Learning the Hard Way That God Is God and We Are Not

Daniel 4:1-37

Main Idea: Because God is supremely glorious, he will not allow others to steal his glory, and he graciously humbles all who proudly trust in themselves.

1. It Is Good to Honor Our Great and Sovereign God for Sorrow That Leads to Repentance (4:1-3).
2. It Is Good When Our Great and Sovereign God Troubles Our Hearts in Order to Get Our Attention (4:4-18).
3. It Is Good When Our Great and Sovereign God Exposes Our Sin and Calls Us to Righteousness (4:19-27).
4. It Is Good That Our Great and Sovereign God Humbles Us When We Are Arrogant and Prideful (4:28-33).
5. It Is Good to Praise Our Great and Sovereign God Because He Always Does What Is Right (4:34-37).

C. S. Lewis calls it “the great sin” and with good reason. It is the sin that led to the fall of Satan. It is the sin that led to the fall of humanity and drove Adam and Eve from the garden of Eden. Of this sin Lewis said,

There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which everyone loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which hardly any people, except Christians, ever imagine that they are guilty themselves. I have heard people admit that they are bad-tempered, or that they cannot keep their heads about girls or drink, or even that they are cowards. I do not think I have ever heard anyone who was not a Christian accuse himself of this vice. And at the same time I have very seldom met anyone, who was not a Christian, who showed the slightest mercy to it in others. There is no fault that makes a man more unpopular, and no fault which we are more unconscious of in ourselves. And the more we have it ourselves, the more we dislike it in others.

The vice I am talking of is Pride or Self-Conceit: and the virtue opposite to it, in Christian morals, is called Humility. . . . According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind. (Mere Christianity, 121–22)

Jonathan Edwards had much the same opinion on this great sin as Lewis:

The first, and the worst cause of errors that prevail in such a state of things, is spiritual pride. This is the main door, by which the Devil comes into the hearts of those that are zealous for the advancement of religion. ’Tis the chief inlet of smoke from the bottomless pit, to darken the mind, and mislead the judgment: this is the main handle by which the Devil has hold of religious persons, and the chief source of all the mischief that he introduces, to clog and hinder a work of God. This cause of error is the mainspring, or at least the main support of all the rest. Till this disease is cured, medicines are in vain applied to heal other diseases. . . .

Pride is much more difficultly discerned than any other corruption, for that reason that the nature of it does very much consist in a person’s having too high a thought of himself: but no wonder that he that has too high a thought of himself don’t know it; for he necessarily thinks that the opinion he has of himself is what he has just grounds for, and therefore not too high. . . . The heart is so deceitful and unsearchable in nothing in the world, as it is in this matter, and there is no sin in the world, that men are so confident in, and so difficultly convinced of: the very nature of it is to work self-confidence, and drive away [humility]. (Some Thoughts on the Revival, 414–16)

Proverbs 8:13 teaches us, “To fear the Lord is to hate evil. I hate arrogant pride, evil conduct, and perverse speech.” Perhaps no one in the Bible came to understand this truth better than King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon. Proud of his accomplishments and proud in his speech, he learned the hard way that “pride comes before destruction, and an arrogant spirit before a fall” (Prov 16:18). He learned the hard way that you can be strutting like a king one day and living like an animal the next. He learned the hard way that the “Most High” God (Dan 4:2, 17, 24,25, 32, 34) is God, and he and we are not.

God hates pride because it challenges his sovereignty and questions his will and ways (4:37). It claims a position and power for mere mortals that rightly belongs only to “the King of the heavens” (v. 37). Daniel 4, through the humiliation and restoration of the most powerful man on the earth in that day, reminds us that God is in control and we are not. He is sovereign over all and “is ruler over human kingdoms” (4:17, 25, 32). These are words of assurance and comfort. They are also words of warning and wisdom for all of us. What God did to King Nebuchadnezzar, he can also do—and will do if necessary—to you and me. This is the last that we will see of Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel. The text contains a powerful warning concerning the pitfalls of pride. It also contains “a powerful message for those who are fearful of or intimidated by the might of human kings and kingdoms” (Greidanus, Preaching Christ from Daniel, 113).

It Is Good to Honor Our Great and Sovereign God for Sorrow That Leads to Repentance

DANIEL 4:1-3

Before his downfall a person’s heart is proud, but humility comes before honor.

Proverbs 18:12

Do you wish people to think well of you? Don’t speak well of yourself.

Blaise Pascal, Pensées, 1670

Chapter 4 begins like chapter 3 ends: with a kingly decree. It is also similar to chapter 2, with the king having a dream and needing an interpretation from Daniel. Once again, his magicians, enchanters, Chaldeans, and astrologers cannot deliver the goods (v. 7). They are as impotent in Chapter 4 as they were in chapter 2. However, this decree in Chapter 4 is cut from a different cloth. It is a personal testimony, a gospel tract, and a deposition before a judge and jury all wrapped up in one amazing story. In making this decree, Nebuchadnezzar wishes to honor the Most High God for what he did to lead him (or drive him!) to a sorrow that led to repentance.

He begins by noting the universal, even missional, nature of what he is about to share by addressing “every people, nation, and language, who live on the whole earth” (v. 1). If Nebuchadnezzar were alive today, he would have called a prime-time news conference for TV and radio. He would have used Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. He wanted as many people as possible to know what God did.

In language steeped in biblical terminology—perhaps an indication that Daniel assisted him in composing this global proclamation—the king begins with a blessing: “May your prosperity increase.” This does not sound like the Nebuchadnezzar of chapters 1–3, where he threatens to separate heads from bodies and throws teenagers into a fiery furnace. What changed him? Nebuchadnezzar knows what God did, and he wants the whole world to know: “I am pleased to tell you about the miracles and wonders the Most High God has done for me” (v. 2). He wants to tell of the amazing things the amazing God has done in his life.

Verse 3 is likened to a short hymn of praise or a doxology that, along with the doxology in verse 37, brackets the chapter. The words recall Psalm 145:13. Two parallel affirmations make up the doxology: “How great are [God’s] miracles, and how mighty his wonders! His kingdom is an eternal kingdom, and his dominion is from generation to generation.” No God is like this God in what he does. And no God is like this God in what he has.

Nebuchadnezzar’s worldview and spiritual perspective had been turned on their heads. Because of God’s work of bringing great sorrow that led to repentance, he was a new man. C. S. Lewis once more provides a really good insight: “A proud man is always looking down on things and people; and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you” (Mere Christianity, 124). Nebuchadnezzar had been looking down, but he is now looking up and he glorifies the God he sees.

It Is Good When Our Great and Sovereign God Troubles Our Hearts in Order to Get Our Attention

DANIEL 4:4-18

In his pride the wicked man does not seek [God]; in all his thoughts there is no room for God.

Psalm 10:4 NIV

If you plan to build a tall house of virtues, you must first lay deep foundations of humility.

Augustine

Nebuchadnezzar begins his story in verse 4 by recounting the second troubling dream he received from God (the first was in ch. 2). He notes that life was good, that he “was at ease in [his] house and flourishing in [his] palace.” Though we cannot be certain, it was probably late in his reign (605–562 BC), maybe between 575 and 563 BC. He was successfully secure and enjoying a well-deserved time of rest and relaxation, as he saw it. However, God hit him right between the eyes with a personal crisis through “a dream” that “frightened [him]” (v. 5). In fact, as he lay in his bed, he said, “The images and visions in my mind alarmed me.” This dream was another nightmare to which the king would have attached futuristic significance. So, as he had done previously (2:2-3), he called his pagan wise men to interpret the dream (4:6). And like the fool who keeps doing the same thing over and over expecting different results, he finds out that his scholarly guild again cannot deliver: “They could not make its interpretation known to me” (v. 7). So once more he goes to where he should have started. He calls on his go-to guy Daniel, also named Belteshazzar, noting that “a spirit of the holy gods is in him” (v. 8). He also identifies Daniel as the “head of the magicians” (which makes one wonder why Nebuchadnezzar did not go to him first), telling him that “no mystery puzzles you” (v. 9).

Nebuchadnezzar than tells Daniel his dream in verses 10-17, making a second request for its interpretation in verse 18. Nebuchadnezzar saw an incredibly large, strong tree that, like the tower of Babylon in Genesis 11:1-9, reached into the heavens and “was visible to the ends of the earth” (4:10-11). It also had beautiful leaves and fruit to feed everybody. Animals found shade under it, the birds lived in its branches, and everyone “was fed from it” (v. 12). If this tree represents the king, and it does, what a testimony and witness to his greatness and glory. However, tragedy is on the way.

In his vision, while dreaming in bed, he saw an angel “coming down from heaven.” The angel is described as “a watcher, a holy one” (v. 13). Interestingly, the word “watcher” occurs only in Daniel 4 (vv. 13, 17, 23) in the Old Testament. His message is ominous:

Cut down the tree and chop off its branches; strip off its leaves and scatter its fruit. Let the animals flee from under it, and the birds from its branches. But leave the stump with its roots in the ground and with a band of iron and bronze around it in the tender grass of the field. Let him be drenched with dew from the sky and share the plants of the earth with the animals. Let his mind be changed from that of a human, and let him be given the mind of an animal for seven periods of time. (4:14-16)

Verse 17 is the key that unlocks the purpose of the chapter and the interpretation of the dream. The sentence of judgment on the tree is “by decree of the watchers” for the purpose that “the living will know that the Most High is ruler over human kingdoms. He gives it to anyone he wants and sets the lowliest of people over it.” As Bryan Chapell reminds us, “Talent, brains, and opportunity mean nothing apart from God’s provision” (Gospel According to Daniel, 75). I suspect Nebuchadnezzar had a strong inkling as to the meaning of his visions. Still, he pleads with Daniel to provide the interpretation because, affirming what he knows to be true for the third time, “you have a spirit of the holy gods” (v. 18). The king did not need a yes man. He needed a truth man. The head of state needed a man of faith to speak truth into his life, and Daniel was such a man. Would that we might boldly and humbly walk in his steps!

It Is Good When Our Great and Sovereign God Exposes Our Sin and Calls Us to Righteousness

DANIEL 4:19-27

Everyone with a proud heart is detestable to the Lord; be assured, he will not go unpunished.

Proverbs 16:5

Nothing will make us so tender to the faults of others, as, by self-examination, thoroughly to know our own.

François Fénelon, The Inner Life, 1697

Daniel, the man of God, is now stunned and alarmed (NIV, “perplexed” and “terrified,” v. 19). I do not think he feared for his life; I think he feared for what might happen to Nebuchadnezzar. I think Daniel genuinely cared for the king. They had spent many years together, and he had a genuine affection for him. However, compassion does not get in the way of conviction (and commission) for the man of God. They can and should complement each other. Nebuchadnezzar, interestingly, seeks to comfort Daniel: “Belteshazzar, don’t let the dream or its interpretation alarm you” (v. 19). Daniel responds by saying he wished the dream were not about Nebuchadnezzar but about “those who hate you, and its interpretation to your enemies!” However, Daniel must, as Ephesians 4:15 says, speak the truth in love. He does not stutter or stammer but gives it to the king directly. Like Moses before Pharaoh, Elijah before Ahab and the prophets of Baal, John the Baptist before Herod, and Jesus before Pilate, Daniel tells Nebuchadnezzar not what he wants to hear but what he needs to hear. We can summarize Daniel’s interpretation in straightforward and simple propositions:

• You, O King, are the great tree, and it symbolizes your greatness (vv. 20-22).
• You are the tree chopped down with only a stump remaining (v. 23).
• You will live like an animal outdoors in the fields until “seven periods of time” pass (vv. 23-25).
• All of this will happen to teach you a valuable lesson: “that the Most High is ruler over human kingdoms, and he gives them to anyone he wants” (v. 25).
• When you come to your spiritual senses, you will get your kingdom back (v. 26).
• God is a gracious and loving God who is quick to forgive and show mercy. So (a) listen to my counsel, (b) stop your sinning and start doing the right thing, and (c) stop your wicked injustices and show mercy to the oppressed (v. 27). If you do, God may be kind and “perhaps there will be an extension of your prosperity.”

I appreciate David Helm’s insights into Daniel’s interpretation:

We must be willing to share the bad news with people that they are out of sorts with God, even as our heart breaks for them while saying it. We must be willing to tell others that God is not pleased with this pride—the human tendency to push him aside, and think that we are the measure of all things. We must be willing to say why God works against us—so that we might one day know that he rules, and not us. Finally, we must be ready to call for repentance and offer hope.

Daniel did all of that. And then the text stops. We are not told what the king said on that day. In fact, the verses that follow take the reader into the future, to at least one year later, and then seven periods of time beyond. Clearly, God didn’t feel any need for us to know how this private witness was received. He wanted us simply to see that it was given. . . . Daniel didn’t shirk from speaking God’s word into the life of the most powerful man in the world. In doing so, he has provided us with an example of the backbone needed to be faithful when our opportunity comes. And come it will, for God is in the business of revealing himself to prominent, powerful people. (Daniel for You, 78)

It Is Good That Our Great and Sovereign God Humbles Us When We Are Arrogant and Prideful

DANIEL 4:28-33

The pride of mankind will be brought low, and human loftiness will be humbled; the Lord alone will be exalted on that day.

Isaiah 2:17

Do not desire to be the principal man in the church. Be lowly. Be humble. The best man in the church is the man who is willing to be a doormat for all to wipe their boots on, the brother who does not mind what happened to him at all, so long as God is glorified.

Charles H. Spurgeon, “Micah’s Message for To-day,” 1889

Nebuchadnezzar pays the price for his “I” and “my” perspective in verse 30. “At the end of twelve months” (v. 29), after Daniel interpreted his dream and called the king to repentance and mercy (v. 27), “all this happened to King Nebuchadnezzar” (v. 28). The hammer of God’s judgment came down, and it came down with a vengeance. Bob Fyall notes, “Nebuchadnezzar is like Adam and Eve who when confronted with another tree, instead of becoming gods, were banished from Eden” (Daniel, 70).

Nebuchadnezzar had forgotten who is the Most High and who had given him his great kingdom. He forgot or chose to ignore Daniel’s warning and call to repentance. “As he was walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon” (v. 29; this was not the only palace he had!), he began to brag and boast about who he was and what he had done: “Is this not Babylon the Great that I have built to be a royal residence by my vast power and for my majestic glory?” (v. 30; emphasis added). He essentially said, “I did all this, and I deserve all the praise. I am the smartest. I am the strongest. I am the wisest. I am the man!”

Those who have accomplished great things need to remind themselves daily that they have nothing that God in grace has not given them. We are born where he decides. We are the people he made us to be. The things we have, he gave us. “He gives [them] to anyone he wants” (vv. 17, 25). Nebuchadnezzar had forgotten this basic, fundamental truth of life; and now he will be reminded the hard way.

While the king was still crowing about his own greatness, “while the words were still in the king’s mouth, a voice came from heaven” (v. 31). A divine thunderclap came down from heaven with a message of severe judgment and sentencing. The Most High who rules the kingdoms of men declares:

• The kingdom is taken from you (v. 31).
• You will be driven away from humanity (v. 32).
• You will live with animals, act like an animal, and eat like an animal (v. 32).
• This will last as long as it takes (“seven periods of time,” i.e., seven years or symbolic of the perfect time needed to do the trick), “until you acknowledge that the Most High is ruler over human kingdoms, and he gives them to anyone he wants” (v. 32).

Immediately “the message [of the Most High God] against Nebuchadnezzar was fulfilled” (v. 33). He was struck by what was probably a behavioral disorder called boanthropy, where “one imagines oneself a cow or bull and acts accordingly” (Davis, Message of Daniel, 59). It is also referred to as lycanthropy, where a person believes he or she is an animal and behaves like an animal. The one who saw himself as superman became subman. The one who thought he was superhuman became subhuman. He lived with animals instead of with men. He ate grass like an ox, not food like a man. He lived and slept in the field, not in the home and bed of a man. He had fingernails and toenails like the claws of a bird and not those of a human. Sinclair Ferguson is spot on when he says,

The one who refused to honor God’s glory loses his own glory. Refusing to share what he has with the poor, he becomes poorer than the poor. He becomes outwardly what his heart has been spiritually and inwardly—bestial. (Daniel, 93)

You might hear the words of Galatians 6:7 whispering in your ears: “Don’t be deceived: God is not mocked. For whatever a person sows he will also reap.”

It Is Good to Praise Our Great and Sovereign God Because He Always Does What Is Right

DANIEL 4:34-37

God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. . . . Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

James 4:6, 10

Jesus came into the world to convert people from God-like dependence on self to child-like dependence on God. And then he died to pay the penalty for our pride and to show us the way to humility and to send all our boasting toward God and not toward ourselves.

John Piper, “Believing God on Election Day,” 1988

Psalm 121:1-2 says, “I lift my eyes toward the mountains. Where will my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth.” I do not know if Nebuchadnezzar knew these verses. What I do know is he not only looked up to the hills, but he also lifted his eyes up to heaven (4:34). After looking down to the ground like an animal, he turned and looked up to God in heaven and was restored to being a man made in the image of the God he had come to know as Savior. Yes, I believe Nebuchadnezzar was genuinely converted and saved and that he entered into a life-changing relationship with the one true and living God, the One he now acknowledged personally as “the Most High.” The king’s reason returned to him, and he immediately did what any right-thinking person does: he worshiped the only living and true God. He “praised the Most High and honored and glorified him who lives forever,” whose dominion is everlasting and whose kingdom goes on forever (vv. 34-35).

In the midst of this song of praise, Nebuchadnezzar gets theological in verse 35. In comparison to the sovereign God whose dominion is everlasting and whose kingdom endures forever, humans are not much: “All the inhabitants of the earth are counted as nothing.” The Most High God does what he wills in heaven above, and he does the same on earth below. You cannot stop this God, and you should not question this God. (I hear Job saying, “Amen!”)

Nebuchadnezzar got back his mind, and he also got back his kingdom (v. 36). In fact, God not only set him back on the throne, but “even more greatness came.” But this time Nebuchadnezzar did not claim credit for the increase of his kingdom: “Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise, exalt, and glorify the King of the heavens.” This is the only time the phrase “King of the heavens” appears in the Old Testament. And why does this king on earth praise and extol and honor the King who is in heaven? Three reasons are given: (1) “all his works are true”; (2) “his ways are just”; and (3) “He is able to humble those who walk in pride” (v. 37). These are Nebuchadnezzar’s last words in Scripture. He is now dead. He is long gone. However, the King of the heavens, the Most High God, is still on his throne, and he is still sovereign over the universe.

Conclusion: How Does Our Text Point to Christ?

Daniel 4 gives us glimpses of the Lord Jesus in several ways. First, it reminds us to remember who is God and who is not, who is King and who is not. Nebuchadnezzar, as great as he was, was only a finite and temporal king with a small k However, One is coming whom the Ancient of Days will give a dominion and kingdom that will be “an everlasting dominion that will not pass away, and . . . will not be destroyed.” In this kingdom “those of every people, nation, and language should serve him” (Dan 7:13-14). This is God’s King with a capital K ! This is God’s Lord with a capital L. This is the King who will rule the nations because he has written “on his robe and on his thigh: King of Kings and Lord of Lords” (Rev 19:16).

Second, we see Christ in striking contrast with Nebuchadnezzar. As Tremper Longman says, “How could those of us who read the New Testament fail to think of Christ in the light of Nebuchadnezzar’s pride and shame?” (Daniel, 125). Consider the following contrast between the Christ we see in Philippians 2:6-11 and the depiction of Nebuchadnezzar we see in Daniel:

Third, God gives kingdoms “to anyone he wants and sets the lowliest of people over [them]” (4:17). An ancient Hebrew person reading this verse could easily have thought, God did this in our past. Will he do it again in our future? Is there a prophetic impulse in Verse 17? Sidney Greidanus notes,

In Israel’s history God set over his kingdom the young David, bypassing his older brothers; he chose the younger Solomon over Adonijah. Isaiah prophesied about God’s chosen Servant, “He was despised and rejected by others” (53:3), but God allotted him “a portion with the great” (53:12). . . . Jesus born in a stable, poor, despised, crucified, but claiming after his resurrection that God had given to him “all authority in heaven and on earth” (Matt. 28:18). (Preaching Christ from Daniel, 128)

Yes, God had done it before. And yes, God would do it again!

Reflect and Discuss

1. How is pride connected to all other sin?
2. Why is it not arrogant of God to humble everyone whose pride threatens his glory?
3. What indications do we have in this text that Nebuchadnezzar’s worship is genuine?
4. Describe a time when God has troubled your heart to get your attention. How did you respond?
5. Why is speaking the truth in love often so hard? How does Daniel model this act of grace?
6. How does Nebuchadnezzar resemble Adam and Eve? How is God’s response to the king similar to his response to our first parents?
7. How can someone who experiences great success in this world, like Nebuchadnezzar, remain humble?
8. What is God showing Nebuchadnezzar in making him animal-like?
9. How could Nebuchadnezzar have used his kingdom to honor God instead of trying to steal glory from God? How can you use your gifts, talents, and successes to serve God?
10. How does Jesus model how to handle greatness? How has he used his power to serve others?