Trinity Baptist Church

 

Remember Saddam Hussein? We are aware that for many months he was in hiding, running from place to place, seeking to avoid capture. We also saw on our television when they found him down in a hole. He was brought up out of that hole. He looked like an animal. It looked as if he had been living like an animal. He was on the run like an animal. Yet he was captured and later hanged. 

 

What is now being reported is that before he was hanged he converted to Christianity. His conversion testimony is that he indeed was living like an animal and not like a man. For many years in his life he was beastly in nature. But he had a remarkable experience where God brought him very, very low. The result of having been brought low, down to the level of an animal, he lifted his eyes to heaven and acknowledged that the God of heaven is the true God. He received the Lord Jesus Christ into his heart and life and was gloriously converted.

 

Is that not an astonishing and amazing story? Is that not a stunning story? It is a stunning story, but it is not a true story. I have made that story up for you, as I think some of you suspected.

 

I tell that story to try to get into your minds the story the fourth chapter of the book of Daniel tells us about. There was a prior leader in Iraq, the king of Babylon, known in the Bible as Nebuchadnezzar. He was the ancient world's counterpart of the modern world's Saddam Hussein.

 

When we read the fourth chapter of the book of Daniel, it is a personal testimony about how Nebuchadnezzar was converted and became a changed man. In fact, this whole fourth chapter is a personal testimony. It is a testimony to the greatness and the wonders of God. As you read this testimony you will see the work of God in the life of a man. You will see the remarkable series of events which God used to bring Nebuchadnezzar to faith in the true God.

 

What you have in Daniel 4 is what might be called a personal testimony booklet. He is using it to distribute and tell the whole world.

 

There are three parts to this booklet. The opening verses are the preface where he gives praise and thanksgiving unto the Lord. If you have been saved you ought to give a testimony about it.

 

Psalms 66, verse 16, says this. "Come and hear all ye that fear God and I will declare what he hath done for my soul."

 

If you have had a conversion experience, then you have a testimony to share. You ought to be able to tell somebody about it.

 

The booklet begins with a preface. Then in verses 4 right on through most of the chapter he gives us the proclamation, the testimony of his salvation. He closes with verse 37 which says this, "Now, I Nebuchadnezzar praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, all whose works are truth, and his ways judgment, those that walk in pride he is able to abase." He closes out with a postscript of praise to the Lord.

I want us to think about this marvelous conversion experience of Nebuchadnezzar. It has to be one of the greatest, most unusual, astonishing conversion experiences ever recorded in the annals of the work of God. It all revolves around a dream.

 

Think about first of all,

 

 

Nebuchadnezzar receives a rather amazing dream.

 

Look at the setting in verse 4.

 

The battles are all over now. The army has surrounded and put protection around the city of Babylon. He is walking in his palace. He is contented. He is secure. He is extremely prosperous.

 

Now in these days, when things seem to be going well, we are told that he saw a dream that made him afraid.

 

He had a dream. God has been working in the life of Nebuchadnezzar. We read about him beginning in chapter 1. We see him in chapter 2 when God revealed to him a great image. Then in chapter 3 we see him as he built the golden image and the experience with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Through all of this, God was doing something in his heart and life.

 

God has His ways of working. God has His ways of bringing people to the moment of conversion.

 

 

 

"I saw a dream which made me afraid."

 

The word afraid means extreme terror. Here was a dream that brought him to extreme terror. God reached into His bag of terrors and brought a terrifying dream into the heart of Nebuchadnezzar.

 

God has His ways of getting your attention. You don't ever get in a palace so opulent or so protected that God is not able to break through.

 

Verse 6-7

 

He brought all his experts in again. He brought his brain trust again. It seems he would have learned his lesson. Back in the second chapter, when he had a dream, he brought in all these same experts, and they couldn't give him the meaning of the dream. You would think he would have learned his lesson. But here he is again going to the same sources.

 

It's the way people do today. They are trying to solve the problems of their life. They are looking for answers to the great dilemmas and the great fears they are experiencing. They go to the same sources. They go to the same secular psychiatrists. They turn to the politicians. They turn to the talk show hosts. They don't have the answers to the deepest problems in the human heart and the human experience.

 

verse 8-9

 

He brings his trusted counselor Daniel in. As you read this story and see Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel, it seems that Daniel loved this old crusty sinner.

 

It seems Daniel has developed a real love for this man and how he must have prayed that he might come to the Lord. There was a man who had the answer. There was a man who understood the meaning of the dream. There are people in this world who have answers from God. Those who know the Lord know the answers to the deepest needs of the human heart and the human existence.

 

Daniel doesn't have to do any bragging. Nebuchadnezzar brags on Daniel. He says three times in this chapter that the spirit of the holy gods is in him. Of course, he is using the language of a pagan. He doesn't understand the spiritual language. But it is a language which he understands himself. He is saying that there is something different about this man Daniel.

 

If Christ is in your life you really won't have to say a whole lot about it. People will discover that the Lord is in your life. People will turn to you in hours of trouble. They will be coming to you in the deepest needs of their life.

 

He tells about the dream in verse 10-17

 

The thing that was so disturbing about this dream was that he saw this dream of a great tree that was cut down.

 

Notice the words move from it to his. Nebuchadnezzar discovers that the tree represents him. That God is talking about him. He is a great king. He is a mighty man. Now he has met his match, and God says to Nebuchadnezzar, you are going to be cut down. This is what is so disturbing about the dream.

That was his dream.

 

 

Daniel is going to reveal the meaning of that dream to Nebuchadnezzar.

 

verse 19

 

Daniel was troubled for a while over this dream. Get the picture. Here was Daniel the trusted counselor. Here is the king who has told him what he has just dreamed. Daniel sits there in amazement at the meaning of this dream.

 

Can you imagine the tension in the room? Can you imagine what was going on in the heart of this king?

 

Finally, verse 19

 

That was just a way of saying, I have some bad news for you, king. Daniel is burdened about it. The man who delivers the message of God, sometimes has messages that are burdensome.

 

Daniel has a message that is rather disturbing that he has to give to the king.

 

Verses 20-22

 

Sometimes the man of God has to preach a strong message. He is saying to Nebuchadnezzar, there's bad news on the way.

 

 

 

 

So Daniel offers an invitation to Nebuchadnezzar in verse 27.

 

Then notice verse 31-33

 

All of a sudden his eyes began to move back and forth. All of a sudden his reason left him. All of a sudden his sanity escapes him. He begins to look down at his hands and they are growing hair. His fingernails are becoming like claws.

 

Verse 33

 

He rushes out into the thickets of the Euphrates River. He has become an animal.

 

There is a medical condition sometimes mentioned in connection with this passage. It is known as lycanthrophe. It is made up of two Greek words. Lycos for the word wolf. Anthropos for the word man. Lycanthrophe.

 

Wolf man! It is a rare medical disease which has been recorded from time to time. People think they are an animal. Or they think they are a dog and they begin to take on the characteristics of a dog. Or they think they are a cat and take on those characteristics.

 

Remember those Dr. Jeckyll/Mr. Hyde movies? Or werewolf movies

 

Sin will turn you into an animal! You start living like an animal and sooner or later you are going to look like an animal and act like an animal. God has created you to be like Himself.

 

Anthropos, which means upright man. God has created you for a relationship with Him.

 

But Nebuchadnezzar is now living and acting like an animal. Seven long years went by. I think probably Daniel and his staff governed the affairs of the kingdom during that time. You can imagine the rumors that must have spread during that seven years. Where is Nebuchadnezzar? Is he seriously ill? Is he dead?

 

But God said that stump would grow again.

 

Verse 34

 

Daniel knew what was going on.

 

verse 36

 

I can almost imagine that Daniel had it on his calendar. He had checked off the seven years. Now is the time. Let's go get him. He's a different person. They go down in the thickets looking for Nebuchadnezzar. The last time they had seen Nebuchadnezzar he was growling like an animal. When they meet him this time he is singing praises to the Lord. He is a thoroughly converted and changed individual.

 

That's what Jesus can do in a person's life. I don't care how deep in sin they may have gone. I don't care how animal like they have become in their behavior, there is a God in heaven who loves them. There is a God in heaven who wants to save them.

 

 

 

That's a remarkable conversion. Nebuchadnezzar thought so much of it and was so grateful for it that he put it in writing.

 

Don't you think if you have been saved the least you can do is tell somebody about it? Don't you think if Christ has changed your life the least you can do is make it public? Or write a letter? Or sing a song? Or share it with a friend? Or walk down an aisle? The least you and I can do if Jesus Christ has changed us and put a new heart in us is to spend the rest of our days praising his name and giving honor and glory to Him, living a life that would be pleasing to Him.

 

Let's bow our heads in prayer.