Do you believe that God is Sovereign? That He is in control of all things? That He will work for the good for all that love Him and are called according to His purpose? What does that really mean for us as followers? That's what we're exploring this week.
This message is based on Daniel 4:34-37.
I came across a couple of children’s prayers this week. Johnny had been misbehaving and was sent to his room. He emerged a couple minutes later and informed his mother that he had thought things over and had even said a little prayer. The mother was very happy and said, “If you asked God to help you not misbehave, He will help you.” To which Johnny replied, “Oh, I didn’t ask Him for help with that, I asked Him to help you put up with me.” A little girl, dressed in her Sunday best, was running as fast as she could, trying not to be late for Sunday School. As she ran she prayed, “Dear Lord, please don’t let me be late!” As she was running and praying, she tripped on a curb and fell, getting her clothes dirty and tearing her dress. She got up, brushed herself off, and started running again. This time she prayed a little bit differently: “Dear Lord, please don’t let me be late…but don’t shove me either.” This girl seemed to have a pretty good understanding of God’s Sovereignty. She knew that God is in control of everything! The word “sovereign” is both a noun and an adjective. As a noun it means “king” or “absolute ruler.” As an adjective it means possessing supreme or ultimate power. To say that God is sovereign is to say that God is in charge of everything all the time. The Westminster Confession puts it like this: “He ordains whatever comes to pass.” In a nutshell, God’s sovereignty means that He is absolutely free to do as He pleases and to demonstrate His absolute control over all His creatures. Or, to put it another way, He permits, for whatever reasons, he may permit people to act contrary to His will, but He never allows them to act against His sovereign will. In other words, He will never give up His ultimate control. He has a plan and that plan will never be jeopardized, even though it may seem that way at times. Let’s look at a couple of verses that talk about God’s Sovereignty. Proverbs 19:21 says, “Many are the plans in a man’s heart, but it is the Lord’s purpose that prevails.” It doesn’t matter what we plan, the Lord’s plans will prevail. We would do best if we were in tune with the Lord’s plans. Lamentations 3:37 says, “Who can speak and have it happen if the Lord has not decreed it?” James 4:15 says, “You ought to say, ‘If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.’” Job 42:2 says, “I know that you can do all things; no plan of yours can be thwarted.” And Psalm 115:3 says, “Our God is in heaven; He does whatever pleases Him.” Do you get the idea that God is in charge? As believers, we’ve got to believe that. I. A Press Release. Our reading this morning was kind of like a press release. And something that’s interesting about it is that it’s one of the few passages from scripture that written by someone you might consider an outsider – he wasn’t a Jew or a Christian. Nebuchadnezzar was the king of Babylon when Babylon invaded Jerusalem, conquered the city, and took most of the people who lived there back to Babylon to live in exile there. In the section we read, the King writes to clear up some of the rumors that have been circulating in his kingdom about the things that had happened to him. We’re going to talk about these things in a couple minutes, but suffice it to say, Nebuchadnezzar learned about God’s sovereignty the hard way. He wanted Babylon to know what God had done for him. He wanted to share how he came to worship the God of Israel. If we jump back to verses 2-4 to get some background on what happened, he says, “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 like that, contented and prosperous. At that time, he had everything anybody could ever want. He lived in a palace, he was the king of the most powerful nation on earth, his nation was at peace, he was prosperous, probably the most powerful man alive at the time. He had everything. By worldly standards, everything was going great. And then, Nebuchadnezzar had a dream. A nightmare really. Verse 5 says “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 he called for all his magicians and wise men, his enchanters, astrologers and diviners, he asked them for an interpretation. But none could help. Then he saw Daniel, and he remembered that Daniel was able to interpret a dream before that nobody else could. II. A Dream. His dream was of an enormous tree, its top touched the sky it was so tall, it’s leaves were beautiful, it’s fruit was abundant, it provided food for all it was so big. Now think about this, Babylon was in present day Iraq. What comes to mind as far as the landscape in Iraq? Barren desert, right? Do you remember the pictures from Desert Storm? A tree like this would have been an amazing sight, even if it was just a dream. The dream turns into a nightmare as he sees a messenger from heaven come down and give orders to have the tree chopped down. It’s interesting that the stump is allowed to remain. Then, it turns personal, we’re not talking about the tree anymore, it says in verses 15-16, “Let him be drenched with the dew of heaven, and let him live with the animals…let him be changed from that of a man and let him be given the mind of an animal, till seven times pass by for him.” Then Nebuchadnezzar hears the final verdict in verse 17, “…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…” Babylon may have the most powerful nation on earth at the time, but Nebuchadnezzar needed to know that God was in control. God is sovereign. Sometimes, I think we need to be reminded of that, too. Daniel is able to interpret the dream. He tells the King that he is the tree and that he will be driven away from his people, to live with the wild animals. He would even eat grass like a cow! In verse 24 he says “Seven times will pass by for you until you acknowledge that the Most High is sovereign…” The seven times represent seven years. This punishment will last seven years. Daniel pleads with the king to renounce his sins and to do what is right before this terrible thing happens. But he didn’t repent, and twelve months later, it came to pass. Nebuchadnezzar had a full year to turn his life around, but he didn’t. One moment he was a bright, handsome, thriving man with a sharp mind. And then, because of his arrogance, he was reduced to an animal. It says in verse 33, “…He was driven away from people and ate grass like cattle. He 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.” III. A Beast. God made Nebuchadnezzar become outwardly what he already was in his heart he was filled with pride and acting like an animal. He thought nothing could stop him. Now it’s important to stop here and understand something. We all have the propensity to come under the same sentence. We can be filled with some sinful, ugly, prideful attitude. We’ve got to guard our hearts, or the beast within can rear its ugly head. That beast will affect your relationship with God, your marriage, your friendships, your kids, your service in the church, even your career. Sometimes God has to put someone on their knees for a period of time in order to get their attention. We’re going to pick up the story now in our reading, that was all background. The first verse we read said, “At the end of that time, I, Nebuchadnezzar, raised my eyes toward heaven, and my sanity was restored.” King Nebuchadnezzar lived like an animal for 7 long years until he “raised his eyes toward heaven.” He looked to God. You could say that he had a paradigm shift he started to see things differently. And when he acknowledged God’s Sovereignty, he was restored. And our reading this morning was filled with praises for God. He learned his lesson well. A commentator once wrote that before Nebuchadnezzar could be restored, there were three things he had to do. It was a three-step process. He looked up, He woke up, and He spoke up. If you are struggling with a personal sin in your life, whether it be pride, or some sexual sin, or any other sin that draws you away from Christ, you need to follow that same process. We must look up, so we can wake up, in order to speak up. And the speaking up is giving praise to God. When Nebuchadnezzar finally looked up, when he finally looked to God, what did he learn? I think there were six things that we would do well to keep in mind:
IV. A Humbling Response. When we truly understand God’s sovereignty we begin to focus on Him, not on ourselves. Our response should be to fall at His feet and to give Him everything we are and everything we own. We have to be careful with pride. You have to be in control, or be rich, or be famous, to struggle with pride. Pride can control each of us if we’re not careful. David Jeremiah says that of all the personal and church problems he has seen in his years of ministry, most of them are the result of pride. Pride creeps into our lives in subtle ways.
As we wrap up this message, let me see if I can help you flesh out this important doctrine of God’s sovereignty. As we’ve been thinking about God’s rule and power, it would be easy to just nod in agreement without really thinking about how it should impact our life. So I want to close with a couple of action steps.
Like the little girl who believed that God pushed her to the ground while she was running to Sunday School God will either push us to our knees or we can choose to go there voluntarily. God alone is sovereign. Remember that this is His church, and He is working here. So keep your eyes fixed on Him. We get in trouble when we start looking at each other. Keep looking to God.
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