Voting for Nebuchadnezzar

[This article was originally posted on my Our Long View Blog if you want to see other messages like this.]

In last week’s message, we continued a study about glory. People were created to share in the glory of God but that all changed when man rebelled against God and sought his own glory instead. The true glory of God has been substituted, replaced with a cheap, knock-off pirated type of glory. In previous weeks, we had considered the limitations of both human and national glory. Here is a summary.

1) Human Glory Is Momentary (Psa. 39:5; 103:14; 144:4; Eccl. 3:20; Isa. 40:6-8; 1 Peter 1:24; 1 Thess. 2:6). Man’s exile from the achingly beautiful presence of true glory has too often been dealt with not through seeking reconciliation with God, but by pursuing the lesser glory that comes from other people. Man’s residual glory, having been created in the Imago Dei, has been clouded and even at his best is momentary (Psa. 39:5; 103:14; 144:4; Eccl. 3:20; 1 Peter 1:24) and not something that should be sought (1 Thessalonians 2:6). We would do well to remember that our society tends to cannibalize its celebrities.  We build people up only so that we can tear them down. As Irenaeus said, humanity's true glory is to “remain permanently in God’s service.”^[1] Why is this the true glory of humanity? Because being in a relationship with the triune God is where we find our long-sought peace, our irreducible value, and our ultimate purpose as we are invited to participate in the inter-Trinitarian life of God through the Son by the Spirit.

2) National Glory Is Temporary (Genesis 11, Isaiah 37, 2 Kings 19). The Bible tells of many nations and empires rising and falling—Babel, Egypt, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, Greece, Rome, etc. They might have been impressive from a human perspective, but their power and glory were not permanent. The Bible teaches that any nation raised up by God for a purpose, which fails to give God glory by functioning justly for all may serve a temporary purpose, but is soon judged and passes from the scene of history. It is a hard truth all “superpowers” must face. We should pray Daniel’s prayer of national repentance (Daniel 9).

Then last week we considered the dangerous distinctions of self-glory in a message from Acts 12:20-24.

3) Self-Glory Is Deceptive (Acts 12:23, Rev. 18:7-8) Self-glory is not only momentary but highly deceptive, promising better than it delivers and woefully understating the true cost (e.g., Acts 12:23; Revelation 16:9; 18:7), straight from the father of lies himself. 

A powerful example of this concept is found in the life of Nebuchadnezzar recorded in Daniel 3-4.

In Daniel 3, King Nebuchadnezzar (ruler of the vast Babylonian empire) tells, in his own words, what he had learned about God through the various signs and wonders that God had worked in and around his life. Daniel 3 tells the story of Nebuchadnezzar (or “Mr. Nezzar” as he is called in the VeggieTales version) throwing Daniel’s three friends into the fiery furnace for refusing to bow down and worship the huge golden statue of the king. At the end of that narrative, the king declared,

“Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent his angel and delivered his servants, who trusted in him, and set aside the king's command, and yielded up their bodies rather than serve and worship any god except their own God. Therefore I make a decree: Any people, nation, or language that speaks anything against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego shall be torn limb from limb, and their houses laid in ruins, for there is no other god who is able to rescue in this way.” (Dan. 3:28-29)

This is a statement of a greatly changed worldview... even if his despotic Near-eastern proclamation against dissent doesn't match up with the steadfast love of God revealed in the Scriptures.

Then in Daniel chapter 4, the king received another dream from the Lord which he was unable to understand. Daniel had interpreted the first one for him and in this case, was again enabled by the Lord to interpret the dream. This time the dream functioned as a dire pronouncement of a coming humiliation for his great pride. Nebuchadnezzar was given a slim glimmer of hope, from Daniel, if he would “break off” his iniquities through...

1. By practicing righteousness, and establishing justice for all the people in the realm. It is especially contingent upon a leader to realize that the law of the land applies to themself as a ruler as well as to the people.
2. By showing mercy to the oppressed. He was “to show a new sensitivity to the plight of the poor in his empire, protecting them instead of allowing the rich to exploit and oppress them.” [EBC]

If he did this, then Daniel suggested that “there may perhaps be a lengthening of your prosperity.” It might have already been too late for Mr. Nezzar. However, he seemed to have complied for a year before looking at his vast capital and all the hanging gardens it contained and taking all the credit for himself…as politicians are wont to do. At that very moment, the justice and mercy of God were declared from heaven.

Nebuchadnezzar, 
by William Blake 1794

Daniel 4:28-33 tells the story of how  Nebuchadnezzar went on a “crazy trip” that lasted perhaps as long as seven years (There is a period in his reign that contains a gap in recorded activity from 581 and 573 BC except for the siege of Tyre which might easily have been continued in his absence) before his reason returned and he blessed God instead of himself. Not only that, but he writes of his own failures and sins of pride in his own words in Daniel 4. Just one chapter earlier he would have been the least likely candidate to give glory to the God of Israel in the eyes of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. But now he declared the praise of God for all the world to hear!

I contend that every politician is a Nebuchadnezzar, who has great power that can be used for good or for ill; who is also subject to take credit for successes while deflecting blame for failures.

I am amazed that a man who was basically the ruler of the world was humbled by the justice of God and restored by the mercy of God to the place where he could testify,

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,

                      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?”

…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. (Daniel 4:34-37)

Don't you wish our political leaders could say the same thing?

Nebuchadnezzar had a dark and violent past, he had taken the best and brightest of conquered nations captive to acculturate them to Babylonian ideals, and he had even enforced idolatrous worship. But he learned his lesson (after these seven years of exile), for the common good, and became a leader for whom I could vote. 

I have actively avoided campaigning for any particular candidate but I am praying that our leaders today—Democrats, Republicans, Independents—will experience their own Nebuchadnezzar moment, lift their eyes towards heaven, humble themselves, and give glory to God so that they might rule well...with mercy and justice for all. 

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[1] Joel C. Elowsky, ed. John 11-21 (Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture). Vol. IVb (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2007), 176