And so we arrive at chapter four. Not too long ago I was sitting on my sister's bed, while she was reading the Bible, and all of a sudden she turned around and said "We're going to see Nebuchadnezzar in heaven! That's so cool!" And it's true, because of this chapter today.
In this chapter, which is told from Nebuchadnezzar's perspective, he sees a dream which troubles him. Again, being fed up with all the astrologers who can't interpret anything, he goes and finds Daniel to interpret it for him. The dream is of a huge tree which grows so large that all the animals and birds of the earth take shelter under it. But then it is cut down, but the stump is left, bound with iron. When Daniel interprets, he is slightly reticent and says:
'"My lord, [may] the dream concern those who hate you, and its interpretation concern your enemies!"' (Daniel 4:19b)
For this is how the dream is interpreted: the king is very powerful, and has dominion over much of the earth, but he will be cut down – made like a beast of the field - to show that God is the supreme King.
Twelve months later, while Nebuchadnezzar is walking around showing off his kingdom, saying stuff like 'How awesome is my kingdom, and how brilliant is my glory!', a voice of the Lord comes down and tells him that he will walk like a beast of the field and eat grass and live in the wild. And so he does, for seven 'times' (I guess years). At the end of these times he says some remarkable words, from a man that was king of the world, and a pagan gentile (to begin with):
'And at the end of the time I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my understanding 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 [is] from generation to generation. All the inhabitants of the earth [are] reputed as nothing; He does according to His will in the army of heaven and [among] the inhabitants of the earth. No one can restrain His hand or say to Him, "What have You done?"' (Daniel 4:34-35)
What a glorious statement! We will come back to this statement (either later or tomorrow), but what really struck me about the whole passage was this verse:
'And they shall drive you from men, and your dwelling [shall be] with the beasts of the field. They shall make you eat grass like oxen; and seven times shall pass over you, until you know that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men, and gives it to whomever He chooses." (Daniel 4:32 – emphasis added)
This seems fairly okay, until you think about it a second time: wouldn't you get the idea that God rules straight away, if He was able to force you to eat grass and act like an animal? If He turned you into an animal, don't you think that immediately you would realize that He meant business and He was awesome? So why does God say that Nebuchadnezzar should be a beast for 'seven times'? Here, I think, is made clear a the difference between the way God intends our lives to be lived, and the way we frequently believe they should be lived.
You see, we are a culture and a being that enjoys immediacy, and respects knowledge (to a large extent). In this way, we in our Christian life can often treat it like learning a subject at school – learn a fact or truth or doctrine and believe it and then start on the next one. We have somewhere in the back of our minds that if we could possibly just learn every single thing there is to know in the Bible then we would somehow be perfect people. Rubbish. The Christian life is just that – life. Life is meant to be lived, not learnt. You may learn about living, but you may not live by learning. God has made us experiential creatures, that is, learning things is not always so simple as understanding the concept and applying it to the memory bank. Sometimes it takes a certain experience – a lovely walk along the beach, a loved one's death, failure, success, etc – to learn something. Life is meant to be lived. And that is what God has in mind. Yes, Nebuchadnezzar probably would have cottoned on to the idea that God is awesome after a few seconds of being a beast – but if he turned back into a full human straight away, then although he knew it, he would forget it just as quickly when temptation and trouble came (remember the parable of the sower when he sows seed on rocky ground?). Even though he knew it, he would not have been living in that knowledge and experiencing it – which is what sets it there and makes it real. So God wisely said that he would be a beast for seven times – time for him to live what he was learning.
Let us never forget this – do not think that by learning every fact in the Bible we can become better Christians, get out there and live it. Read these devotions and hold them in your memory and live in their context. Read your Bible and go out and live in the context of what you read. Experience it.
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