How Are the Mighty Fallen!
Daniel 4:1-37
We're gonna look at Daniel 4 tonight. Daniel 4. And these are narrative passages so we're taking them in kind of large chunks. Daniel 4 has 37 verses. Now if that was 37 verses of Pauline theology it would probably take us about 37 weeks to get through it. But since it's a basically a narrative passage, you kind of flow with the story a little bit and you can keep moving along. And we'll see how far we get tonight.
We've entitled this fourth chapter, How are the mighty fallen? How are the mighty fallen? Perhaps the most destructive word in any language is the word pride. Pride. Pride damned Satan and his angels. Pride has damned men throughout human history. Pride is destructive because it breaks that first and great command that we ought to have no other gods before God Himself. God is to be the first and only God. God is the only one to be worshiped. The only one to be praised. The only one to be served. And His will is absolutely supreme.
And pride asserts that man is to take a place of superiority over God. Or that an angel is to take a place of superiority over God. Pride places self above God. That's the essence of pride. And in the scripture, through the prophets, God said, "My glory will I not give to another." And He laid down a basic premise. "My glory will I not give to another," means that He will not tolerate a usurper elevating himself above God.
Listen to what God said about pride. Proverbs 21:4, He said, "A proud heart is sin." Proverbs 6, He said, "These things doth the Lord hate, a proud look." Proverbs 16:5, "Everyone who is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord." Proverbs 8:13, "The fear of the Lord is to hate evil, pride, and arrogance." Proverbs 16:18, "Pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall." Proverbs 29:23 says, "A man's pride shall bring him low." And Proverbs 11:2 says, "When pride comes, then comes shame."
Now just from the book of Proverbs, we gain an insight into how God feels about the matter of pride. It is a serious and severe sin and condemned repeatedly throughout the scripture. It leads to abomination because it desecrates the name of God and the rightful place that He has. It brings about destruction, for the end of pride is judgment. And it leads to a fall and to shame.
In Jeremiah 49, there's a very interesting verse where the Lord gives a prophesy against Edam. You don't need to turn to it, but Edam was very, very proud because Edam was an area in east and south of Jerusalem, an area in the wilderness and the desert that had many natural fortresses, and particularly the city of Petra. The great capital city of Edam was a city fortified by virtue of the fact that it was in the midst of walls of great high cliffs. And the only entrance, and I've been through that entrance, is just one wide enough for a single individual to pass. And so it was very easy for that city to be guarded by one soldier and almost invulnerable.
In Jeremiah 49:16, Jeremiah gives a prophesy against Edam. "Thy terribleness has deceived thee and the pride of thine heart, o thou that dwellest in the clefts of the rock, that hold us the heights of the hills, though thou shouldest make thy nest as high as the eagle," watch this line, "'I will bring thee down from there,' saith the Lord. 'Also, Edam shall be a desolation and everyone that goes by it shall be appalled and hiss at its plagues.'"
If you were to go there today as I have, you would find that it is absolutely empty. There's no city there anymore. You say how could it ever happen? Well, Petra had water coming into the city in little troughs flowing down the sides of the cliffs. The troughs were still there. They cut off the water supply and pretty soon the people had to give up because they had no water. God brought them down.
James 4:16 sums it up. And you ought to jot that scripture down. It's a very important one. It sums up God's view toward pride. It says, "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble." "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble." Now that is the lesson of Daniel 4. God resists the proud and gives grace to the humble. If you ever were looking for an illustration for James 4:16, you'd find it in Daniel 4. It is an apt and graphic illustration of that very basic truth. When you are proud, God fights against you. When you are humbled, God gives you grace.
Now a proper recognition of the sovereignty of God, a proper recognition of the supremacy of God, a proper recognition of the humility of man is what this chapter is all about. And the key phrase in the chapter, notice in verse 17, is, "That the living may know that the most high ruleth in the kingdom of men." That's the key phrase. The whole chapter is set to teach that truth, that everybody may know that the most high that is God rules in the kingdom of men. No man can set himself up above God.
You'll notice in verse 25, again, the same thing. "Till thou know that the most high ruleth in the kingdom of men." You'll notice that in verse 32 that, "The most high ruleth in the kingdom of men." In verse 34, "I bless the most high, praise and honor Him who liveth forever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion. His kingdom is from generation to generation." The theme then is to recognize that God is the ruler in the kingdom of men. Now when you don't realize that, you're in trouble.
In Acts 12, Herod was beginning to feel proud, and lifted up, and boastful, and he gave a great speech. And the people all shouted that it was the voice of a god and not a man, that he was feeding his soul on the glory that was coming his way. And he became puffed up and proud. And in Acts 12:20-23, the Bible says very suddenly, "He was smitten by God and eaten by worms and he died on the spot." And the text says, "Because he gave not God the glory."
In Jeremiah 13, Jeremiah said to the people of God, "Give God glory. And if you don't give God glory, he'll cause you to stumble on the dark mountains. He'll trip you up and you'll fall into death." In Romans 1 it says, "Because mankind gave not God the glory, He gave them over to a reprobate mind." It is a severe thing to set oneself up above God. Because God fights against the proud and spares His grace for the humble.
Now in this chapter we meet a proud man. Nebuchadnezzar, the king of the Babylonian Empire, the first of the great monarchs of the four empires that rules that part of the world. The great Babylonian empire. This man, monarch of monarch, king of kings, ruling all the world that he perceived became proud, and puffed up, and bloated, and inflated, and self-centered, and set himself up as God. And we saw in the last chapter, he even built a great big 90-foot high idol out of gold as an image of himself and forced everybody to bow down and worship. And when three didn't, they were thrown into a fiery furnace. So we understand a little about his ego.
But in this chapter, we see how God brings this man low and then gives grace to him in his humility. He resists him in his pride. He gives grace to him in his humility. And if I can extrapolate a little bit, I'd like to do that. I think there's more in this chapter than just the story of Nebuchadnezzar. I think Nebuchadnezzar is a symbol of several things.
First of all, I believe he is a symbol of any other individual in history who tries to do the same thing. He is sort of a model or a pattern for how that works out. Before all of the shahs, and ayatollahs, and the Amins, and the Hitlers, and the Mussolinis, and the whoever elses of the world who want to set up their petty, puny little kingdoms and rule as the monarch of their own self designed empires and set themselves up and their egos as that which is beyond and above God, this is a warning to them as well. And Nebuchadnezzar stands as a symbol of what God does with all people like that.
But beyond that, I think there is here a warning to us who may never rule any empire other than the little one we invent for ourselves. And we who in our simplicity a very uncomplex life and in our lack of public notoriety build an empire and crawl up on top and crown ourselves king, this is a warning to us, also. And I think even in a broader vein, I think what we see with Nebuchadnezzar here is a symbol also of how God will deal with all of the proud empires of the times of the gentiles. For He crushed the Babylonian Empire. He crushed the Medo-Persian Empire. He crushed the Greek Empire. He crushes the Roman Empire. It'll revive. He'll crush it again and establish the kingdom of Christ.
So you see this is not just Nebuchadnezzar. This is any other would be monarch of the world. And it is any man, woman, or young person of the world who sets up his own little empire and crawls up on top and declares himself king and defies God. And it is also a symbol of how God has dealt with the whole of the gentile period known as the times of the gentiles. And so we learn much from it, a fitting symbol of how God judges pride and gives grace where there's humility.
Now I have to tell you this so you'll know going in. This is the climax of the spiritual biography of Nebuchadnezzar. Now we know that in the first three chapters, the Lord is working on Nebuchadnezzar, don't we? He drops Daniel in his lap. Daniel, first of all, defies Him by not being willing, along with his friends, Mishael, Azariah, and Hananiah, not being willing to eat the king's meat or drink the king's wine or do certain things that they do.
And so immediately he is forced to be confronted by these four young men. As he confronts them, and questions them, and deals with them, he finds that they are far and away beyond anybody in his kingdom in terms of their integrity, and their intelligence, and their education, and their wisdom, etc., etc. So beginning then in chapter 1, God begins to build an affinity toward them.
And then we find in chapter 2 that Daniel is given the responsibility of solving an incredible problem. The man had a dream, and nobody knew what it was, and nobody could interpret it. But Daniel could. And we remember that Nebuchadnezzar was struck by the amazing capability of Daniel to read visions and dreams and rightly interpret them. And again, God was driving a wedge, as it were, into the mind of Nebuchadnezzar.
Then in the third chapter, when the decree went out that they were to bow to the idol and they didn't, the three did not. Daniel must have been out of town somewhere. Immediately they were thrown in the fiery furnace and there appeared with one like with them, one like a son of the gods. And they came out. There wasn't any burning. There wasn't any smell of smoke. And Nebuchadnezzar again had seen God at work. Once in every chapter.
And now we come in the fourth chapter to the climax of his spiritual biography. I really believe in my heart, and this is a - you can't be totally dogmatic about this. I'll try to show you why I believe it. But I believe at the end of this chapter, Nebuchadnezzar truly comes to faith in the true God. Some have entitled the chapter, "The conversation of Nebuchadnezzar." I hate to let you in on the ending of the chapter. Why did I do that? Anyway. I wanted you to know how exciting it's gonna be as we progress through 'cause I want you to know something wonderful is coming.
Now as we look at this chapter, we focus then on the spiritual biography of Nebuchadnezzar, an incredible, astounding, amazing man. One of the geniuses of all of human history. Brilliant beyond those of his time. Equipped in many, many ways in a human sense. Puffed up and proud as the ruler of the world. And how God literally crushes him into nothing and turns him around. And he does it beloved through another dream. Another dream.
Job