Daniel 4 - Clarity Over Confusion
Tom Shrader examines Nebuchadnezzar's testimony in Daniel 4, showing how the king's pride led to confusion about who controlled his kingdom and success. Through seven years of divine humbling, Nebuchadnezzar learned that God is sovereign over all earthly kingdoms and raises up or brings down rulers as He pleases. Tom applies this to believers, warning that prosperity and contentment can be spiritually dangerous if they lead to self-reliance rather than dependence on God.
“Everything that comes into your life is either caused by or allowed by God - if that statement's not true, then He isn't God at all.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Integrity Under Fire (2005)
Recorded: February 24, 2005
Duration: 48 min
Themes: pride, humility, sovereignty, authority, prosperity, dependence, conviction, integrity, struggling with pride, experiencing success, business leader, parent, pastor, new to leadership, facing prosperity, seeking spiritual growth
Scripture: Daniel 4, Daniel 3:16-18, Romans 12:1-2, John 9
Theological Themes: divine sovereignty, gods authority, spiritual pride, biblical humility, sanctification, becoming holy, providence, spiritual maturity
Full Transcript
If you have Bibles, open them to Daniel chapter 4. We're spending some time on this study where we are going to spend six weeks looking at the first six chapters of the book of Daniel. The premise of this series, or at least the avenue that we're exploring, is the idea of integrity. In fact, we've titled this series Integrity Under Fire, subtitled Principles for Living in a Hostile Environment.
Understanding True Integrity
When we're talking about integrity, what we're really talking about are convictions here. I'm not talking about things that you might believe in, and they're disposable or certainly are open to rethinking. I'm talking about things that for you are hills to die on. They are things that for us are non-negotiable. We're not looking to compromise.
These convictions flow, most of them, from the Scriptures themselves. In other words, if God says to do something, this is really not optional behavior for me. If He says to avoid it, well, that's not an option either. So I'm looking at convictions, and how do I handle it when those convictions are confronted?
Review: Win-Win Solutions
I want to take a couple of things by way of review. The first week we saw, because our tendency is to think, boy, I have a conviction, they get confronted, I either have to cave in and sell out, or I just have to battle and fight. That first week, what we did was try to propose to you that there are certain times when you don't need to compromise, but you can find yourself in a win-win situation. You can take an extra few minutes and ask somebody, hey, what is it you're after, what do you need, what are you looking for?
Remember the situation with Daniel? The gentleman had come to him and said, listen, we need to have you adhere to this diet. He said, I can't do that, but help me work this through. What is it you're worried about? And he said, well, we're concerned, Daniel, that if you don't adhere to this diet, you'll start to look sickly, and then the king's going to know that you're not on this diet. That's a problem for me.
So Daniel says, okay, it's appearance you're concerned about. Well, let's do a test run. Let's say 10 days or so, and we'll stick to our regimen, and we'll see how we look. And as you know, it had a relatively speaking, happy ending.
Integration Over Segmentation
The second week, and this is a huge thing for me, was the idea of integration over segmentation, by which we mean that I cannot take my Christian life and segment it from the rest of my life in its totality. If I'm a Christian, and I'm on a date, it should be evident by my thought processes, by the way I behave, it should be evident that my Christianity affects that date. If I'm a Christian, and I'm a wife, my Christianity will be visible in that marriage. Christian husband, same principle. Christian employee, employer, parent, friend.
Just as I live my life, my faith can't be segregated. It has to permeate the way I think and behave and believe.
A couple of years ago, some friends of mine came back from Europe, and they said, boy, when they built those cathedrals, they really screwed up. And I said, well, I don't know what you're talking about. And they said, you know, we get three, four, five thousand people in our buildings, but they built these, and they only seat five, six, seven hundred. They built these massive structures, but they don't really have a lot of seats in them. They screwed this thing up.
And I said, well, do you understand why they did that? Well, not really. Well, the idea was, when you walked into a cathedral, you were overwhelmed by the majesty of God, the power of God, the person of God and who He is, His power, His might, His majesty. You are in awe because it becomes a picture of it. So as that architect is designing that, he has in mind that very idea.
In all that you do, in all that you say, in all that we think, we should be driven by our Christian belief, our Christian principles, our Christian doctrine, and they're visible to everybody around us.
Living with Confidence
Last week, we talked about living with confidence. Not necessarily because everything would work out well. Look with me at Daniel 3, verse 16. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego have been told that if they don't bow down and worship the idol, that they'll be thrown into the fire. The king has gotten word that in fact they aren't bowing down. He confronts them and says, is this true? Are you not bowing down?
And they said, yeah, here's the case, verse 16: "O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to give you an answer concerning this. If it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of the blazing fire, and He will deliver us out of your hand, O king."
We don't need an answer to you in this particular area. You're for sure king, but we serve a higher authority. And if you want to throw us into the fire, you need to understand something. Our God is more than capable of delivering us. If you want to throw us into the furnace, that's fine. Remember what He does? He cranks it up seven times hotter. You do whatever it is you need to do, king, but I want you to understand something. Our God is able to deliver us from all of this.
And then Daniel chapter 3, verse 18. I don't have anymore a Bible I use. I keep using different Bibles. This is the first study Bible I ever had. And I picked it up a while ago, and I was going through it, and in the front there you'll just see chicken scratch all over. You'll see little words and references and all sorts of things in here. And those are at moments where I saw something significant, a verse, a passage, something, and I made a note.
I said I'll probably want to come back to it again, and this will trigger a thought, or I heard a phrase, and I jotted the phrase down for whatever reason it seemed important to me. Let's see if we can find one. The Big Bang is roughly equivalent to saying the dictionary resulted from an explosion in a print factory. That kind of stuff I'd write down. Here you go. Death doesn't change anything. It just crystallizes what you are in life prior to the experience. Those kinds of things.
Well, in the Bible then, there's obviously notes, and around Daniel 3, verse 18, there's a big circle, because this is one of those verses that you come back to over and over again. Here's what he said: you put me in the furnace, that's fine, God can get me out. Verse 18 is, but even if He doesn't. Even if He doesn't get us out, that's not a reflection on Him. He's certainly capable.
God's Sovereignty in Everything
Now, what's the principle for you and me, and we'll really expand on it today, is that God's sovereign and He does whatever He wants to do. Everything that comes into your life, everything that comes into your life, is either caused by or allowed by God. If that statement's not true, then He isn't God at all. If there's something that's coming into your life and He can't stop it, or He didn't cause it, then He's not all-knowing, He's not all-powerful. That's what we'll talk about today, so we can live confidently.
Today, what we're going to see is a moment in Nebuchadnezzar's life. So, we've had role models of Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Our role model today is Nebuchadnezzar. And we're going to see a moment in his life where all sorts of confusion fades away. Where all sorts of confusion about who he is and how he got where he is just kind of melts away from the scene.
Nebuchadnezzar's Testimony
So, we're in Daniel chapter 4. We're going to, for now, skip the first three verses, come back to them at the end, and we'll start in verse 4. Nebuchadnezzar's speaking, and if you will, he's sharing a testimony. We hear that term probably in a secular way. You know, they have now, I guess, they have finalized the jury for the Michael Jackson trial. So, now the trial will begin, and we will hear testimony. I swear to tell the truth. The truth is nothing but the truth, so help me God. And you will have witnesses, and these witnesses will share the facts as they remember them or understand them, presumably, and they'll tell you the truth. They'll tell you what they experienced. They will witness.
Well, we hear that term oftentimes. We had the brochures out last week for the Good Friday breakfast. Well, what happened at the Good Friday breakfast? It's an opportunity for you to invite your friends, and there will be someone who will speak, and they will share their testimony or witness. In other words, they'll share, here's what's happened to me as it relates to this issue of my sin, Jesus Christ, His provision.
Nebuchadnezzar shares his testimony. It is a dramatic testimony. Nebuchadnezzar will walk in around today, and he was ready to speak like this. You'd see satellite dishes, and you would see the press from all around the world coming to hear the most powerful man in his time in the world as he shared this testimony.
Let's look at it. I, Nebuchadnezzar, verse 4, was at home in my palace, and then he describes his mindset. He says, I was content, and I was prosperous, and I had a dream that made me afraid, and as I was laying in my bed, the images and the visions that passed through my head terrified me, so I commanded that all the wise men of Babylon be brought before me to interpret the dream for me.
The Danger of Prosperity
I'm going to stop a second. I want to look at his condition, and I want to relate to you and me, us, our lives, that being content and prosperous can be a very dangerous place to be. There was a gentleman who was here last week. I don't think he's here today. Never been around church. First time that I know of that he's been in a Bible study, and we're talking about what we talked about last week, even if God doesn't, that God is the God who will test us and will persevere. Here's what he said. He said, I'll tell you what I think would be a far greater test, and that would be the test of prosperity. That is an extraordinary insight. It's something that we've shared with you many times.
If I say to you right now, God's going to test you today, you immediately think of cancer, losing all your resources, a baby dies. You think of something catastrophic. Perhaps the greatest test that God could give you today is your health. Or is the deal closing? Or everything going well? Because when things are going well, we have a tendency to feel as though we're self-sufficient, that I'm captain of my ship, I'm master of my faith, I'm in control. Look at what I can do. I've got it all together.
I want to make sure you understand. Nebuchadnezzar is a guy who you would gladly trade places with. You would look at him and say, that guy's got it all. Now oftentimes as Christians we say, oh no, because we know that that's not the right answer in a biblical study. To say, oh no, life's about much more than stuff. But in our mind, most often when I talk to guys, here's what they either say privately or they're thinking, and you can pull it out of them. I've got problems, but they'd go away if I had stuff. I've got problems, but if I had more stuff, if I had a different wife, if I had a different this, if I could change places here, if I had a little chess game with my material things, I'd be happier.
The House in South Tempe
This is for me my classic illustration. I'm driving one day in South Tempe, and this will be very hard for you Paradise Valley and Scottsdale people to believe, but there's something of value in South Tempe. And I'm driving in South Tempe. I'm driving and I come upon this house. And it was a house that generated a response from me. I looked at it and I said, that is an extraordinary house. I love that house. I probably will never lust after a house,
But if I was ever going to lust after a house, it would be this house. I could see me getting a copy of Homes Illustrated, and there'd be a centerfold of this house, and I'd look at this house. I went home and said to Susan, "I found this incredible house. We can never afford it, but would you like to go look at it?" She said, "I don't care." So we're driving down and she said, "That's an extraordinary house. That's an incredible house." Something inside you just kind of hopes that the people there are miserable. It's that kind of a house. That's how you know that it's a good house.
So we're driving away. Over a period of time, I discover who lives in that house, and it's a house we'd never buy. It's way beyond anything. It's a dream. It would be a fantasy house, not even a dream house, because sometimes you get into dream houses. This is a fantasy house that you're never going to get in.
I learn a little bit about the guy, and he is like the perfect guy, with the perfect little wife and the perfect little kids, and everything is perfect. In my mind, I'm saying, this guy has to be the happiest guy in the world. He's got this beautiful little wife and this magnificent house, and these little kids. It's unbelievable. One day I turn on the news, and he had gone down in the basement of that beautiful little house the night before and killed himself.
The Deception of External Prosperity
What I did is what you tend to do. I'm saying, how could he not be happy? Look at the house. Look at her. Look at the kids. Look at the job. He's got to be happy. He's content. He's prosperous.
Haley is sitting on the couch one day. She had to be seven or eight. We're watching TV, and I've got the flipper, and I don't watch a lot of commercials, so I'll mute them or flip or whatever. So I mute it, and I'm working on some stuff, listening and writing and making notes. I said to Haley, "Haley, if you could be anyone in the world, who would you want to be?" She said, "Haley Schrader." I said, "Well, that's an interesting thought. You'd want to be you?" She said, "Yeah, I'd want to be who I am. Look at this, Dad. I've got a great place to live. I've got food. I can sit here. I can watch TV. If I do what everybody tells me to do, nobody bothers me. Nobody hassles me. I just would love to be me."
Like you, she's outgrown that probably. Actually, I don't know. Haley and Tyler were over for dinner last night. I don't know that she has outgrown it. I think she's pretty content with who she is.
Nebuchadnezzar's contented and prosperous, and here comes this test. Don't fall into the trap. This gets dicey for us, because we have to say, are you a Christian or non-Christian? You all figure it out. I'll just give you principles, and then you apply them to your life. Don't think for a second, because everything is happy and smooth around you, that it means necessarily that you are spiritually okay.
The Terrifying Dream
So he has a dream. The dream absolutely terrifies him. It scares him. The dream goes something like this. We're not going to look at all of the specifics of it. He has a dream about a great big tree. Remember when Barbara Walters asked Johnny Carson, "If you were a tree, what kind of tree would you be?" Well, he sees this great big tree. In this tree are birds nesting, and there are beasts that are feeding under it, and there's all sorts of grass, and people are being nurtured by it. He has this tree, and along comes this voice, and it chops down this tree.
In verse 9, he calls in Daniel. I don't know why, based on the experience we've seen, he doesn't have a dream and just call Daniel. I don't know why he goes through this exercise with all these other guys. But he calls Daniel, and he said, "I know that the spirit of the holy gods"—see it there, plural, not yet "Daniel, one true God," even though he's acknowledged it—"is in you, and no mystery is too difficult for you. Here's my dream, and interpret it for me." So he lays out the dream for Daniel. Here's the tree, here's the stuff, here's what's going on. All these things come together.
Daniel's Terrified Response
Verse 19: "Then Daniel was greatly perplexed for a time, and his thoughts terrified him." Daniel figures out what the dream is. He's terrified by this. Why? The king says to Daniel, "Don't let the dream or its meaning alarm you." In other words, give it to me straight, Daniel. Just tell me what it is. What did you see? What did you hear?
Daniel said, "My lord, if only the dream applied to your enemies and its meaning to your adversaries. I wish that this was not about you. I wish it were about your enemies, but the reality is that this is all about you." Give it to me straight.
I was asking a friend of mine who's a physician—because if I go to the doctor, Susan's got the doctor appointment today—if we go to the doctor, what we say is, "Just shoot straight with us. Just tell us what we got. What are we facing? What's going on?" He said, "How many people who say to you, 'Just tell it to us straight,' how many can handle it?" He said, "About one out of ten, when you tell it to them straight, can really deal with it."
The Interpretation: You Are the Tree
So the king says, "Tell it to me straight." Here's what happens. Daniel gives him the meaning. Here's what he says: "You're the tree. You're the king. Everybody's been nurtured by you and they're dwelling in your peace and your presence. What's going to happen is that this holy one is going to come and chop down the tree. There'll be grass that will grow all around this tree. For seven years, you will lay destitute. You will live like an animal. You will eat grass like a cow."
Then he says in verse 26, "This will happen, and your kingdom will be restored to you after you recognize that heaven rules. Therefore, king," he says...
My advice to you is this. Break away now from your sin and from doing unrighteousness. Repent. Who knows what God might do? I would say that to you. If we hit the pause button here, if you're here today and you aren't a Christian, that would be our message to you. Please repent.
Your sin is an offense to a holy God. He maybe hasn't done anything now. In fact, maybe He's allowed you to prosper and to be content. But it's a false contentment because there's a day coming of judgment. There's a day when I have to answer for my sin.
That's not something you hear very often anymore, is it? There seems to be, and I think I've done a good job over the years of not being some guy that's paranoid about all this stuff. I'm not paranoid about it. But there's just open, blatant attacks. Bill Maher was talking the other day about Christianity and just talking about how stupid they are and how dumb they are and how ignorant they are and all this stuff. If he had said that about homosexuals or women or blacks or anything other than Christians, he'd be gone. But it is absolutely fair game. And that's all right because that's the deal.
The Danger of Self-Reliance
Maybe you're here and that'd be your mindset. You might not be aggressive, but here's what you say. I don't buy this Christian thing. I don't buy it as the only way. I don't think it's really there. You bet I've sinned, but that's okay because I'm working on it. I'll take care of it. I'm going to work it through. I'm going to do something about it.
See, that's the beauty and the distinction of Christianity. Christianity is the only religion or faith in the world that strips you entirely of you doing anything to please a holy God. Christianity says Jesus did it all. You can't do anything.
So you may be there and be content and be prosperous. In fact, look at verse 28. And all this happened to the king 12 months later. Here comes the dream. Here comes the interpretation. And it's 12 months and nothing happens.
God's Patience Is Not Infinite
I'm sure that maybe that first night, Nebuchadnezzar's going, wow, that was a tough dream. That's a tough interpretation. And Daniel, you know what? He's one in a thousand. He never misses. This has me scared. I'm afraid about this. And the second night he goes, but nothing really happened today, so I'm sure it will be all right.
And now 365 days have passed and he's going, hey, obviously, either God doesn't care about this, or He can't do anything about it, because it's been a year and nothing's happened. Don't for a second confuse God's patience with God's grace. Don't say God has been patient, therefore, I guess He doesn't care.
I'm in a prayer group one time and this guy's praying, God, thank You for Your infinite patience. And I'm thinking, uh-oh, not infinite patience. God's patient, but it's not infinite patience. There's a day coming when sin will be judged. I need to be careful in all the midst of this.
The King's Moment of Pride
Twelve months later, the king is walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon. Make sure we understand what we're saying here. Here's what had happened. In that day and age, you as a city were only as secure as your ability to build walls to keep out enemies, and somehow to grow food and sustain yourself in the midst of this.
So they built this palace in Babylon and they built it right over the Euphrates River. So there's a constant flow of water. They could grow all the food they needed within the walls of the palace, of the city. The walls were so thick that they used to race chariots around the top of it. We're talking about one of the seven wonders of the ancient world.
And here's the king who's been the driving force in all of this. It's at night. He's walking around. Let's put it in our context. He's perhaps got a little brandy and a cigar. And he's walking around and he's saying, this is pretty incredible. This is pretty amazing.
"How Great I Art"
In fact, here's what he says. Is not this the great Babylon? And look at the personal pronoun now. That I have built as my royal residence and my mighty power and for the glory of my majesty? Here's what the king's doing. He's walking along. He's got his little brandy. He's got his cigar. He's walking around and he's looking. He says, this is amazing. This is extraordinary. Just look at all of this. This is what I've built. This is about me.
He's humming as he walks his favorite song, How Great I Art. And he's just singing and he's just humming along. And he's just enjoying it, sucking it all up.
And again, maybe you've had something like that. Susan will tell you right now. If you say to Susan, what's your favorite thing right now to do? She'll say, I love to sit on our back porch. We moved into that house a couple of years ago. Some of you probably even laugh at how... I mean, it's about a couple thousand square feet. It's got a big room, a kitchen and three bedrooms. And we love this house.
And it happens to be on the water. And the sunsets, and I personally believe that the Arizona sunsets are the most beautiful in the world. They're beautiful, especially if you've got a little pollution. Because that gives you the pink and the orange. And so we got the sunset. We look toward the west. We got the sunset. The palm trees are there. The ducks are out. We have this huge crane that hangs out there.
And so she loves to sit out there and she loves to say, and I'll always say, I'm thinking about moving. And she said, no, no, no, no. No, I love this house. And I really do love that house. So maybe you have something. Maybe it's a house that you bought. Maybe it's a project you built. It's something where you're taking the satisfaction. And as you do, you have a tendency in your own way to say, hey, this is incredible. I've built this empire. I constructed this. I figured this out. I thought this through.
Judgment Comes Swiftly
Look what happens. Verse 31. The words are still on his lips. Who's talking here now? Nebuchadnezzar. He's speaking a little bit in third person. It's like a Seinfeld. Jimmy likes Elaine.
So it's like that one if you've ever seen it. The words are still on his lips when a voice came from heaven. "This is what is decreed for you, King Nebuchadnezzar. Your royal authority has been taken away from you. And you'll be driven away from people and you will live with the wild animals and you will eat grass like cattle. Seven times will pass for you until you acknowledge the Most High as Sovereign over the kingdoms of men and gives to whoever He wishes."
Here's the deal. Nebuchadnezzar hears from God that he's going to live like a cow for seven years. This is extreme. If you do a little research, you'll discover that indeed this is a disease that's known to us. The last reported case was in 1950 in London.
And God says, "Here's what you're going to do. You're going to be humiliated. You're going to walk around naked and eat grass." If we were into puns and stuff, we'd say we're going to put you out to pasture and we're going to get you out of here. And we're going to put you there until you acknowledge that God is Sovereign over the kingdoms of men.
God's Sovereignty in All Circumstances
That was the point we started with this morning. God is Sovereign. God does what He wants to do. God's in absolute control. And that presents some dilemmas for us and then we've got to talk about what's the source of evil and why do bad things happen and all those sorts of things. But here's what we know: God either caused them or allowed them.
You give me whatever you want. If it's September 11th, if it's a sickness in your life, and this is painful and I acknowledge this, if it's the death of someone you love, if it's a deal that went south... I was meeting with somebody the other day and I said, "How are you doing?" And they went over the last four, five, six months and I mean it was just one horrific event after another. Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! I said, "Man, that is incredible." He said, "Well, I know this. God either caused it or allowed it. That's what you told me." So it's not that God's abandoned you.
See, until I acknowledge who God is. And for Nebuchadnezzar, He says, it's going to take you seven years. I don't know how much grass... How stubborn is this guy? I don't know how much grass you'd need to eat before you figured out that you've got an issue and this is God and we can take care of this. It's God who raises up. It's God who places down. It's God who's in absolute control.
Nebuchadnezzar's Restoration and Recognition
In fact, here's what we see in verse 34. "At the end of my time, Nebuchadnezzar, I, Nebuchadnezzar, raised my eyes toward heaven and my sanity was restored. Then I praised the Most High and I honored and glorified Him who lives forever. And His dominion is eternal dominion. His kingdom endures from generation to generation. All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing. He does as He pleases."
God's all-powerful. Can God do all things? Now, that's a little bit of a different question. Can God do all things? Well, no, God can't do all things. God must act in absolute alignment with His nature. Could God sin? No, God couldn't sin. So we can come up with a list of things that God couldn't do, but because of His nature, He'll act in alignment with His nature. But He's a God who does as He pleases. He raises up. He puts down. He's a God who's sovereign.
Verse 36: "At the same time my sanity was restored, my honor and my splendor was returned to me for the glory of my kingdom. My advisors and my 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 we want to camp on this last sentence here in verse 37 for a bit. "And those who walk in pride, He is able to humble."
The Subtle Destructiveness of Pride
Nebuchadnezzar's besetting sin was pride. Your besetting sin is pride. Pride is this subtle thing. It destroys. It leads to all other sources of sin. C.S. Lewis' classic line in Mere Christianity: it was through pride that Lucifer became the devil. It's a hideous thing.
Let me show you an example from my own life. Early eighties, working in the real estate business. Doing pretty well. God saved me. It will be 25 years ago next week. God saved me in the midst of this, and now I've got some problems. I'm in business. I'm doing pretty well. How am I going to let people know that I'm doing pretty well and still maintain the illusion of humility? This is a dilemma.
So I thought of a variety of things, and it dawned on me that what we typically associate with success are certain trappings. Now, this is not a shot at any of these things. This is not about you. Don't you all get all defensive now. This is about me and my thought process.
The Watch Story: Pride's Deception
So I thought, well, I need to live in a certain neighborhood. Well, that's not my deal. I need to drive a certain car. How am I going to let them know? That's not my thing. What am I going to do? Well, I could write with a certain instrument. That certainly communicates things, but it's awkward at times. Here's what I'll do. I'll get the right watch. If I get the right watch, everybody will know that I'm successful.
Now, here's a problem with a couple of things. I don't like jewelry. I wear this wedding ring right here because Susan likes it. It's important to her. If I got a rash and the doctor said, "You can never wear that ring," that would be cool, but I can't get it. I don't like wearing it. I don't have anything around my neck. I don't have stuff on, and I've never worn a watch.
So people then think like I don't have one, and I at one time had, I probably had two dozen watches because people would just start giving me watches. I don't want a watch. Give me the cash. If you're going to give me anything, I don't want a watch. So I thought, I've got a problem here.
So I went to the jewelry store, and I started to look at, because there's a certain one of the certain type of watch that I like a lot. So I said, "Well, let me try that out." Well, here's the problem. I am also small boned. I'm a wimp. I have little
The Sickness of Pride
When you put that watch on my wrist, the watch is just too big. It doesn't go together. I couldn't get it. They'd be taking links out. I could make another watch with the links that they took out. I have a really serious dilemma.
So I said, no, thank you. So I'm driving away. I said, what am I going to do here? I have to let people know that I'm successful, but I have to maintain humility at the same time. This is a dilemma. What am I going to do? And there's the idea I came up with. I'll get one of those watches for Susan. Then when I get that watch for Susan, I'll get everybody to dinner, and I'll say, oh, what time is it? Oh, Susan, you've got a new watch. Show us what time it is. Then she can put her arm out, and then everybody, oh, she must be married to a really successful guy.
Now, that's a sick story. It's a very sick story, and I would typically be uncomfortable telling it, except I know that you are sicker than I am, so that makes it okay for me. But I want to point out, this is how hideous pride is.
Pride in Humility
Let me give you the other side. So then we're done with the real estate thing, and we start doing this. We'll be actually 15 years priority living next year, and I did three years prior to that with Larry. So I've been teaching for almost 18 years. So when you're teaching, this is a different deal. The money is very different than the other. No complaints on my part.
I'm talking to a guy, and he's a successful guy who was doing what I was doing, and he says, I just got this new car. It's a great new car. Look at this car. Smell this car. This is a great car. It was a great car. I wish I had the car. If you just said to me, you can have this car, I would have taken it. I'm talking to him, and in the middle of it, I said, my Pathfinder, because that's what I was driving at the time, I said, my Pathfinder is 8 years old and has 150,000 miles on it.
So he's telling me about the car. I'm driving away. I'm going, why did I say that? That has nothing to do with His car. He never asked me what I drove. He never asked me how many miles were on it. That was my way of demonstrating how proud I was of the humble car that I was driving.
It's a really sick disease that we have. You and I need to wrestle this to the ground.
Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit
At church right now, we're working our way through the Beatitudes, and it's Jesus painting a portrait of a Christian mindset, and it begins with, blessed are the poor in spirit. Literally, blessed are those that are spiritually destitute, spiritually bankrupt. I'm not talking about material things now. Spiritually. In other words, they say, there's nothing I can do. I'm hopeless and I'm helpless.
Which sounds desperate and it is, but there's good news that follows it because we've got to finish the sentence. I'm hopeless and helpless apart from Christ. But in Christ I have hope. In Christ I find salvation.
This pride is an absolute killer.
Amazing Grace for Souls, Not Wretches
I'm in a church visiting, and they said, we're going to sing number 78. Grab your little hymn thingy. And we're going to sing 78. And they start. I go, well, I know this song. It's Amazing Grace. I don't need a hymn for this. So they start singing it. Amazing Grace. How sweet the sound that saved a soul like mine. I'm going, hmm. So maybe I do need their hymn though. So I went back. There it is. There it's printed. Amazing Grace. How sweet the sound that saved a soul like mine.
Problem here is what? Wretch! They couldn't even bring themselves face to face with saying, wretch! That's who I am before God. And as long as I want to talk about soul and sweet and I don't do this and boys will be boys and I've got these little transgressions and I don't tell lies, I tell little white lies. As long as I do this, I'm on the same track as Nebuchadnezzar. I'm not seeing things clearly. I'm confused.
Nebuchadnezzar's Testimony of God's Glory
I'll go back to verse 1. The prelude to this testimony is this. "To the peoples, nations, and men of every language who live in all the world, may you prosper greatly." He's not talking here just about economic prospering at all. He's talking about spiritual prospering in this sense. "It is my pleasure to tell you about the miraculous signs and wonders that the Most High God has performed for me. How great are His signs! How mighty His wonders! His kingdom is an eternal kingdom. His dominion endures from generation to generation."
And then he goes on to tell the story we just looked at.
Your Equally Powerful Story
Now, you may be sitting there saying, well, I don't have a story like that. I was never king of the world. I never accumulated these things. Yeah, you do. You have an equally powerful story about a miraculous thing that God's done in your life if you're a Christian. Because you were a sinner on your way to hell, you're now a saint on your way to heaven, and it has nothing to do with anything you did. It's entirely, utterly, wholly, completely a work of God. It's His miraculous sign in you.
Just like in John 9, when the disciples are walking with Jesus to the town and there's a blind man, and the disciples use the conventional wisdom of the day, who sinned? This guy or his parents? Because that must be why he's blind. And Jesus said neither had sinned, but that he might be, this man, might be a display case for the miraculous power of God.
That's what you are. You walk around as a sinner who's been saved by grace, and you become a miraculous display case for the powerful work of God. And it should be evidence to all around you.
Living as an Offering
Romans chapter 12, verse 1 and 2. Let me read to you from a paraphrase. It's not a word-for-word translation. Paraphrase. Eugene Peterson. Here's His words to you and me as Christians. "So here's what God wants you to do. Take your everyday, ordinary life, your sleeping, eating, going to work, walking around life, and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for Him."
Listen to Your Conscience
Don't become so well adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. There's a moment of confusion on Nebuchadnezzar's part. He's walking around the palace. He said, "Is this not the great Babylon I have built as my royal residence for my power and for the glory of my majesty?" He's confused. But by the end of the story, he sees things clearly. Here's what he says: "So 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 lowest of men."
Let me give you five things in this process for clarity to see things as they really are. Number one: listen to your conscience. There's something in us that knows there's more out there. Sally Fields—we don't hear her name much anymore—but at one point, she was the most successful actress in Hollywood. Highest paid. And I remember reading an interview in which she said, "Ever since I've been a little girl, there's something missing in my life. I'll call it a yearning." You want to understand, you're looking around and saying things don't really appear to be what they in fact are. I thought I'd be happy if I had this. I don't. I thought I'd be fulfilled if I did that. I'm not.
Grab Some Solid Information
If you want to see things as they really are, then you need to go to this book, the Bible. You need to open it, and you need to read it. Because it's in this. And this is not just a clever accumulation of stories to teach principles to some ancient mind, but it's the truth of God as it relates to this world and your life and mine.
Remember That Your Life Has Consequences
I get a call from a guy one day, and he said, "I want to ask you a question. My 16-year-old daughter wants me to get her birth control pills. She says she's going to have sex. Should I give them to her?" And I said, "Well, I've got an immediate reaction, but because it's so quick, I'll call you back tomorrow." So I called him back the next day, and I said, "No, I wouldn't give them to her."
He said, "Really? I've called five people—born-again, evangelical Christian people. Four of them have said give them to her. You're the only one that has said not. Why would you not give them to her?" I said, "Well, let me give you a couple of reasons."
Number one: the very act of giving this to her endorses the behavior. I don't know if a guy in the office came to me and said, "Listen, I'm going to have sex with my secretary, and I know you and Susan are going to be gone. Can I use your house?" And I give him the keys and say, "Yeah, I know I don't approve of this, but here are the keys." That's a confusing message, it seems to me.
Here's the second thing: she might just be testing you. She's a 16-year-old. Who knows what she's thinking? This might be a test.
The third thing is you might contribute to her promiscuity. The fact that she's coming to you would say to me she's concerned about this, worried about this. And all of a sudden you come along, you give her those birth control pills, and she says, "It's y'all time."
And the most troubling thing to me is, if you give them to her, you've removed the consequence of her behavior. And we can't live that way.
The Sprinkle Center Illustration
The other night, Saturday afternoon, Tyler and Hay called and they said, "Hey, what are you guys doing?" And Susan and I just said, "This is a perfect day to stay here. Stay in our fat pants and just hang here." And they said, "We ought to have lunch." So we go down to Keegan's down in Ocotillo. I love to go to Keegan's—they've got great soups and stuff. Go to Keegan's, and then around the corner is a little Carvel's ice cream. And so they want to have some ice cream.
Well, in Carvel's is this Sprinkle Center. It's where you go, and it's where kids can put sprinkles on your ice cream. Just put sprinkles on them. Just go and get all the sprinkles you want—four, five, six, seven different colors. So we're sitting there, and this mom comes in with this kid, and the kid's running around and doing all the stuff kids do. And so they get the ice cream.
So the mom says to the kid, "I want sprinkles, I want sprinkles, I want sprinkles." And we're sitting right by the sprinkler stuff, because you're always going to get great illustrations. "I want sprinkles, I want sprinkles, I want sprinkles." And she said, "No, no, no, you can't have sprinkles." "Okay, I want sprinkles, I want sprinkles." So she says, "All right, you can have one sprinkle, one kind of sprinkle."
So you go up, and she said, "I want purple." So he just fills it with—that's what I just do. Just fill it with purple. So she said, "All right, let's go." And you go, "No, no, no, I want red ones. I want some red ones, I want some red ones." "No, you can't have red ones." "No? I want red, I want red, I want red." "All right, put some red on." That's red, red, red, there we go. "All right, let's go." "No, blue's my favorite color. Blue's my favorite color. I've got to have blue, I've got to have blue. Let me have blue, blue." "All right," and they battle. This kid goes out, and he's got 14 pounds of sprinkles on his ice cream.
And my point is this: it's dumb parenting. Why make sprinkles an issue? You get them the ice cream, and say, "Go get all the sprinkles you want." Why turn this into a battle? One kind. What's the point of one kind? Who cares? What a stupid parenting thing. Let them eat all the sprinkles they want. They're all going to taste the same. They're all the same. Let them eat the sprinkles.
But the minute you say one sprinkle, you get one. If you're stupid enough to say one, you're going to live with the consequence of the hell that's going to come on you when you say one. Because at that point, you say, "All right, Junior, get the purple," and "I want red." "You want red? I'll give you red. I'll stick this red right in your ear. We're out of here. We're going to the car. We're going to the car."
And we might as well now call down to Florence and just reserve a cell for this kid, because the kid doesn't know. The kid doesn't know. What have we done? There's no consequence. And the same thing is true in your life and mine.
If you're walking around like Nebuchadnezzar saying, "You know what? Been to Bible studies? Heard all this stuff about God? No big deal. I'm content and I'm prospering," I'm telling you, God is patient, but it's not endless patience. Guard your humility.
Verbalize Your Dependence Upon God
And then verbalize your dependence upon God. Let me close with this. It's been a painful process. When you try to group think and then group write anything, it's hard. But we just re-evaluated our ministry principles at church. We've got eight of them now, and the very first one is this: Humility. We acknowledge our absolute dependence upon God.
That's the principle that should govern all of ministry, with a couple of sub-points just as a way to clarify it to staff and to volunteers. Therefore, prayer and obedience are irreplaceable to our lives and ministries. Therefore, we recognize we can do nothing apart from Him whom we serve. Therefore, all we attempt to accomplish is for God and for His glory alone.
You and I need to guard our humility, even as Christians. We need to guard that pride, protect that humility, and we need to understand that we are utterly dependent upon God for the next breath. When God is done with you and your life, there's nothing you can do to sustain this life. There's a sense in which you're immortal until God's done with you, and then nothing can keep you here.
That's a great lesson from Nebuchadnezzar. You may think you're really something, and you may think you've accomplished a lot of things, but God raises up and God puts down. You've made cold call, cold call, cold call, cold call, and at the end of the day, you've got nothing to show for it, and the next day you come in and some guy calls in and he says, "I don't know, I'm driving around and I need to order a million of your widgets."
It doesn't mean don't work. It just means God's going to bless where and how God's going to bless, because He's sovereign.
Let's pray. God, help us see that truth and live in light of that truth. Thank you for Jesus who demonstrates for us the humility and dependence that we need. Let us be like Him, think like Him, and act like Him. We pray that to you in His precious name. Amen.