Well it is good to be with you on Easter Sunday morning; a real privilege to be with you. We're sort of sad that our time in Singapore once again is coming to a close; we love it here and we have so treasured our friendship and partnership in ministry with Adam Road Presbyterian Church. This church has a place in our hearts, and it's always wonderful to be with you, particularly on this Easter Sunday. You know it's a wonderful experience to be part of a gathered worship service. It's wonderful to sing these beautiful songs and to sense your heart lifting as you're thinking about what God has done for you.
Just Go Live What You Sang
We just sang some phenomenal gospel theology. I don't know if you noticed it. I just want to say to you, "I don't need to preach - just go out and live what you just sang. You'll be OK!" But there's a danger in a worship service. There's a danger - because your heart is lifted and you're responding to God in this room - that you would think that you're spiritually OK. There's a danger that this Sunday morning would make you feel like perhaps your walk with God has arrived, that maybe you are a bit of a grace graduate.
Could I say to you that Christianity is never easier than it is on Sunday morning - when you're reminded of these things, when you're hearing the voices of others, when you're reading beautiful passages of Scripture? And I'm concerned that if you have that in you, it's also tempting to distance yourself from God's Word and to think that something like this story of Nebuchadnezzar with all its bizarre details probably has nothing to do with your life. Now I would remind you that you are in this room by the same sovereign grace that worked in Nebuchadnezzar's life; do you believe that?
You're here on this Sunday by divine appointment. Yes, I know you made the decision to get up and get dressed, and you drove your car, but you're here because God in his sovereign grace has appointed to be here, and he's appointed you to hear this bizarre story because there are themes in this story that you need to be comforted by and confronted by. I mean, there are in this story these four incredible themes. First, there is the collision between human glory and the glory of God. If you haven't thought about that collision, you may be spiritually comatose, because that collision is in your life every day.
There is a portrait of the sturdy resistance of the sinful heart; the sinful heart resists against God. There is a picture of the awesome, scary power of God. There should be in us a fear of God; this god is awesome in his power. What he is able to do is mind-blowing. There is a beautiful picture of the patience of God's grace. Those are four themes that are not just in Daniel 4; those are four themes that course all the way through the entirety of Scripture. Those four themes live in the life of Jesus; they live at the Cross; they live at the resurrection.
I want to speak for myself. I'm able to swindle myself into thinking that I'm OK - "I'm Paul Tripp, the writer; I'm the preacher of grace. I get these things" - and to forget that that spiritual struggle lives within me. I was in Northern India. I was on a four day research tour of Hinduism, because I was going to be involved in about 10 years of ministry in India, and it was important that I understood that Hinduism infects every aspect of the culture of India. I was in one of the high, holy cities of India at the base of the Himalayan Mountains.
Out of the mountains flows the Ganges River and it literally is an aqua color that glows; it's one of the reasons they thought the Ganges River was holy. And I was led into this temple, a place of worship, by my guide to see one of the most horrific things I've ever laid my eyes on. It was a 20 foot high statue of a grossly sexual image. And I watched pilgrims come into that temple, fall flat on the ground, grab the base of this thing and kiss it. It had been kissed so many times that it was dented from the kisses.
I interviewed a very very poor Indian family. They were emotional as they were in the temple and I asked them how they had gotten there and they told me they had they had come four hundred miles, virtually walking over a long period of time, to get there. I was so overcome with the darkness of that place that I ran out of it. I just wanted to be away from it. I was running down the road to my four wheel drive vehicle and I was thinking, "Oh I'm just so thankful that I'm not like these people. I'm thankful that I don't have this kind of idolatry in my heart."
And then God in his Spirit, by his grace, reminded me - I do. My idols aren't those physical religious idols, but there are things in my heart that replace God, that replace the love that I should have for him, that set the direction of my life. And it hit me that God ordained for me to be in that temple, not to teach me something about Hinduism, but to reveal something in myself. I would ask you on this Easter Sunday morning to open your heart as you turn to Daniel Chapter 4 to look at the stunning details and the stunning message of this amazing amazing account.
I want to begin reading with verse 24, but before I do that, I want you remind you the story. Nebuchadnezzar had erected this huge idol to himself. He was obsessed with his glory. And he commanded that everybody in his realm would bow down and worship this idol, and if they didn't, they'd be thrown into a furnace of fire and be incinerated. After that, God had ordained to send a dream to Nebuchadnezzar. It was a very troubling dream, a confusing dream, a dream of a great tree that was chopped down and a person who became like a beast, and he didn't understand that dream.
And so Daniel came to interpret the dream for him. Let's pick it up at verse 24. "This is the interpretation, O king: It is a decree of the Most High, which has come upon my lord the king, that you shall be driven from among men, and your dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field. You shall be made to eat grass like an ox, and you shall be wet with the dew of heaven, and seven periods of time shall pass over you, till you know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will.
Heaven Rules
And as it was commanded to leave the stump of the roots of the tree, your kingdom shall be confirmed for you from the time that you know that Heaven rules. Therefore, O king, let my counsel be acceptable to you: break off your sins by practicing righteousness, and your iniquities by showing mercy to the oppressed, that there may perhaps be a lengthening of your prosperity." I don't know what you think about when you hear those words, those words of warning and of judgment, but what I think about is how amazing is God's grace.
In the face of the arrogance of this man, in the face of his murderous self-glory, that he would be so audacious as not only to erect an idol to himself, but to threaten murder with anyone who would refuse to worship it. You would think that God would rise in holy intolerance and in a moment wipe this man from the face of the earth. And if God did that, he would have every holy reason to do so. Everything this man stands for, everything this man has done, is an abomination in the face of the Lord Almighty.
It should stun us that God would stoop, not first to wipe this man out, but first to warn him. You see, if all God wanted to do was judge this man, there wouldn't be a warning, right? He would just judge him. The warning is a sign of the stunning patience of God's grace. That warning, what does it do? It gives this man another opportunity to consider, another opportunity to think, another opportunity to turn, another opportunity to surrender. Isn't it amazing that God in his grace gives us yet another opportunity to turn?
Got warns because he's a God of awesome love and patient grace. You have to be stunned by this. Sometimes I think that we have too passive of a relationship as we're reading God's Word. You ought to stop and say, "How amazing is this? How awesome is our God? His grace is so amazing, it's almost indescribable." I always think when I sing Amazing Grace that John Newton chose the right word to put in front of grace, didn't he? It's the best word ever. When you when you consider God's grace, you just have to say, "This is amazing!"
Who does Nebuchadnezzar think he is? And yet God still comes to him, still gives him a dream, still gives him a prophet to interpret the dream, still gives him another opportunity to turn ... as God does in your life. In moments where you act like he doesn't exist; in moments when you do what you want to do even when you know it's wrong; in moments when you allow your mind to go places it shouldn't go, you allow your desires to grab a hold of things they should not grab, you demand things of the people around you that you should not demand, you respond in anger when you should respond in love.
Maybe that is a parent, and you're yanking your child down the hall in anger and you're stuffing him in a chair. It's an awesome thing that God doesn't strike you at that moment to say, "How dare you treat one of my creatures this way" because he's a God of awesome Grace. Or in a moment when you make yourself more of a hero in a story than you actually were (don't look at me like you don't know what I'm talking about), and you lie a little bit to make yourself seem bigger and better than you are.
God doesn't strike at that moment and say, "You will not take glory from me; you will not do that." But he doesn't. Or maybe you're a husband and you're up in the face of your wife and you're yelling at her. You're not doing that because you're ignorant of the fact that that's wrong. You're doing that moment because you don't care what's wrong. You want something from her and you're going to get it. God doesn't strike out at you and say, "How dare you willingly break my law." No, he waits, he tarries, he warns because he's a God of awesome grace.
I think this stunning moment is in the Bible for us to remember the nature of God's grace. I read Daniel 4 and I want to title it "The Gospel according to Nebuchadnezzar" because there's so much of the picture of how God works in our lives. He's willing to warn again and again and again; his judgment tarries again and again; his mercy rains again and again because he's a God of awesome grace. What a beautiful message. Well look what happens next. Verse 28: "All this came upon King Nebuchadnezzar.
At the end of twelve months..." What is striking about that? At the end of 12 months; at the end of 12 months. Does that get your attention at all? Obviously not!) At the end of 12 months he was walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon. Before I say anything else, there appears in this passage to be 12 months that have passed since God's warning. Isn't that amazing? I mean, parents - when you reprimand your child, to what child have you ever said, "And I'll give you a year to think about that."
You say, "You do it right now! Do you hear me?" You want immediate response. Or, you make a point with your friend and you just stand there and you don't say, "I will give you 12 months to come to the point where you understand that I'm right." You want them to say immediately, "You're right!" Or that person who's confused in front of you on the road and doesn't know whether to turn right or left. You don't sit there and say, "I've got plenty of time - 12 months - for you to make..." We know nothing of this patience.
We Know Nothing of God's Patience
We nothing of the kind of patience that God offers. We know nothing of it; we are so incredibly impatient, so easily irritated. You go to the grocery store and you just have one item to pick up, one bottle of soy sauce, it doesn't seem like a difficult thing. And you're dreaming that the store be empty ... if there was a God. And just as you run to the final checkout aisle, a lady pulls in front of you with 150 items! You immediately hate her, and you want to share something with her, but it wouldn't be Jesus!
We ought to be stunned; we shouldn't let these little moments pass us in Scripture. That little note - that there was 12 months - was purposed by God to be in the Bible so you and I would recognize it and we would say, "Oh my, how patient is God!" OK let's go on. At the end of twelve months he (that is, Nebuchadnezzar) was walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon, and the king answered and said, "Is not this great Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of my majesty?"
Now I don't think any of you got up this morning and you walked out onto your balcony and you said, "This Singapore was built by my power. And it's been erected to the glory of my majesty." You may hear that and you may think, "I am nothing like Nebuchadnezzar. There is no similarity between me and this ridiculously arrogant human being." But what I want you to get you to think about is that the epicenter of every sin, the thing that ignites every sin you would ever do, is self-glory. The root of all sin is self-glory.
"My pleasure, my comfort, my plan, my will, my way; I will have what I want. It's my glory!" You see that in Genesis 3. What was the hook? It wasn't just that this was a beautiful piece of fruit. Adam and Eve bought into the lie that if they ate this fruit, what would happen, do you remember? "They would be (say it) like God." It was a quest for glory; that's what it was. These human beings who were created to be dependent on God wanted independence so that their glory would live. Let me just say this as an aside; something that's probably worth hearing.
The move of Christian maturity is not from dependence to independence; the move of Christian maturity is from independence to dependence. It's just the reverse. The more mature you become, the more dependent you become, the more joyfully dependent you become on God, the more you forsake the delusion of your independence, the delusion of your self-glory, and the more you rest in the glory of the Lord. What about the Ten Commandments? What are the first commandments about? The first commandments are about God in his rightful place; they're about worship.
Because if God isn't ruling the worship of your heart, guess what? You'll never keep the rest of the commands. You'll break every one of them. What about The Lord's Prayer? How does the Lord's Prayer begin? "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, right here as it is in heaven." Would you pray, "Lord, your kingdom come, your will be done, right now in my parenting. Your kingdom, come your will be done, right now in my marriage. Your kingdom come, your will be done, right now in my sexuality.
Your kingdom come, your will be done, right now in my finances. Your kingdom come, your will be done, right now in my education, my career, my friendship." Between your conversion and your home going, life is one big war of glory. What glory will rule your heart and set the direction of your life? It's absolutely true that the idol of idols - the most seductive, deceptive, attractive of all idols - is the idol of self. That's what's captured in Second Corinthians 5:15. It says that Jesus came so that those who live would no longer live for themselves.
You need to understand that as a human being you're never not worshipping. You don't just worship on Sunday morning; you literally worship your way through every moment of every day. You could almost argue that the only thing a human being ever does is worship. And there's a deep spiritual battle being fought on the turf of our hearts between the worship of self and the worship of God. What is depicted here in this grand, gross way is meant to get our attention. There's a way in which the outrageous self-glory of this man is meant to expose the more subtle self-glories that live in all of our lives.
Oh no, you're not on a balcony claiming your own majesty, but there may be ways in the situations and relationships and locations of your everyday life where you're actually living for you. I was the founder of Christian school in Scranton, Pennsylvania, that sort of dark place that I've talked about some here, where the American dream died in 1950. The educational system was horrible and we thought this is an opportunity, not only to give children a good education, but give them an education that was rooted in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
A Major Labor of My Life
It was a wonderful thing and we saw that thing began to rise and God make provision and it was a major labor of my life. I was principal, I was president of the board. I tried to gather a community that would love that school and make that school work. And then one night, in a coup, I was voted out as president of the board and removed from leadership in the school. I was so hurt. That hurt became anger and then the anger became bitterness, and I would pace around saying, "After all I did; I did it all.
I never took a penny from that school. I paid for my children to go there. I can't believe it; that school wouldn't exist without me." And in one of those moments in my third floor office again, God directed my heart to think. I didn't hear an audible voice, but it was as if God was saying to me, "Paul, that school was never yours. It was always mine. It was never yours. It was never for your glory. It was always for my glory. And I will put down who I want to put down and I will put in place who I want to put in place.
I am the Lord." My rage was the rage of self-glory. It never belonged to me. Never. It wasn't mine. The ministry that I have today does not point in any way to my glory. It's all God's gifts, it's all God's truth. I have no ability to work in anybody's heart. But by the Spirit of God, everything I have ever said, everything I've ever written would fall completely flat. Where are you tempted to stand on your balcony and take credit for what you could not have produced? To point to your glory? If you have success in career, you may have been disciplined, but there are so many things that have to be in place that are not under your control in order for success in career to ever happen.
If you genuinely love somebody, God grants you the capacity to love because human beings aren't naturally loving. If your children are obedient and they're growing in accomplishment, you have no power over that. No parent has any power over the heart of a child. None. It's so tempting for us in our own way to stand on our balconies and to take credit for what only God could do. And if you're taking credit, you're not worshipping God for what he has done because you've worshipped you. It's important to understand - you're never not worshipping.
And it's important for us not to ourselves from this passage. Maybe there are subtle ways, for everyone in this room, where we're more like Nebuchadnezzar than unlike him. Well, because of Nebuchadnezzar's resistance, God fulfills his warning. Verse 31. While the words were still in the king's mouth, there fell a voice from heaven, "O King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is spoken: The kingdom has departed from you, and you shall be driven from among men, and your dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field.
And you shall be made to eat grass like an ox, and seven periods of time shall pass over you, until you know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will." Immediately the word was fulfilled against Nebuchadnezzar. He was driven from among men and ate grass like an ox, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven till his hair grew as long as eagles' feathers, and his nails were like birds' claws. It's important for us to understand the loving violence of God's grace. Why would God do such an extreme thing with this man?
The answer is because he knew the hardness of his heart. When we think of grace, we think of grace being a comfortable thing, it's a rescuing thing, it's a relief thing. But God's grace does come to us in uncomfortable forms. Sometimes it's the hammer of God's grace to break up the stony ground of our hearts. Didn't we sing about that? Sometimes my heart is hard and what is the most loving thing to do is God to break up that hard ground by the tool of hardship. And hear this: God is willing to do what is necessary in order to reclaim your heart; that's grace.
David says scary words in Psalm 51 verse 8. As he's making that prayer confession, he says, "May the bones that you have broken rejoice." He's not actually talking about physical bones; he's talking about the hardship that God would bring into his life that breaks you. May in that brokenness, we would rejoice. May we rejoice at God's willingness to break us, to break up the resistance of our hearts, to break up our self-glory, to break up our credit taking, to break up our rebellion. And I said this, I think from this platform in past years, and I'm sure you remember, that we better be committed to teach and preach and encourage one another with the theology of uncomfortable grace, because there are times when God's grace comes in uncomfortable forms.
I'm often talking to people who are going through hardship, and they say, "Where is the grace of God?" and they're getting it. But it's not the grace of relief, and it's not the grace of release; it's a grace of refinement. It's the hammer of God's grace to break up the stoniness of a heart. Maybe the hardship that you're facing is not just life in a fallen world; maybe the hardship that you're facing is not just the work of the enemy; maybe the hardship that you're facing is the product of the love of your Redeemer who is working to rescue you from you, who knows the stubbornness of your heart, and will do what is necessary to bring your heart by grace to surrender to him.
That's love. That's love that won't turn its back. That's love that won't get discouraged and walk away. That's love that will do what is necessary to produce what is good in your life. I always think of the principle that is there in Romans 5 and James 1 and First Peter 1 - write down those passages: Romans 5. James 1. First Peter 1 - where God tells us that he uses the tool of hardship to bring us to maturity. I always think that it's very clear in Scripture that God will take us places we've had no desire to go in order to produce in us what we could never achieve on our own.
A Tool to Break and Remold
No one would ever choose to be in the place where Nebuchadnezzar finds himself, but that place is a tool by God to break and remold this man This tool - what God is doing in Nebuchadnezzar - is not first punitive; it's not first punishment. It's the grace of turning that is operating in his life. Well I'd like you to look with me finally at the doxology of this man. This is Nebuchadnezzar talking: "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."
Let me say: there's no saner place to be than when you're worshipping God for who he is. To live as a human being and to ignore God's existence and not offer him the worship that is his due is insane. "for his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation; all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, "What have you done?"
At the same time my reason returned to me, and for the glory of my kingdom, my majesty and splendor returned to me. My counselors and my lords sought me, and I was established in my kingdom, and still more greatness was added to me. Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, for all his works are right and his ways are just; and those who walk in pride he is able to humble." You have to recognize that there's nothing normal about that doxology. Luella and I are staying, while we're here in Singapore, at the Marriott Tang Plaza.
Do you know where that is? And we can take the link underneath to ION mall where people go to worship. And if I walked into the ION mall with my cell phone and I turned on record and I would put it in the face of someone and say, "Tell me what you think about God," I don't think the person would say, "His dominion is an eternal dominion!" I walk to the next person and say, "Tell me what you think about God?" They say, "He rules over the host of heaven and the inhabitants of earth!" I don't think I'd hear that.
I go to the third person and say, "What do you think about God?" They say, "All his ways are right and just." I don't think I would ever hear that! You know when this kind of doxology, this gorgeous God-glorifying doxology, comes out of the mouth of a human being, they have been rescued and restored by divine grace. Because there's nothing natural about this. Oh, I will brag about myself. I'll brag about my accomplishments. That's natural for human beings to do, but it's not natural for us to lift our voices toward heaven and say, "You are Lord above all, your will will always be done.
No one can stay your hand. You report to no one and all your ways are just and true." If your heart is there your heart has been rescued by grace. What a picture of God's willingness to unleash his sovereignty and pour his power into one rebellious man and turn his heart to praise. Oh by the way - he gave him back his kingdom better than ever before. Isn't that something? He could say, "Listen, I fully forgive you, but you're going to be a peon from now on. I am the Lord." He gives him his whole kingdom back.
Now I can't think of the humiliation of this great king without thinking about another king who was humiliated. But this king wasn't humiliated because of his pride. This king humiliated himself as an act of sacrifice. You know who I'm talking about - King Jesus. He left, willingly, the splendor of eternity to subject himself to all the harsh realities of life in a fallen world. He did that willingly. And his suffering didn't begin on the Cross; his suffering began at his first breath. Taking on a frail human body, essentially born in a barn, he was despised and rejected.
The Bible tells us he never had a place to lay his head. Not even the comfort of a fox or a bird. He suffered cruel injustice; betrayed by ones close to him. His body was ravaged in horrible torture; nailed to a tree, hung, now numbered with criminals. He did that for proud people like you and me. He did that because there was no way we could help ourselves. We needed divine intervention. And so, the Son was willing to come; he was willing to face every temptation that you face. He gave himself to live an absolutely perfect life and to die an acceptable death, to rise again from sin and death so that we may be released from our bondage self-glory and live forever for the glory of him.
The story of Nebuchadnezzar is the Easter story. The story of Nebuchadnezzar points to the king who would come, who would be willingly humiliated for our salvation. Now maybe you're here this morning and you say, "Paul, I recognize self-glory in my life." Maybe you're here and you say, "I've never surrendered my heart to the glory of this king." Won't you do that this morning? You don't have to wallow in shame. You don't have to hide in guilt and fear, because he has paid the full penalty for your sin.
You can run into God's presence and find mercy and grace in your time of need. Won't you run to him this morning.? Let's pray. Thank you Lord for this bizarre story, and how even in this dark story, the gospel is preached and the need for the intervention of the Messiah Jesus is made clear. In our struggle with self-glory, may we run to you and not from you. and find mercy and grace to help us in our time of need. In Jesus name, Amen.
