Daniel chapter 4.
And if you join with me in this journey back to the 6th century BC,
the superpower of the age was Babylon.
That was the power, and Nebuchadnezzar was the emperor.
He was the man with all power, with all authority.
We would describe him as one who was a plenipotentiary.
That meant that all power rested in him.
There is no parliament. There is no representative democracy.
So what he said went.
But Nebuchadnezzar has a message for us that actually he is not the plenipotentiary.
That he is not the one with all power and all authority.
Because he has had a powerful and personal life-changing encounter
with the one who has all power and all authority.
Chapter 4 of Daniel.
King Nebuchadnezzar.
To the peoples, nations, and men of every language,
who live in all the world,
may you prosper greatly.
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.
I, Nebuchadnezzar, was at home in my palace,
contented and prosperous.
I had a dream that made me afraid.
As I was lying in my bed,
the images and visions that passed through my mind terrified me.
So I commanded that all the wise men of Babylon
be brought before me to interpret the dream for me.
When the magicians, enchanters, astrologers, and diviners came,
I told them the dream, but they could not interpret it for me.
Finally, Daniel came into my presence,
and I told him the dream.
He is called Belteshazzar,
after the name of my God and the spirit of the holy gods is in him.
I said, Belteshazzar, chief of the magicians,
I know that the spirit of the holy gods is in you,
and that no mystery is too difficult for you.
Here is my dream, interpret it for me.
These are the visions I saw while lying in my bed.
I looked, and there before me stood a tree in the middle of the land.
Its height was enormous.
The tree grew large and strong, and its top touched the sky.
It was visible to the ends of the earth.
Its leaves were beautiful, its fruit abundant,
and on it was food for all.
Under it, the beasts of the field found shelter,
and the birds of the air lived in its branches.
From it, every creature was fed.
In the visions I saw while lying in my bed,
I looked, and there before me was a messenger,
a holy one coming down from heaven.
He called in a loud voice,
Cut down the tree and trim off its branches,
strip off its leaves and scatter its fruit.
Let the animals flee from under it and the birds from its branches.
But let the stump and its roots be bound with iron and bronze
remain in the ground in the grass of the field.
Let him be drenched with the dew of heaven,
and let him live with the animals among the plants of the earth.
Let his mind be changed from that of a man,
and let him be given the mind of an animal
till seven times pass by for him.
The decision is announced by messengers.
The holy ones declare the verdict,
so that 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 lowliest of men.
This is the dream that I, King Nebuchadnezzar, had.
Now, Belteshazzar, tell me what it means,
for none of the wise men in my kingdom
can interpret it for me,
but you can,
because the spirit of the holy gods is in you.
Then Daniel, called Belteshazzar,
was greatly perplexed for a time,
and his thoughts terrified him.
So the king says,
Belteshazzar, do not let the dream
or its meaning alarm you.
Belteshazzar answered,
My lord,
if only the dream applied to your enemies,
and its meaning to your adversaries.
The tree you saw,
which grew large and strong,
with its top touching the sky,
visible to the whole earth,
with beautiful leaves and abundant fruit,
providing food for all,
giving shelter to the beasts of the field,
and having nesting places,
and its branches for the birds of the air,
you, O king, are that tree.
You have become great and strong.
Your greatness has grown until it reaches the sky,
and your dominion extends to the distant parts of the earth.
You, O king, saw a messenger,
a holy one, coming down from heaven,
and saying,
Cut down the tree and destroy it,
but leave the stump bound with iron and bronze
in the grass of the field,
while its roots remain in the ground.
Let him be drenched with the Jew of heaven.
Let him live like the wild animals
until seven times pass by for him.
This is the interpretation, O king,
and this is the decree the Most High
has issued against my lord, the king.
You will be driven away from the people
and will live with the wild animals.
You will eat grass like cattle
and be drenched with the Jew of heaven.
Seven times will pass by for you
until you acknowledge that the Most High
is sovereign over the kingdoms of men
and gives them to anyone he wishes.
The command to leave the stump of the tree
with its roots
means that your kingdom will be restored to you
when you acknowledge that heaven rules.
Therefore, O king,
be pleased to accept my advice.
Renounce your sins by doing what is right
and your wickedness by being kind to the oppressed.
It may be that then your prosperity will continue.
All this happened to King Nebuchadnezzar
12 months later.
As the king was walking in the roof
of the royal palace of Babylon,
he said,
it is not this great Babylon
I built as the royal residence
by my mighty power
and for the glory of my majesty.
The words were 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 from you.
You will be driven away from the people
and you will live like the wild animals.
You will eat grass like cattle.
Seven times will pass by for you
until you acknowledge that the Most High
is sovereign over the kingdoms of men
and gives them to anyone he wishes.
Immediately, what had been said
about Nebuchadnezzar was fulfilled.
He was driven away from people
and ate grass like cattle.
His body was drenched with the dew of heaven
until his hair grew like the feathers of an eagle
and his nails like the claws of a bird.
At the end of the time,
I, Nebuchadnezzar,
raised my eyes towards heaven
and my sanity was restored.
Then I praised the Most High.
I honored and glorified him who lives forever.
His dominion is an eternal dominion
and his kingdom endures from generation to generation.
All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing.
He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven
and the peoples of the earth.
No one can hold back his hand
or say to him,
what have you done?
At the same time that my sanity was restored,
my honor and splendor were returned to me
for the glory of my kingdom.
My advisors and 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 those who walk in pride,
he is able to humble.
We are confronted with the incontrovertible fact
that our God is one of a kind.
There is not a category or a class of gods
to which our God belongs.
You see, we like to categorize things, don't we?
So for example, you could categorize animals.
You could say there are certain animals that are mammals
and there are certain animals that are reptiles
or other animals that are marsupials.
You can categorize and put them
in their particular classes or categories.
The Bible confronts us with the God
who has no category,
who has no similarity to other so-called deities.
So that's why giving worship or honor or glory
to anything or anyone else
is not just mistaken,
it is abominable
because we are giving the credit,
we are giving the glory to something that is not.
Because our God has no lack,
our God has no limit,
our God has no need,
he has no necessity,
he does not need us,
we need him,
he is not made complete with us,
we are made complete in him.
So the God that we encounter
on each of the pages of the Bible
is a God that is without comparison.
So that's why the lesson
to the Old Testament people of God
was you shall have no other gods before me.
That does not suggest
that there are other gods
that could be before him,
but to suggest that we have a tendency
to make other things God.
So with you this evening,
I'd like to consider this theme
that is brought before our attention.
That the God that we worship,
the God in whose presence we are gathered,
is the God who is self-existent.
This morning we had the induction
of office bearers, elders, and deacons.
And one of the questions that they were asked
was about the Westminster Confession of Faith.
It's a statement of what we believe.
We would say that it's a statement
of what the Bible teaches
and of what we affirm.
Now the great thing about the confession
is that in a short compass,
it summarizes some of the great truths of the faith.
So let me just read you a few statements
concerning the God that we worship.
We're told in that confession
in chapter 2 and chapter paragraph 1
that there is but one only living and true God
who is infinite in being and perfection.
Infinite means that there is no measure.
There is no measure to his being.
There is no measure to his perfection.
That there is a completeness
and a wholeness and a fullness.
We then go on to read that God has all life,
glory, goodness, blessedness,
in and of himself
and is alone in and unto he himself
all sufficient.
Not standing in need of any creatures
which he has made
nor deriving any glory from them
but only manifesting his own glory
in, by, unto, and upon them.
It's a dense paragraph with huge truths
but it says that he is set apart.
He is different, distinct from us.
We can't say that our God is like
because anything that we would liken our God to
would be inadequate and would be insufficient.
Now in the study of theology,
it's not surprising
that the human language has limitations,
that we can't even speak in a way
that adequately describes what it is
or who it is that we are trying to describe.
So for example,
very early on in the history of the church,
there was a word that was needed.
How can we describe God who is one, unity,
and how can we describe God
who exists eternally in three persons?
And you put the try for three
and you put the unity together
and you have this new word called trinity.
It's not a biblical word
but it's a biblical truth.
Now the biblical,
the new word that comes before us tonight
is a word again from the Latin language
which says that the term is aseity.
Now it's a technical term,
you don't need to remember it
but if you know Latin at all,
a or a would be from
and se, se, means himself,
from himself.
Now this is a characteristic
that God and God alone has,
that there is a self-existence,
a self-sufficiency
that is in and of himself.
Now we have difficulty understanding this
because this bears no resemblance to us.
We are completely contingent people.
We depend.
We depend on other people.
We depend on other factors.
Now you might think
that you are self-sufficient.
Well then ask yourself,
how long could you survive without oxygen?
How long could you survive without food?
How long could you survive without water?
We are completely dependent upon other things
that are outside of ourself.
Whereas God is sufficient in and of himself.
He is self-existent, self-sustaining.
He doesn't need our help.
He doesn't need our support.
He doesn't need our knowledge.
He doesn't need anything.
That's just the way he is.
So keeping these truths in mind,
we find that there is a qualitative difference
and a quantitative difference
between who we are and who God is.
We come back to this scene
600 years roughly before the time of Jesus.
This kingdom Babylon
was encompassing all the other kingdoms,
conquering all the lands,
including the people of the Holy Land
and bringing into Babylon
the best and the brightest.
So you see the Babylonian empire was,
they had wisdom, they had smarts.
So they wanted to incorporate new peoples
and new lands.
And they thought to themselves,
let's get the best and the brightest.
They're foreigners.
Well, let's bring them into Babylon.
Let's train them.
Let's equip them
so that we can get the best out of them.
So Daniel and some of his friends
were brought into Babylon
and placed in positions of authority.
But this chapter is quite remarkable
because what we have here
is an audience with a king,
not a king of the people of Israel,
not a king of the people of God
as we are familiar with,
you know, David or Solomon
or, you know, the great figures of the past.
But here's a foreign king.
And this foreign king is testifying to us
about the God that he previously had not known,
had not worshipped.
And he's now testifying to the God he has encountered
and to the God to whom he now owes absolutely everything.
So with you, if you look back
at the very beginning of Daniel 4,
it was a long narrative passage.
But the passage is important
because it captures the details,
it captures the events
that reminds us that this actually happened.
These events actually occurred
in time, in place, and with people.
So notice first the audience.
Nebuchadnezzar has a big audience.
Verse one,
to the peoples, nations, and men
of every language who live in all the world.
You can't have a bigger audience than that.
Nebuchadnezzar has a big story
to tell a big audience about a big God.
He's a big person himself.
He's powerful.
He has authority.
He has power.
He has prestige.
And he has something to share,
not just with his own people,
but he has something to share with all people.
So we're part of his audience
because we are members of this human race
and we live in different parts,
or we live now currently in Scotland.
We may come from different parts of the world.
So we have a big audience,
but he also has a big story.
In verse two, he says,
it is my pleasure to tell you
about the miraculous signs and wonders
that the most high God has performed for me.
Most high.
The God who is,
in English we would say that they're,
when you have adjectives like good,
that's a descriptive word.
Something is good.
You have a comparative word, better.
I like ice cream better than trifle.
You compare two things.
But then you come to superlatives
where you have best.
And Nebuchadnezzar says that this God
is the most high.
Now, if Nebuchadnezzar is the top of an empire,
and if he is at the top of a power structure,
and if he's the top of an imperial kingdom,
and he's saying that there is a God
who is most high,
he is in a position to understand
what high looks like.
Because he is in a high position,
and he's telling us that the God
that he wants to tell us about
is the most high.
He says, he goes on to say,
how great are his signs,
how mighty are his wonders.
His kingdom is an eternal kingdom.
His dominion endures from generation to generation.
When you read the whole of the Daniel story,
we get an insight into Nebuchadnezzar.
Nebuchadnezzar was a man
who was overwhelmed by greatness,
but primarily he was overwhelmed
by his own greatness.
But obviously something has changed.
His perspective has altered
because now he's using great,
not as a self-description,
but he's using great as a description
of this most high God.
Singular.
That there is a God
who is the most high,
the highest, the most powerful,
the one who has,
who does wonders,
the one whose kingdom has no end,
and the one whose dominion
endures from generation to generation.
So God is in the story
and God is above the story
that Nebuchadnezzar has a story to tell
of which he is a character,
but that he is not the main character.
Now, this is difficult sometimes for us to grasp,
that we are not the center of this world,
we are not the center of this universe,
that we are not the center of this story.
We're all part of this story,
7.4 billion people on this planet,
each one of us is part of the story,
but not any one of us is the center of the story.
I was reading a book recently,
it's called Instruments in the Hands of the Redeemer,
and in that there was an illustration
that there was a children's birthday party
and a lot of five-year-old kids were invited,
and everybody was singing and blowing out candles,
presents were being given,
a great time was had by all,
but one of the five-year-olds was crying,
and the host's parents said,
what's wrong, why are you so upset?
He said, I don't have a cake,
and nobody's giving me presents.
Well, the parent tried to explain this to the kids,
saying, but it's not your party.
You know, you're at the party,
but it's not your party.
Now, Nebuchadnezzar thought it was his party.
He thought he was the center of everybody's attention,
but he came to realize that he was part of the party,
not the center of the party,
and he comes to tell us
that we are not the center of our lives,
but that God is the center of this world,
and that we are to revolve around him
rather than him revolve around us.
Two other technical words that you might find helpful.
What we see here is that God is in the story,
he's part of the story,
but that God is above the story.
Now, theologians will tell you
that this means that God is imminent.
Remember that word that we use
to describe Jesus from Isaiah,
Emmanuel, God with us,
that God is in the story,
but God is also transcendent,
that he exists above and over the story.
He has no beginning, he has no end,
he has no start, he has no finish,
whereas Nebuchadnezzar had a start,
and Nebuchadnezzar had a finish.
So if you were there in the 6th century BC,
you would have known who Nebuchadnezzar was.
Here in the 21st century,
weeks could go by
where you never even give a thought to Nebuchadnezzar.
He's faded into obscurity.
So we want to say that God is in,
and God is above.
And fourth, I want you to notice this,
that Nebuchadnezzar now knows the score.
He now knows God.
He may have known something about God.
He may have known something about Daniel.
He may have known something about the various gods
and the various deities that existed in his vast empire.
He had some previous connection with God.
You'll see that in Daniel 3.
But now he knows him.
He now knows who this God is.
And there's a huge difference between knowing about and knowing.
The Bible invites us to have a personal relationship
with a personal, powerful, almighty, ever-present, all-knowing God.
So it's not just a series of facts.
It's not just a series of figures.
It's not just a body of data that you come to know.
But we have the opportunity, like Nebuchadnezzar,
to have a personal, powerful encounter with this God.
Now, Nebuchadnezzar learned certain lessons the hard way,
that he was warned.
He had a dream.
It troubled him.
Daniel, the man of God, came and interpreted that dream
and told him, Nebuchadnezzar,
I'm frightened.
I'm frightened because the dream is not about your enemies,
but the dream is about you.
And unless you mend your ways,
unless you turn from your sin,
unless you acknowledge God,
if you continue on the path,
the destruction that you see in your dream
will be your destruction.
So Nebuchadnezzar heard,
Nebuchadnezzar was warned,
and Nebuchadnezzar ultimately decided
to ignore the warning.
He decided to carry on.
And then one day,
he was admiring his great city,
all that he had done,
and all that he had made,
and how high and how great and how mighty he was.
And then God, in his power,
God in his promise,
brought this big man low,
brought this high man to a low position.
And we see what God does.
We see the power that God has,
and we realize that this man,
Nebuchadnezzar,
is not self-sufficient.
He is not self-existent.
He has nothing in and of himself,
because when his power was removed,
when his sanity was removed,
he was like one of those animals
who was grazing under the tree.
He had no power.
He had no strength.
He had no authority.
He had no prestige.
He was humbled and brought low.
But our God is a merciful God,
a gracious God,
so he warns us.
He warns us when we're in danger,
but he also is able to restore us.
When we've ignored the warnings,
when we've gone too far,
when we strayed too far,
when we ignore the warnings,
he can restore us.
He can renew us.
So you see,
Nebuchadnezzar thought that he had it all,
thought that he was the center of the story,
that he was the top of the tree.
And God says,
well, you're no longer at the top of the tree.
You're now under the tree.
You're now at the grass level.
So what can we learn?
How can we apply the lessons of this big passage
to our individual circumstances?
Let me give you four things to think about.
First of all,
this passage points us,
and this truth points us inexorably
beyond this story,
because it points us to the one called Jesus.
Because if God is self-existent,
that means he has no beginning.
He has no start.
He has no,
there was no time where he was not.
Listen to the words of John chapter one,
verse one.
In the beginning was the word,
and the word was with God,
and the word was God.
He was with God in the beginning.
Through him,
all things were made.
Without him,
nothing was made that has been made.
There is no one in human history
of which that verse can be said.
Through him,
all things were made.
Without him,
nothing was made that was made,
has been made.
In him was life,
and that life was the light of men.
That there is a characteristic
that belongs to God,
that belongs to Jesus,
that he is life.
He's not just a living God.
He's not just the living Savior,
but he's life itself.
So Jesus can say,
I am the way,
the truth,
and the life.
No one comes to the Father
except through me.
So we are pointed to the person
of Jesus Christ.
Secondly,
we are pointed to one of the key principles
of Jesus' kingdom.
You see,
Jesus has a way of bringing high people low
and low people high.
He told a parable,
and he had a parable about a Pharisee
and a tax collector.
He said,
to some who were confident
of their own righteousness
and looked down on everybody else,
Jesus told this parable.
Two men went up to the temple to pray,
one a Pharisee
and the other a tax collector.
The Pharisee stood up
and prayed about himself,
God,
I thank you.
I am not like other men,
robbers,
evildoers,
adulterers,
or even like this tax collector.
I fast twice a week
and give a tenth of all I get.
But the tax collector
stood at a distance.
He would not even look up to heaven
but beat his breast
and said,
God,
have mercy on me,
a sinner.
I tell you that this man,
rather than the other,
went home justified before God
for everyone who exalts himself.
Nebuchadnezzar,
you exalted yourself.
Nebuchadnezzar,
you put yourself on a high place.
Whoever,
everyone who exalts himself
will be humbled
and he who humbles himself
will be exalted.
So what happens
when Nebuchadnezzar
exalted himself?
He was humbled.
What happened
when he humbled himself?
He was exalted.
He was restored.
He was put back
into his position.
But he recognized
that the Most High God
is the God.
And finally,
I'd like you to notice this.
We not only are pointed
to the person of Jesus
and the key principle
of his kingdom,
but we are also reminded
that the kingdom of Jesus
needs to be proclaimed.
Now, God does not need us.
God does not rely upon us.
We don't make him whole,
but he,
in his mercy,
mercy and in his grace,
he uses us.
He used Nebuchadnezzar
as a spokesman
in the 6th century BC
to tell the known world
about the Most High God,
the King of Heaven.
And he used you and me
in the 21st century
to make Jesus known to others.
At the very beginning
of John's Gospel,
I read from John 1,
verses 1 to 4.
Listen to this word
of testimony,
which we find later
in John 1, verse 14.
The word became flesh
and made his dwelling among us.
We have seen his glory,
the glory of the one and only
who came from the Father,
full of grace and truth.
John testifies concerning him.
He cries out, saying,
This was he of whom I have said.
He who comes after me
has surpassed me
because he was before me.
From the fullness of his grace,
we have all received
one blessing after another.
For the law was given
through Moses.
Grace and truth came
through Jesus Christ.
No one has ever seen God,
but God, the one and only,
who is at the Father's side,
has made him known.
Nebuchadnezzar testifies
to the Most High.
The apostle John
and John the Baptist
testified to Jesus.
And you and I,
we can give our own account.
We can't give
Nebuchadnezzar's account.
We can't give the accounts
of the disciples
or the apostles,
but you can give your story.
If you have indeed met
with this Most High God,
if you have indeed been
brought low and then exalted,
if you indeed have come
to know him
and want to share
that knowledge with others,
Nebuchadnezzar's life
was transformed
by the power of God
and by the grace of God.
This God who has no beginning
and has no end,
this God who is contingent
upon nothing and no one,
he encountered this God
and he wanted to tell
others about him.
Have you encountered this God?
Have you encountered his son?
And have you now been given
a testimony to tell?
You might not have
the whole world
as your audience
as Nebuchadnezzar had.
You might not write
one of the gospel accounts
as John the apostle has,
but you have your own audience,
you have your own circle of friends,
you have your own family,
and you have your own story
about the grace of God,
the Most High God,
who is powerful and personal
and who has worked in your life
to work through your life.
So may God bless to us
this great truth
that our God is self-existent.
No beginning, no end,
no start, no finish.
All sufficient, all powerful,
all present in time
and in eternity.
And we together tonight,
we have had the opportunity
of encountering him,
encountering him in worship,
encountering him in prayer,
encountering him in his word.
And he wants us to take
that encounter
and to take that message
to others
so that they too
can encounter
the Most High God
who is incomparable,
who is one of a kind.