Daniel 4
Notes
Transcript
We see a certain life cycle with celebrities don't we?
They ascend to stardom and everyone loves them.
Then they lose it , they fall which people also love to see
Then we all love the comeback.
We know the comeback is in full swing when they are on Good Morning America or sitting for a 60 minutes interview
Everyone is glued to the People magazine in the checkout Aisle.
“Back from a year of recovery and sobriety celebrity so and so tells all….”
That is how we have to read Daniel chapter 4
This chapter of Daniel is a mix between good morning america and a Presidential address to the nation.
This is a letter from the most powerful man in the world
It would have been read and at least heard by everyone in the known world.
The king is about to address the nation specifically about what happened to him and what saved him...and tell the world that God alone can save
Gods Plan- (1-3)
King Nebuchadnezzar to all peoples, nations, and languages, that dwell in all the earth: Peace be multiplied to you! 2 It has seemed good to me to show the signs and wonders that the Most High God has done for me.
The introduction sets the tone of the whole thing
Look at who this letter from the king is addressed too in verse 1 - King Nebuchadnezzar to all peoples, nations, and languages, that dwell in all the earth:
Sounds like the Gospel stone filling the earth from Daniel 2 doesn’t it?
Gods plan is being fulfilled.
If there is anything you ever hear from me as i teach the bible i hope it is this:
God's plan from Genesis to Revelation is for everyone to worship Him.
Why? Is it because our God is a needy narcissist ? No
Because we are just like King Neb
Restless, trying to live up to expectation from others or the expectation we put on our own lives, empty from looking to the world to satisfy our longing hearts
And we are made to worship him because he finds us in our brokenness and shows us in Him we are made whole
He has done it in such a scandalous way that we love Him
That is God’s plan…and if you are His his plan for your life is to cast you in the seeking and saving of the lost around you
He is going to explain in this Good morning america interview that the signs and wonders he saw was not lightning bolts but the Gospel saving a sinner like Him
And at the end of it all we see how the miracle of changed lives happens
One person at a time through the faithfulness of one person
How did he get to this point...he is about to tell us
Again it involves the Kings dream and God’s man to bring God’s message.
Gods Man - (4-18)
Gods Man - (4-18)
The king is chilling at the palace and has another dream that terrifies him
It is a dream where a great tree is amazing to look at and provides the world with beauty and rest
Then an angel tells him to chop it down but leave the roots…it is a picture of his kingdom but a message it is going to fall…and the king is going to fall too
And its gonna be bad
Enter Daniel to show him what no one else can
And he knows Daniel is different because of how he describes him 3 times…that the spirit of God is in Him
Remember the process of how all the kings horses and all the kings men are tasked with telling a king his dream
They come in with books of all the dreams and the kings have had
The king says he saw a duck and they say ducks are steves department so steve opens to all the duck dreams
What color was the duck ok pink duck dreams and turns there and on and on until they give an answer
But again they can’t and poor steve is probably executed for it
You think your job is tough
Remember the kings first dream in chapter 2.
This was a deeply religious and superstitious man.
He was searching for hope and wholeness for his empty soul the only place he knew how
But he was looking for love in all the wrong places
He believed dreams were how his gods were communicating with him so it was life or death he find out its meaning.
Like chapter 2 he calls in his crew of mystics, astrologers, medicine men and wizards and like chapter 2 none can answer for the dreams meaning.
He calls in the man God had strategically placed and raised up for this moment. Enter Daniel….
LIsten to his description by the king in 8, 9 and 18..., for the spirit of the holy gods is in you.”
Daniel was known as having the Spirit of God in Him. What a description.
What does that mean?
It means There was something different about him
He was a good friend to the king, he was there, who told truth in a world of lies he held strong to his convictions and didn’t compromise
Is that us?
Daniel full of God’s spirit, marked by the fruit of the spirit is about to speak a message of judgement and repentance to the most powerful man on earth
And Neb listened because Daniel had been a good friend …
Want to know how to reach people around you?
Daniel models what it looks like to be different in a world of darkness and loneliness
You want to see Jesus in Daniel 4?!?!?!?!?! Look at this picture of God’s man
When Isaiah was prophesying about the restoration of Israel he pointed to Jesus when God spoke through him and said in Isaiah 61
The Spirit of the Lord GOD is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor;he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound;2 to proclaim the year of the LORD’s favor, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all who mourn;
This true one full of the spirit is Christ pointed to in the life of Daniel
Daniel was a faithful witness
Jesus was the faithful witness to the world.
He takes that title on Revelation 1:5 “the faithful witness”
There was no man more lowly than Jesus.
And there was no one more faithful. He is the you and me we are meant to be but fail in sin to be
In meekness he took his throne and rules his everlasting Kingdom
And he makes us whole
Daniel points us to Jesus
And delivers the same message Jesus would declare
God's Message - (19-33)
God's Message - (19-33)
Daniel is given the hard job of telling the king what is coming because of His pride
But in the message is the Gospel hope
God’s man delivers God’s message.
And he does it with a broken heart for the lost people he cares about
Verse 19 is incredible. Daniel cares for this man. You can hear that this has become a friend. He has been with the King in these moments where he is wrestling with these deep things of the heart and he is broken by the message he has to deliver.
Daniel is sad for Him!!!!!!! WHAT? Are you sad and burdened for those that don’t believe the truth?
Daniel stands before this king and announces the judgment of God that will be poured out and he does it in sadness.
This can be a sermon all in and of itself.
Does your heart break for the lost?
We are called to deliver a message of salvation to a lost world searching for love in all the wrong places
Its not unloving to tell someone they are about to drive off a cliff
TRUTH IN LOVE is what we are called to
The king has a cliff coming. Daniel lets him know.
Your kingdom is gonna crumble…and you are going to live through a painful of a season of life because it is the only way you are going to accept the Gospel
Here is the message- You will be made to eat grass like an ox, and you will be wet with the dew of heaven, and seven periods of time will pass over you, until you know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will.
Do you get nervous to talk to people about your faith? Do you feel uncomfortable bringing it up?
Daniel has to tell the most powerful man in the world that because of his pride he is going to be stricken with a real and rare mental condition called BOANTHROPY
This is a real condition even today.
Boanthropy is a very rare delusional disorder where individuals believe they are a cow and live like it
It happened to a British woman in 2020
The King was gonna lose it all, including his mind because of his pride.
We see a year passes though and nothing happens
I can only assume that after a message like that he cleaned himself up for a while but outward change never lasts does it?
Like that college kid none of us i am sure ever have been throwing up from drinking too much and holding the porcelain promising God i won’t drink again if you make this stop
Our boy Nebuchadnezzar 1 year later in walking his palace and looks out and goes back to his old ways in verse 29
God did what he had promised.
The king lost it all and wandered the grass until the time was complete that he would repent.
The 7 periods of time in this passage means the perfect time it would take the King to be humbled.
7 is the number of God’s perfection in the bible
Don’t miss this …here is what he is saying
God will do exactly to perfection what it takes to get you to him
Things will be hard and not go how you thought or wanted
But God knows what he is doing because he knows you and knows perfectly what it takes to get you to Him
If you are a believer in this room can’t you look back and see that process…God will do to perfection what he knows will bring you to Him
The same God who humbles a King with Boanthropy 3000 years ago is the same God calling the nations through his people to return to their maker or insanity and brokenness will result.
See any insanity around you today as a result of losing our moral compass?
Congress just voted recently to deny life saving measures for babies born alive after surviving botched abortions…voted against it
But that is exactly where the gospel comes into our lives
Into the insanity we all show when we run to sin instead of God
When we all have run to the insanity of sin and are like Gary Sheffield
Still broken when it doesn’t deliver
Saving a mess like me is something only God can do
What only God can Do- (34-37)
What only God can Do- (34-37)
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,.......37 Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the bKing of heaven, for all his works are right and his ways are just; and those who walk in pride he is able to humble.
I can just picture the people reading this letter. You know they all had heard the king had lost his mind.
Then one day someone saw him ride through town on his old chariot and did a double take “is that old king Neb”
“Wasn't he in the field eating grass like a cow?” “He is back what on earth happened’
That's what the king is answering in this letter.
What happened is what only God can do in salvation.
He is telling the world what happened to him. He got saved!!!!!!
David Helm says this “His pride led him to a fall, his confession has led to his restoration”
A SPIRITUAL CAPTIVE SET FREE BY A LOWLY CAPTIVE OF MAN. ONLY GOD CAN DO THIS
To those who were once far off God is bringing near through His son
That God would save a mess like me is a scandalous wonder that 1 Peter 1:12 says the angels long to look into
David Helm again says “This ending declaration means that nothing short of a complete transformation occurred in the King. In the New Testament there are similar hymns to God and all are made with the recognition that the kingdom finds ultimate fulfillment in Jesus as King, and his followers as rightful heirs to God’s Kingdom (Revelation 5:9, 15:3-4)
The great king of earth is bowing to the King of Kings.
He is more joyful to be an heir of Gods eternal Kingdom than the empire he owns.
This is the last time we hear from this king.
I am excited to see him in heaven one day counted among the saints worshipping the Lamb who was slain.
He died in 562 BC.
And he exits this stage Praising God this is how i want to exit the stage. With the praise of God on my lips as a testimony to the lost searching and broken.
And where was Daniel?
Being faithful and different in a world losing its mind
Trusting God can perform the impossible act of saving sinners no matter who they are
Any one in your life you think is unsavable?
Anyone you think would never want Saved or
Better yet Anyone you think God would never want?
This was an enemy of God. Active in the assault murder, and destruction of Gods people.
Yet it was God's plan to save him and through him show the world what only God can do.
This isn't the last time we see God save who we would think unsavable.
That is who I was and who I am
And it is who you can be if you repent and believe like the most powerful man in the world 3000 years ago
God is still in the business of scandalous saving by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone
