We are studying the book of Daniel together as a church in the month of January. We have come this morning to Daniel chapter 4; that’s on page 740 if you need to use one of our church Bibles. Daniel chapter 4. This is now the last section of the book which deals with King Nebuchadnezzar. We can summarize its teaching under four headings. First, there is the king’s resistance. He has heard God’s Word, he has seen God’s work again and again, and still he resists God’s grace. But God, as we’ll see, is determined to get through to Nebuchadnezzar, one way or another, and so in the second place – first, the king’s resistance – in the second place we need to see the king rebuked. Resistance. Rebuke. Since His Word is resisted, God turns to the harder rebukes of His providence. Resistance. Rebuke. Then thirdly, there is the king’s restoration. Eventually, under the afflicting hand of God, Nebuchadnezzar lifts his eyes to heaven in repentance and is restored. And then finally we’ll notice the revelation made to the king. Resistance. Rebuke. Restoration. Revelation. The revelation made to the king about the true nature of the kingdom of God. You see, these accounts, these events record more than Nebuchadnezzar’s own, personal, spiritual journey. The chapter is ultimately about the global scope of the redemptive kingdom of the Most High God erupting into the world.
So, there’s the outline. Resistance, rebuke, restoration, and revelation. Before we look at each of those, we need to pray and then we will read the Word of God together. Let us pray.
Open our eyes, O God, we pray, to behold wondrous things out of Your Law, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.
We are not going to read the whole chapter, given that we have a lot in this service with the Lord’s Supper later. I will summarize a significant section of it that is largely repeated later in the chapter. But we will begin at verse 1 of Daniel chapter 4. This is the Word of God:
“King Nebuchadnezzar to all peoples, nations, and languages, that dwell in all the earth: Peace be multiplied to you! It has seemed good to me to show the signs and wonders that the Most High God has done for me. How great are his signs, how mighty his wonders! His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and his dominion endures from generation to generation.”
And then we have Nebuchadnezzar’s record of what has happened to him to bring him to this point where he can begin the letter confessing the praises of the living God. He has another nightmare. He summons his magicians; they are unable to interpret the dream. He eventually calls for Daniel, and Daniel listens to the dream as the king recounts it. He saw a tree, and the tree is cut down; a stump remains. And then the tree, representing Nebuchadnezzar, is driven out. He loses his mind and is to eat grass like an ox until at last he will be restored. “What is the interpretation of the dream, Daniel?” We pick up the reading at verse 19:
“Then Daniel, whose name was Belteshazzar, was dismayed for a while, and his thoughts alarmed him. The king answered and said, ‘Belteshazzar, let not the dream or the interpretation alarm you.’ Belteshazzar answered and said, ‘My lord, may the dream be for those who hate you and its interpretation for your enemies! The tree you saw, which grew and became strong, so that its top reached to heaven, and it was visible to the end of the whole earth, whose leaves were beautiful and its fruit abundant, and in which was food for all, under which beasts of the field found shade, and in whose branches the birds of the heavens lived – it is you, O king, who have grown and become strong. Your greatness has grown and reaches to heaven, and your dominion to the ends of the earth. And because the king saw a watcher, a holy one, coming down from heaven and saying, ‘Chop down the tree and destroy it, but leave the stump of its roots in the earth, bound with a band of iron and bronze, in the tender grass of the field, and let him be wet with the dew of heaven, and let his portion be with the beasts of the field, till seven periods of time pass over him,’ this is the interpretation, O king: It is a decree of the Most High, which has come upon my lord the king, that you shall be driven from among men, and your dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field. You shall be made to eat grass like an ox, and you shall be wet with the dew of heaven, and seven periods of time shall pass over you, till you know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will. And as it was commanded to leave the stump of the roots of the tree, your kingdom shall be confirmed for you from the time that you know that Heaven rules. Therefore, O king, let my counsel be acceptable to you: break off your sins by practicing righteousness, and your iniquities by showing mercy to the oppressed, that there may perhaps be a lengthening of your prosperity.’
All this came upon King Nebuchadnezzar. At the end of twelve months he was walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon, 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?’ 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, 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.’ 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.
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; 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?’
At the same time my reason returned to me, and for the glory of my kingdom, my majesty and splendor returned to me. My counselors and my lords sought me, and I was established in my kingdom, and still more greatness was added to me. 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.”
Amen.
Think with me first of all about the king’s resistance. You’ll notice the chapter is written as a letter from the king to the peoples of his empire after the events that it recounts have all taken place. And so the letter begins with a word of praise to the Most High God in verses 1 through 3. “It has seemed good to me to show the signs and wonders that the Most High God has done for me. How great are his signs, how mighty his wonders! His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and his dominion endures from generation to generation.” Clearly, as the king writes, Nebuchadnezzar is a changed man. He is a changed man. He honors now the one, true and living God as we all must. And given who this tyrannical king has been thus far, our question needs to be, “How did he come to be so dramatically changed?”
All is going well for him in verse 4. He is at ease in his house and prospering in his palace. Life was good, that is until he has another nightmare, sent from God to break through his stubbornness and spiritual blindness. God had spoken to him already, hadn’t He, in a dream in chapter 2. And then in chapter 3, the king watched as God rendered the ferocity of the seven times superheated oven entirely benign for Daniel’s three friends, coming himself to stand with them in the flames. Nebuchadnezzar had been shown so much of the glory and the power and the grace of God, and each time, Nebuchadnezzar had acknowledged that the God of these Jewish believers was indeed the Most High God.
But here now we learn, that all these wonders notwithstanding, at no point has any of it led to real repentance in Nebuchadnezzar’s life. You can see some evidence of that in verse 8. Look at verse 8. The king makes the point of telling us, “Daniel was also called Belteshazzar after the name of my god.” “Belteshazzar,” remember, means “may Baal protect his life.” So even after everything that the Lord had shown him thus far, Nebuchadnezzar has still persisted in his paganism. “My god,” he’s telling us, “was still Baal, not the Lord, the God of heaven and earth.” And perhaps it was this persistent paganism that explains why Nebuchadnezzar was so slow to call on Daniel for an explanation when this latest nightmare began to trouble him. Don’t you think it’s remarkable that after having another terrifying vision from the Lord, the king doesn’t call immediately for the one man in his empire he knows for sure can actually help him understand it. He doesn’t call for Daniel. Why does he waste his time with these useless magicians and enchanters and Chaldeans and astrologers in verse 7. Nebuchadnezzar has had experience of their charlatanism before, and yet he turns to them and not to Daniel. Is it perhaps because Nebuchadnezzar is really more interested in quieting his troubled mind than he is in actually grasping for himself what it is that God was saying to him?
And how many people are just like Nebuchadnezzar in this regard. They hear the Word of the Lord, they feel something of the power and operation of the Spirit at work in their consciences, they even acknowledge some of the ways that God has been good to them and showed them His kindness and His patience and His favor over the years, and yet still they resist the fundamental call of the Christian Gospel to humble themselves in repentance and to submit to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. It is easy, isn’t it, all too easy to fill our lips with God-talk and to turn on the piety when the occasion requires it. It’s even possible, you know, to have dramatic religious experiences along the way and yet still have altogether unchanged hearts in the end. And that was Nebuchadnezzar’s condition precisely.
And do notice that even after the dream was interpreted for him by Daniel, laden as Nebuchadnezzar understood it to be with a chilling, divine warning, even then the king persisted in his unbelief. You see that in verses 28 through 30. A whole year goes by and no judgment falls, and we meet the king and all his convictions and his spiritual concerns have passed like a summer storm, you know, intense for a moment or two but fleeting and brief. He is walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon and he says to himself, “Is not this great Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence for the glory of my majesty?” This is the king, do you remember, who built a golden statue as a monument to his own ego and he’s still at it, only now the monument is the great city of Babylon itself. But here he is still, bowing at the altar of self. Temporary piety and momentary conviction – that’s all Nebuchadnezzar had. Please do not confuse a moment’s conviction with lasting conversion. They are not at all the same thing. Do not confuse religious experiences along the way with real heart change. Do not rest content with a momentary pang of guilt here or there, or with a sudden paroxysm of piety when the mood takes you. God has no interest at all in provoking in you or me an occasional display of temporary, superficial religiosity. He has no interest in that. He wants your heart. He wants your heart.
Which brings us to the next thing I want you to see in the passage. The first was the king’s resistance, but now notice the divine rebuke that the king receives. As I said, God wants the king’s heart, and so He intervenes. He does it first, of course as we’ve seen, by His Word. Nebuchadnezzar relates his dream to Daniel in verses 9 through 18, and in 19 through 27, Daniel gives the interpretation. “It is a word of threatened judgment, a decree of the Most High, which has come upon my lord, the king,” verse 24. Nebuchadnezzar is the mighty tree that he sees in his dream, but for all his might, he will be reduced to insanity, driven from among his people, and made to live like a beast, eating grass like an ox until he comes to know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom He will. And yet the image of the stump of this felled tree preserved carefully signals that if and when the king repents his kingdom will yet be restored and flourish once again. It is a stern, divine warning.
And observe carefully please the approach that Daniel takes in delivering it. His difficult message, the message of judgment, is colored, isn’t it, with great compassion. Do you see that in the text? Verse 19, “Daniel was dismayed for a while, and his thoughts alarmed him. The king answered and said, ‘Belteshazzar, let not the dream or the interpretation alarm you.’ Belteshazzar answered and said, ‘My lord, may the dream be for those who hate you and its interpretation for your enemies!” There’s no glee at the message of judgment, no schadenfreude in Daniel’s heart, no enthusiasm for the suffering that God is declaring will fall upon the king. All of Nebuchadnezzar’s pride and his brutality notwithstanding, amazingly perhaps, it’s clear Daniel really cares about this man. He cares about him.
That might seem unlikely to us at first, considering how Daniel and his friends have been treated over the years, but if we knew our Bibles better, if we knew our God better, Daniel’s compassion to this awful man wouldn’t really come as that much of a surprise. After all, this is how God Himself treats sinners like Nebuchadnezzar or me or you. Listen to Ezekiel 33:11 as an example. “As I live, declares the Lord God, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live. Turn back! Turn back from your evil ways! For why will you die, O house of Israel?” There is no joy in God in the destruction of sinners. He loves sinners and he pleads with us to repent. That’s the disposition that we find mirrored here in Daniel. It’s a disposition epitomized in the life of the Lord Jesus Christ, weeping – do you remember – weeping over an unrepentant Jerusalem, longing to gather them as a mother hen gathers her chicks under her wings. But they would not. It is a disposition that ought to be mirrored in the hearts of every single Christian believer as we engage with the lost all around us. Not a denunciatory tone but a Gospel reluctance, a Gospel grief, a Gospel compassion as we communicate through tears, if necessary, the reality of the judgment to come and we warn people to flee the wrath of God.
And notice after Daniel’s declaration of coming judgment he does issue a call to repentance. You see that in verse 27 there? “Therefore, O king, let my counsel be acceptable to you: break off your sins by practicing righteousness, and your iniquities by showing mercy to the oppressed, that there may perhaps be a lengthening of your prosperity.” That word “prosperity,” by the way, is the Aramaic equivalent of the Hebrew word, “shalom” – peace, rightness, the way things are meant to be at last. The call to repentance that Daniel issues – that’s what compassion for the lost and commitment to the truth requires. Compassion and commitment, not just a declaration of bad news, of coming judgment, but an offer of mercy to all who repent.
If we’re honest, I rather suspect this combination that Daniel models here – commitment to the truth and compassion for the lost – that’s not one we always find easy to maintain. Either we come across as harsh and abrupt and unkind as we challenge unbelief, or we are compassionate but compromised, pulling our punches, holding back the bad news. The 19th century Presbyterian minister, Andrew Bonar, wrote of his friend, Robert Murray M’Cheyne, “I remember on one occasion when we met, he asked what my last Sabbath subject had been. It had been ‘The Wicked Shall be Turned into Hell.’” On hearing this awful text he asked, “Were you able to preach it with tenderness?” That’s the pattern that we meet with here, isn’t it? Unwavering commitment to the truth, wedded to profound compassion for the lost. And we ought all to be asking ourselves, if we are followers of the Lord Jesus Christ, whether these are the marks of our own witness to the world – tenderness and truthfulness. They must always go together if we ever hope to do any lasting good.
So God rebukes Nebuchadnezzar. He does it first by His Word through Daniel, but look again at verse 29. Twelve months go by and there has been no change in the wake of Daniel’s sermon. It’s like the king’s heart is teflon, isn’t it? Nonstick. Apparently impervious to the Word of God. And yet, for some reason, all his obstinacy and resistance notwithstanding, the threatened judgment of God still hasn’t fallen upon him. Now that undoubtedly tells us something about just how hard this man’s heart really is. The sword of Damocles, you know, hangs by a thread over his head and he is utterly unconcerned.
But the apparent 12 month delay is really meant to tell us something not so much about the state of Nebuchadnezzar’s heart as it is about the ways of our God. It reminds us, having warned us by His Word, that He is very patient with us. He is very patient with us. One thing we musn’t do, however, is misread the divine patience as if it were divine indifference. Don’t say to yourself, as the king seems to have been doing during these twelve months, “Oh, oh I know what His Word says, but really God doesn’t care what I do, how I live. I can sin as I please. Nothing ever has happened. Nothing ever will.” No, no, friends, God’s forbearance with us in our sin is no indication of His indifference to our sin. God’s patience with us in our sin is no indication of His indifference to our sin. Actually, I think 2 Peter 3:9 is the best commentary on this 12 month delay between the word of judgment and the execution of judgment in Nebuchadnezzar’s life. Why doesn’t God execute His threatened judgment immediately? Second Peter 3:9 – “God is not slow in keeping His promise as some account slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish but that all should reach repentance.” That’s what’s happening here. God was exercising remarkable patience with this arrogant man because He wanted to give him scope and room and time to turn and repent and be delivered.
Of course in the event it’s all to no avail, and so having closed his ears to the divine word, the Lord works to open them again by His providence. Verse 31, while his boast is still on his mouth, a voice from heaven pronounces the judgment. And verse 33, “Immediately the word was fulfilled against Nebuchadnezzar.” You see what’s happened. Nebuchadnezzar has ignored the rebukes of the Word of God and so God has deployed His providence, the rebukes of His providence. Now listen, this is vital to understand. When we ignore the rebukes of God’s Word, He will not refrain from deploying the rebukes of His providence. We ought always to search our hearts when providence frowns and difficulties come, lest we miss the disciplinary, corrective mercy of God. He has been trying to get through to you by His Word, read and preached, week in and week out and you’ve not been listening. Those who have endured the Lord’s discipline will tell you from their own bitter experience it is always better to heed the rebukes of the Word than it is to suffer the rebukes of providence. But worst of all, you know, is to ignore the rebukes of the Word, resist the discipline of providence, and to fall under the condemnation of the final heavenly tribunal at the last day.
Perhaps part of God’s message to you this morning as we trace His dealings with Nebuchadnezzar is to warn you and to tell you that there remains yet time for you to turn and repent. The window is still open. Today is the day. Now is the time. If you hear His voice, do not harden your heart. Don’t confuse God’s patience with you as indifference toward your sin and rebellion. He is giving you time to repent. Take it, take it while the time remains.
Resistance. Rebuke. And then the king’s restoration. Verse 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.” Daniel 4 also shows us that no matter how low our sin may cause us to sink, or how debased and deformed Nebuchadnezzar became like a wild beast because of his sin, no matter how debased and deformed our characters might become because of our sin, no matter how low your sin causes you to fall, deliverance always follows a look away from yourself to the mercy seat of Christ. That’s all it takes, you know. It’s so simple, really. If you think about it, there is a very real sense in which the king’s descent was hard won. He had to work hard to sink this low. We read his story over these four chapters, and frankly it’s amazing, at least it is to me, that he hasn’t repented already. His descent to this depth of misery came the hard way. He’s had to work at it to ignore and reject the Word and the works of God. But his deliverance, by contrast, was the easiest thing in the world. A look heavenward, a look to Jesus, that’s all it took. That’s all it ever takes. And the king says, suddenly with that look, his reason returned.
He’s like the prodigal son in the pig sty. Do you remember the story? Lost in the far country, destitute, bankrupt, derelict, debauched and broken by his sin – and then he came to himself and came home. That’s what’s happening here. His reason returned and he blessed and praised the Lord his God, no longer now as a mere token of put-on piety, you know, something to get the God of the Hebrews off his case. No, no, now at last he blesses God from the depths of his soul as the true and only sovereign. The world, the world and its unbelief claims that repentance and faith is irrational, doesn’t it? Worship is unreasonable. Devotion to Jesus Christ is delusional. But Nebuchadnezzar says, “When my reason returned to me, I finally did the only thing that makes any real sense.” Here’s the mark of true rationality. This is the evidence of a soul in its right mind at last. It bows before the one, true King of kings and Lord of lords and it adores Him. Submission before the throne of Jesus Christ is what right reason requires. You are not in your right mind if you do anything else.
Resistance. Rebuke. Restoration. And finally, revelation. The revelation of the true kingdom and reign of God. That’s the note we heard sounding right at the very beginning in the introduction of Nebuchadnezzar’s letter in verses 1 through 3. It’s the same note he sounds again at the conclusion of his letter in 34 and 35. And three times over in the body of the letter this same note sounds again. Verse 17, the king is told he’s going to be stripped of his reason to the end with a view that “in order that the living may know that the Most High rules over the kingdom of men and gives it to whom He will and sets over it the lowliest of men.” The same words are repeated almost verbatim in verse 25 and again in verse 32. The point, I hope you can see, is crystal clear. Who is the true king in Babylon? It’s not Nebuchadnezzar at all, is it? It is the Lord, the God of Israel, the Maker of heaven and earth.
It’s not without significance, by the way, in this connection that the metaphor in the king’s dream for Nebuchadnezzar’s great kingdom is a mighty tree that grows until all the birds of the air come and nest in its branches. It’s a vivid image of this ungodly but mighty human empire, extending to cover and govern the kingdoms and peoples of the world. That was Nebuchadnezzar’s kingdom. What’s interesting is that in Ezekiel 17:23, this same language is used by God to describe God’s kingdom. “The Lord will plant His kingdom like a tree,” Ezekiel says, “that it might bear branches and produce fruit and become a noble seed, and under it will dwell every kind of bird, and in the shade of its branches birds of every sort will nest, and all the trees of the field shall know that I am the Lord. I bring low the high tree and make high the low tree, dry up the green tree and make the dry tree flourish. I am the Lord. I have spoken and I will do it.” And in Matthew 13:31, Jesus uses this language. “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it is grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes” – here’s the language – “a tree that all the birds of the air may come and nest in its branches.”
The question is, “Where can all people find rest and refuge?” That’s what the image of the birds nesting in the branches is all about. Where can you find refuge? Not in the branches of a Babylonian tree or for that matter an American or a European or an Asian tree. None of the cultures of the world nor any human being, however great, can ever be the hiding place for sinners. But there is refuge, there is refuge in Jesus Christ and in the kingdom He has established. He was Himself, remember, eventually hanged upon a tree, crucified under the curse of God and the rejection of the world, a King held in universal contempt by Jew and Gentile alike, abandoned by His disciples, betrayed by His friend, murdered by His people. And yet from that low and dry and barren tree where Jesus died, there sprouts a living kingdom of hope and peace and shelter and refuge for any and all who would come and hide under its shade.
Maybe like Nebuchadnezzar, God has been rebuking you by His Word lately. If He has, do not ignore His call. Do not ignore His call. Or maybe He has actually already begun to deploy the heavier blows of His providence in an effort to get through and call you back to Himself. Please, please know that in Jesus Christ there is a hiding place for you, a refuge, a kingdom of righteousness and peace where you can come and find rest. You can come and find rest. Like Nebuchadnezzar, won’t you see reason and come to yourself and lift your eyes to heaven and turn from your sin, submit to the reign of Jesus Christ, and be restored? May the Lord make it so. Let’s pray.Our God and Father, we praise You for Your holy and inerrant Word. O help us to hear it. Help us to hear it, to bow before it, to answer and respond to it. May we, none of us, may we not be like Nebuchadnezzar who hears the Word and shrugs in indifference while he continued bowing at the altar of pride and self. Instead, O God, we would turn – as we approach the Table of our Redeemer – we would turn from sin and self to bend the knee to Him alone. We come now to take our refuge and hiding place in the branches of the great tree of His redeeming kingdom, for we pray all of this in His name. Amen.