual one of His people.
Well, it may seem strange to begin a sermon with application, but this is the kind of mindset we need to bring to the Book of Daniel if we are going to understand it properly. Yes, it is true that Daniel is distant from us, chronologically, culturally and redemptive-historically. And yet, because God has not changed, and because people basically have not changed, so the Book of Daniel addresses us with the challenges and consequences of belief and unbelief. The Book of Daniel challenges and comforts believers, and it confronts and unsettles any unbelievers who are willing to even begin to think through the futility of their position. The Book of Daniel is both pastoral and evangelistic.
We come today to Chapter 4.
The first four chapters of Daniel record four accounts of God dealing with Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. In Chapter 1, Nebuchadnezzar does all he can to subsume the brightest and best of Israel’s young men into Babylonian culture and thinking, but all he does is succeed in placing faithful Israelites into important positions in his kingdom.
In Chapter 2, in the story of the dream that Nebuchadnezzar cannot remember, all the gods and all the wisdom of Babylon are unable to complete a simple task – simple for the Lord, that is – to predict the future of four empires and God’s coming kingdom.
In Chapter 3, in the story of the three friends in the fiery furnace, Nebuchadnezzar is humiliated at what should have been his greatest moment – the dedication of the golden image. All idolatry is in principle condemned and frustrated by the experience of the three friends in the fiery furnace.
So as we come to Chapter 4, a question forms in my mind: How thick is Nebuchadnezzar’s skin? How could he still think himself the centre of the universe? After the amazing wonders that God had done, how could Nebuchadnezzar still be so arrogant and proud?
Three times in three chapters, God has compelled Nebuchadnezzar to realise that he is not mighty, but that God is the ruler of the universe.
In chapter 2, Nebuchadnezzar dreams of a mighty statue with a golden head, a chest and arms of silver, and other body parts of several other materials. In his dream he has seen the mighty statue smashed into fine powder by a rock, which eventually grows to fill the whole universe. Daniel tells him that the mighty statue represents the kingdoms of mankind, with Nebuchadnezzar symbolised by the head of gold. And the rock, which smashed the statue, portrays the kingdom of God, lasting forever and defeating all human kingdoms. Nebuchadnezzar has to realise that he is small, insignificant and weak compared to the one and only true God, the ruler of the universe.
And it seems for a while that Nebuchadnezzar realises God’s greatness. At the end of chapter 2, he says to Daniel: “Surely your God is the God of gods and the Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries, for you were able to reveal this mystery.”
But in the very next story, in chapter 3, we see that Nebuchadnezzar has not learnt his lesson at all. In fact, he openly rejects what God has revealed to him in his dream. In his dream, he had seen a massive statue smashed to powder by a huge rock. In chapter 3 he sets up a massive statue, no doubt representing himself, which he expects everyone to worship. In his dream, only the head of the statue had been gold, the rest had been of inferior materials. The head had represented Nebuchadnezzar, the remainder had represented other kingdoms. In chapter 3, the entire statue is of gold, not just the head.
In setting up the statue, Nebuchadnezzar is openly rejecting God’s revelation to him in his dream. If Nebuchadnezzar had truly believed God’s dream, he may perhaps have set up a huge rock to symbolise God’s kingdom. But no, it’s a statue all of gold that he establishes. “I am the only ruler”, he is saying. “No other kingdom or king exists. Worship only me.”
But as we saw in chapter 3, once again Nebuchadnezzar is humbled and forced to realise his own smallness and weakness before God. Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who refuse to bow before the golden image, are not consumed by the white hot flames of the fiery furnace. God sent his angel into the furnace to walk there with them and protect them.
Once again, the king seems to learn a lesson about the greatness of God. At the end of chapter 3, he declares, “Praise be to the God of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, who has sent His angel and rescued His servants! They trusted in Him and defied the king’s command and were willing to give up their lives rather than serve or worship any god except their own God… no other god can save in this way.”
Nebuchadnezzar seems to have made some powerful statements about God in response to the two experiences recorded in chapters 2 and 3. But still Nebuchadnezzar has not learnt his lesson! In chapter 4 we read of God dealing with Nebuchadnezzar again! God gives Nebuchadnezzar a frightening dream of a huge tree that reaches to the heavens, which is cut down so that only the stump is left in the ground. Once again, only Daniel is able to tell the king the meaning of the dream. And this time the dream comes true during Nebuchadnezzar’s lifetime.
It is important to notice that in this case God gives Nebuchadnezzar the general meaning of the dream within the dream itself! See how the meaning of the dream is given in the dream itself. The messenger in the dream comes from heaven, he announces the doom of the tree, he indicates that the tree really represents a man, and he states plainly that the purpose of the dream is that “all the living may know that the Most High is sovereign over the kingdoms of men, and gives them to anyone he wishes and sets over them the lowliest of men.” This is all in Nebuchadnezzar’s own account of the dream!
Perhaps Daniel’s insight was necessary for understanding the details. But it is impossible to believe that neither Nebuchadnezzar nor his wise men could miss the central meaning of the dream – that the only God, the Maker of heaven and earth, is Ruler over all human kingdoms. No, it’s not the case that Nebuchadnezzar or his wise men don’t understand the basic message of the dream. The main trouble is that Nebuchadnezzar doesn’t like what he understands of God’s Word. He doesn’t want to hear it!
Daniel clearly explains the dream, and does not hold back in explaining how it applies to the king. But let’s leave the explanation for a minute and continue to focus on Nebuchadnezzar. Listen to his mindset twelve months later. “Twelve months later, as the king was walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon, he said, ‘Is not this the great Babylon I have built as the royal residence, by my mighty power and for the glory of my majesty?’ “ (vs 29). Do you see? Nebuchadnezzar hasn’t changed at all! He has still not been brought to the point of acknowledging the rule of God.
John Elias, an eighteenth century Welsh evangelist, once told a vivid story that illustrates Nebuchadnezzar’s plight. He recalled the time when the local blacksmith had bought a new dog. Shortly afterward, when Elias visited the blacksmith shop, the dog could be heard barking fiercely as the blacksmith’s hammer beat rhythmically on the metal of the horseshoes. As time went on, however, the barking became quieter and less frequent, until one day Elias looked into the smithy to catch the blacksmith hammering away at the anvil and saw the dog, asleep by the fire, silent at last. (From Ferguson’s commentary on Daniel in the MOT series.)
Just like the dog in the smithy, Nebuchadnezzar had grown accustomed to the hammering of the word of God. He had ignored it so fiercely that now his conscience was immune to its impact. He had seen Daniel reveal and interpret a dream he couldn’t even remember himself. He had seen the three friends saved from the fiery furnace. Now God has warned him again through a second dream and through Daniel’s interpretation and application of the dream. And God has given him twelve months to repent of his hardness of heart and to turn from his sin. But he has remained totally committed to his own glory, totally absorbed in his personal achievements. And now, at the height of his powers, in a moment of time, it is all taken away, and he becomes an animal.
That’s all it takes, you know. Just a moment in time, just a phone call, and your life can be shattered.
Sinclair Ferguson relates just such an event in his experience. He has recently written as follows:
“I have never forgotten one of my earliest experiences in the pastoral ministry. I was twenty-three years old, recently married, and recently ordained to the gospel ministry. I had been appointed assistant pastor to an inner-city church where each weekday morning we had a short service prior to the beginning of the working day. As I gathered my belongings in the office at the end of the service, someone knocked on my door. A man in his early thirties entered. He told me of the incredible success story his life had been, of how financially secure he and his wife had become. He had reached that category of lifestyle in which a surprise birthday gift might be a new car (paid for with cash). He had just received news that his wife had only a few months to live. The axe had been laid to the tree of life for him. I had never before shared with someone so relatively young such a moment of utter despair.”
A moment can be the turning point for a whole life. So it was with Nebuchadnezzar. In a moment God showed how fragile the great king really was.
Nebuchadnezzar is simply a giant-sized version of the kind of situation we all might face. You probably know individuals who have lived for themselves, who have built their own kingdoms, who have really “made it” from a human point of view. But in one terrible moment – a phone call, a letter, some words from a doctor – their lives have crumbled away and all the old securities mean nothing anymore.
What about you? Would you be ready for such a moment? In the end, can you avoid such a moment? You cannot, can you? For in the end, it will be only God and you. There will be nothing else left in your life. Will that be a dreadful moment for you, a moment of terror? Or are you ready?
What could Nebuchadnezzar have done to prepare himself for this moment? How could be have avoided the terror of this moment? In applying the dream to Nebuchadnezzar, Daniel is very forthright. Daniel describes the disaster which will befall the king – he will go insane and live like an animal until he acknowledges that God is the ruler of human kingdoms.
And yet, Nebuchadnezzar is offered a ray of hope. “The command to leave the stump of the tree with its roots means that your kingdom will be restored to you when you acknowledge that Heaven rules. Therefore, O king, be pleased to accept my advice: Renounce your sins by doing what is right, and your wickedness by being kind to the oppressed. It may be that then your prosperity will continue” (vss 26-27).
Nebuchadnezzar does not renounce his sins. The hammering of God’s word is silenced in his heart. And disaster befalls him. He goes insane. He becomes an animal. And yet, God keeps his promise to restore the kingdom to Nebuchadnezzar. “At the end of that time, I, Nebuchad-nezzar, raised my eyes toward heaven, and my sanity was restored. Then I praised the Most High; I honoured and glorified him who lives forever… At the same time that my sanity was restored, my honour and splendour were returned to me for the glory of my kingdom. My advisers and nobles sought me out, and I was restored to my throne and became even greater than before. Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and exalt and glorify the King of heaven, because everything he does is right and all his ways are just. And those who walk in pride He is able to humble” (vss 34, 36-37).
[Pause]
We began today by thinking about how the Book of Daniel as a whole applies to us today. What can we say from Chapter 4 about God and about us?
First, what can we say about God? It appears at this time in history that God is a loser. His city and temple have been destroyed, the golden articles of His temple are on display in the temple of Nebuchadnezzar’s god, His people are in exile in a foreign land. God seems to be the loser. Is there any earthly reason why anyone would want to serve such a God? Nebuchadnezzar, the ultimate king and ruler of the entire known world, seems indescribably powerful and secure.
And yet, in just a moment of time, God cuts him down and makes him nothing. And then, in another moment, God sets him up again. Just like that. Nebuchadnezzar is completely in God’s hand. And finally, he learns that lesson. The purpose of his experience was that he might learn “…that the Most High is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and gives them to anyone he wishes and sets over them the lowliest of men” (vs 17). And finally, Nebuchadnezzar must confess that “He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back his hand or say to him: ‘What have you done?’ “ (vs 35).
Here is what this chapter tells us about God. God’s rule over the kingdom of Babylon is made plain, and eventually God’s rule is even declared openly in a public letter by the great king Nebuchadnezzar himself. God is entirely vindicated, He is in charge.
It also becomes very plain that God’s plans are in motion. All He has done with His people in exile, all He has done in Nebuchadnezzar’s life and all He has done and will do to Babylon, has as its ultimate purpose the salvation of God’s people through Jesus Christ. In God’s plan, Jesus has this title: “King of kings and Lord of lords”. One day, even Nebuchadnezzar will bow the knee before Jesus Christ and acknowledge that His is the name that is above every name.
That’s what this chapter tells us about God, and the coming kingdom of God. But now, the personal perspective is also important, and it fits within the kingdom perspective. God is very gracious to Nebuchad-nezzar. He gives him multiple warnings. But Nebuchadnezzar is so wrapped up in his own glory and greatness that eventually it all has to be stripped away before he finally acknowledges God’s rule. Thinking he is god, he must become a beast before he realises he is just a man. A terrible moment changes his life. He wasn’t ready for it. But God’s grace extends even further, and he is given a second chance. And finally Nebuchadnezzar learns his lesson.
Will we learn our lesson? What will it take? Realise the danger of earthly success. For sinful human beings who want to be independent of God, who want to bring glory to ourselves, earthly success is very dangerous. Never pray for the earthly success of your unbelieving friends and relatives. Why is it so dangerous? Because it vindicates our distance from God! Success breeds self-reliance and complacent self-satisfaction. It distances us from God still further! How hard it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven. It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.
Pride is such a danger. It feeds on so little! Just a small success can blow up our pride out of all proportion. God is far from the proud, but close to the broken-hearted.
I’m not just talking about success in a worldly sense. There is also great danger in success in Christian living. Here is part of the danger of elaborating more and more rules to guide our Christian lives. We need rules. We can’t trust ourselves without rules and habits. How many of us are going to consistently set aside times of Bible reading and prayer and meditation and worship if we do not make rules for ourselves: “I will read my Bible each morning before breakfast, before the kids get up, and I will commit my day to the Lord before other things crowd in. I will attend worship on the Lord’s Day at every opportunity, and I will insist that my family does the same. I will take weekly steps towards getting to know and to witness to my neighbours, and at the end of each week I will review what I have done and see if I’ve made any progress.” Yes, we need to make these kinds of rules for ourselves, we can’t trust ourselves without rules.
But at the same time, we can’t trust ourselves with the rules either! We succeed in reading our Bibles every day before the kids get up for a week or two. We succeed for a month or two in attending worship twice every Sunday and in getting our children along. We make some real progress in witnessing to our neighbours. And pride kicks in, and we begin to look down on people who have not taken the same steps of disciplined Christian living, and soon we are more distant from God than when we started. We can’t trust ourselves without rules, and we can’t trust ourselves with rules. We can’t trust ourselves!! Success is the worst thing that can happen to anyone who wants to trust himself! So it was for Nebuchadnezzar, so it is for all of us.
God has been very gracious to all of us here today. We have all had ample opportunity to turn away from our sins and turn towards God. We have all heard many times the message of the gospel. We have all been urged, time and again, to turn away from our own success, and to trust only Jesus Christ for salvation. The King of kings and the Lord of lords, the one who rules over all the Nebuchadnezzars of this world, has given Himself up for His people, has died, has conquered death and is ready to return to make plain to every creature His rule in God’s kingdom.
Jesus Christ is completely in charge of your life. One day, your moment might come. It may only be a slip on a wet road, or a doctor’s appointment, or a message from a relative, saying, “Come quick”. It may seem so random, so accidental. Perhaps you have already had such moments in your life. You have miraculously survived a major car accident. You have been diagnosed with cancer, but have come through the treatment successfully. You have lost a loved one. There are many such moments, aren’t there. But know this. In Nebuchadnezzar’s words, “He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back his hand or say to him, ‘What have you done?’ …Everything He does is right and all His ways are just. And those who walk in pride He is able to humble.”
You have had such moments, I’m sure. You will have such moments again. Were you ready in the past? Have you learnt the lesson of those moments in the past? Are you ready for your final moment? Don’t let the pounding of God’s word in your life become so dull that you sleep right on through. Heed God’s warning, and His invitation to rest in Jesus Christ alone.
Amen.