Daniel 4 - Pride and Humility

HBI - We where made by God to rule as Stewards on His behalf and when pride gets in the way and we think we can be our own god we become like beasts and will face justice.

Intro

The hope for faithfulness in a fallen world, we have been looking through what this means and what it looks like. Having faith or being faithful in a fallen and hostile world does not mean that everything is going to be good from now on. Having faith just means that we will be clinging to God to pull us through the difficult times. There is a great danger in thinking that we can pull this off on our own, that is pride. We are going to deal with this today.

There is a false teacher out there who teaches this, that we life is about me, that God is for me, that I can get what I want. many thousands are being led astray by this type of teaching. Joel Osteen in his book “Your Best life Now” teaches that there are 7 steps to having you best life now.

1) Enlarge your vision. Believe that God will make you successful not saved, not redeemed, not forgiven. Just successful. Also, expect other people to do good things for you. 2) Develop a healthy self-image. After all, just like in the case of Gideon, “God sees you as strong and courageous, as a man or woman of great honor and value.” he is not teaching that we need to be content where God has led us. “I wonder how many great things God is trying to do in your life. We’re just like Sarah. We can’t conceive it. We’re not in agreement with God, so we’re missing out on His blessings” 3) Discover the power of your thoughts and words. If you think negative thoughts all the time, how can you expect God to bless you? But “when you think positive, excellent thoughts, you will be propelled toward greatness, inevitably bound for increase, promotion, and God’s supernatural blessings.” Choose to be happy. Happiness is a choice. So smile a lot. God will bless you if you do. Also, become a person of excellence.

There is more in the book then this, but what this is saying is that you can do this, that God is not for His own glory but for you and making you better all you have to do is think happy thoughts. The problem with this is that as we have seen, to be faithful in a hostile world does not mean that we can do it on our own, but rather that when we trust in God He will work things out for His glory and what happens to us is not a big deal because whether we live or die as God’s children, we are destined for eternity. this may be a fatalistic way of looking at things but when You have a relationship with Jesus there is great Joy in thinking this way.

we need to come to the understanding that Sometimes pride gets in the way and we think that we are better then God but we will one day be humbled. This life is not about us but rather for the Glory of God.

Explanation

Nebuchadnezzar just made the decree Daniel 3:29 “Therefore I issue a decree that anyone of any people, nation, or language who says anything offensive against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego will be torn limb from limb and his house made a garbage dump. For there is no other god who is able to deliver like this.””

but soon we are going to see that He had a lapse in Judgement (nice way of putting it). This chapter has two verses which frames it like a sandwich and shows us what the main focus of the chapter is, something we should not stray from. Both are decrees from Nebuchadnezzar, what he learned from God after the fiery furnace, what he forgot and what he learned the hard way again.

Daniel 4:3 (CSB)

How great are his miracles, and how mighty his wonders! His kingdom is an eternal kingdom, and his dominion is from generation to generation.

Daniel 4:37 (CSB)

Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise, exalt, and glorify the King of the heavens, because all his works are true and his ways are just. He is able to humble those who walk in pride.

Both verses extolling the greatness and glory of the Lord God. He is the only one worthy of our praise and we need to give Him the glory He is due. This lesson that was learned is important to remember as we go through the rest of the chapter.

A couple things to take note of, this chapter borrows imagery from Genesis 1-2, and Psalm 8. You may know Genesis 1-2 quite well. It deals with the creation of the world, in the beginning was God and all he created in the universe was good. Man was made in the image of God and was given the authority to rule over all creation and to multiply and fill the earth. He was given the garden to enjoy with his wife Eve who was made as a helper. But the part we need to remember is the creation of the world, and how we where set as rulers under God over the world.

PsaLM 8 speaks of the Magnificent name of God over all the earth. He is Majestic, a stronghold for us. How wonderful and great is our God. When we see the greatness of God we should be humbled and think who are we that He should think of us and place us as rulers over anything. This sets the stage for what happens next to Nebuchadnezzar.

After the gratitude declared to God for all He had done by the king, he was sitting there flourishing in his palace. Daniel 4:4 “I, Nebuchadnezzar, was at ease in my house and flourishing in my palace.” Notice how it says he was “flourishing” at his palace. He had another dream from God. I believe I have had one dream from God before, when I was a teen and lost in sin and pretending at church that everything was okay. Essentially an angel appeared to me in my dream and showed all these consequences of being lost in sin without a relationship with Jesus, I was scared and the dream ended with me prostrate on the floor in tears asking forgiveness and a relationship with Jesus. He was trying to get my attention, and man was I scared.

He tried the same thing as the last dreams, though I am not sure why he did not go to Daniel first. He called in all the wise men and magicians, but at least he told them the dream first this time. When they had no idea what to say about it he called in Daniel, who by now had quite the reputation as having the favor of the most high God.

The dream was of a great abundant tree that reached all the way to the sky, it could be seen throughout the whole earth (borrows imagery from Gen 11:4, the tower of Babel) but the great abundant tree was cut down, and made to be less then human, like the beasts of the field. The great tree was to be like this till it turned back to God and ceased its pride.

such was the dream that Daniel was scared to tell the king what it means, such a terrible prophecy this was to tell But Daniel did it anyways. And what was the response of the king? after being told to humble Himself or he would be made less then human, like a beast? Daniel 4:30

Daniel 4:30 (CSB)

the king exclaimed, “Is this not Babylon the Great that I have built to be a royal residence by my vast power and for my majestic glory?”

The result was what had been foretold to Him By God. After all he had been warned but pride got in the way and the king was made to be like the beasts of the earth. Daniel 4:33

Daniel 4:33 (CSB)

At that moment the message against Nebuchadnezzar was fulfilled. He was driven away from people. He ate grass like cattle, and his body was drenched with dew from the sky, until his hair grew like eagles’ feathers and his nails like birds’ claws.

It ended when the king looked up to heaven and praised the Lord God for His glory and splendor and majesty. It ends the same way that it begins, God is wondrous and glorious and able to humble all those who think they can do it better then Him.

application

We where made by God for the glory of God to often people think they do not need God or think they can do it better then Him. We start to believe our own hype and start to build ourselves up as better then God. Maybe it is not quite as grandiose as what Nebuchadnezzar did but we do the same thing sometimes. When we start to believe that God is for us and for glorifying us and for making our best life now and stuff like that then we start to become prideful. It is not about us, God is for His glory and our best life is not now it is when we go to see Jesus again. what we are called to do is to first learn that...

Humility - We where made by God to rule as stewards on His behalf based on nothing we have done.

I love Psalm 8:4 “what is a human being that you remember him, a son of man that you look after him?” . Look to Isaiah when He is approached by God to see who would go for God and tell the people what God would have Him say his response was “whoa am I for I am a man of unclean lips”. Solomon and Job both came to the realization that God is in control and we need to fear Him. God is for God and for His glory.

God does not need us, who are we that god should think of us. But as His children He wants to use us for His glory. He takes us and erases all fear in our lives and empowers us to go and share his message to the world. The bible teaches that if we did not cry out praises to God and tell people of His glory then even the rocks would cry out. It is a little humbling to know a rock could do the same job I am doing.

I was told the illustration once. It is like a father and his child. The kid really wants to help but the father doe not actually need the help of the child. Lets say they are putting together a bed. The father hands the child the hammer and 1 nail, the child hammers in the one nail with difficulty but is so happy that His father allowed him to help build the bed. We have a role to play in God’s will. We where created in the image of God and given authority over all creation. We where told to spread the message of the gospel to those around us, we where told to remember that it is not about us but rather for the glory of the the Lord.

Humble yourself before the creator of the universe, start a relationship with Him. The free gift of salvation is there far all people to believe in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and be saved and then to live for Him. Who are we that God would want to use us? but God does want to use us, isn't that amazing?

Pride - When pride gets in the way and we think we are better then God or we may be humbled.

God can and will humble us. The point of what happened to Nebuchadnezzar was that God humbles the proud and when that happens we become like the beasts of the earth. Lower then human. We need to realize that God is Sovereign, yet man is constantly rebelling against Our sovereign God. men quarrel against the sovereignty of God, rebel;ling against the fact that their is someone in control over them and they can not do it on their own. But the very thing you hate in God is the very thing you love in yourself. But we are called to be a people that gives up our sovereignty and bow before the Lord God who is really in control.

Are you struggling with Pride? God humbles the proud, If you feel like you are being humbled by God you need to seek Him and ask what is going on. Like the story of the tower of Babel, people think that they are like God or can reach God or be better then God and God humbles them, trying to get their attention and turn their hearts back to Him. Adam and Eve thought that they could be like God and where tempted to eat of the tree. They where humbled and given a life or hardships in return for their sin and as their descendants we too struggle with the same sin.

as Christians we are not immune to pride either. Though we have been given freedom from our sin we still struggle with the sin of Pride. How often do we take our eyes off of God and place them on ourselves. We run large companies, or maybe are just successful at our jobs, we have seen Christians be successful at sports, write popular books. We have the same tendencies to think that we had something to do with the success we face and start to trust our own judgement rather then trusting in God. The message that God humbles the proud is a comfort to us sometimes but it is also a warning to us as well.

we must remember that we where made in the image of God to be used for the glory of God and when pride gets in the way we need to come before God and remember the words of Psalm 127:1 “Unless the Lord builds a house, its builders labor over it in vain; unless the Lord watches over a city, the watchman stays alert in vain.”