I would like to read a very well
-known portion of scripture out of Daniel.
Chapter 4.
Bear with me if I read a few
verses.
I'll read from verse 24.
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 people and
will live with the wild animals.
You will eat grass like cattle and be
drenched with the dew 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.
Your kingdom will be restored to you when
you acknowledge that heavenly 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.
We'll read thus far.
Here in this portion of scripture we hear
how Daniel interprets the dream of the King.
And after he has interpreted and told the
King what's going to happen to him and
his kingdom, then
Daniel turns to the King and personally addresses
him and says, O King, be
pleased to accept my advice.
Isn't that something wonderful?
That immediately after the interpretation of that dream,
Daniel pleads with the King.
And at the same time he warns the
King.
And he says, you know, if you repent
from your sins and turn away from evil,
it might be that God will forgive you
and He'll turn away this which is going
to come upon you and He'll turn it
and He'll grant you prosperity.
And how terrible that the King didn't heed
that warning.
But you know, so often that very same
thing happens to you and to me.
My mother comes and she warns me.
My father comes and he warns me and
he pleads with me and says, don't do
that.
Why are we people so stiff-necked?
Why are we so self-willed?
Here, a child of the Lord, a young
man comes to the King and he pleads
with the King.
And he says, you know, this is the
interpretation of your dream.
This is what's going to come upon you.
But I want to give you advice.
I want to give you hope.
I want to help you.
Renounce your sins.
Turn away from your sins.
Don't continue doing that what you are doing.
It is displeasing to the Lord.
Please don't.
And you find people pleading with people and
say, please turn away from your evil ways
and turn to God.
Don't live your own life anymore.
Please don't do as you please.
Don't think that you are the only person
that is right.
Turn away from that and put God first
in your life.
Let God be the first in your life.
Acknowledge Him.
And let your life from now onwards belong
to the Lord where God is God in
your life.
Yes, we all want to serve God.
We all acknowledge or say that we are
Christians.
But God says, there is something in your
life which I detest.
There is something in your life which I
don't like.
Turn away from it.
If you don't turn away from it, you
will have to reap the consequences.
And yet we find ourselves stiff-necked and
self-assured.
We continue with that what we think is
right.
We can say, oh no, God is blessing
me.
God is speaking to me.
Just like the king was.
Just look at the prosperity he enjoyed in
his kingdom.
And he had all reason to say, God
is blessing me.
And he had all reason to say, I
am on the right way.
Just look at how I am blessed.
And little did he realize God was blessing
him in such a way because he wanted
his heart.
And that is so often we think everything
is fine, I am on the right track,
because God is blessing me, everything is going
according to plan, and we don't realize that
God is actually against us.
And we don't realize that God does everything
in his power to draw us to himself.
And here we see a king having a
dream.
And in this dream, Daniel interprets that dream
for him and says, King, you are in
the gravest of dangers.
Don't continue on that road.
Please accept my advice.
Turn away from your sins.
Renounce your sins.
And do what is right.
You see, so often we can think that
what I am doing, what I am thinking
is right.
And we don't realize that it might be
contrary to the will of God.
And that is the danger of us Christians,
that we become self-assured.
And we think we are still on the
right track.
And God's word comes to us every Sunday.
And God speaks to our hearts.
God warns us.
God pleads with us.
But it doesn't change our lives.
We continue the way we've been living the
last 10, 20 years.
And we don't want to submit under the
mighty hand of God.
And here we get Daniel coming to the
king and saying, I'm warning you, please turn
away from your ways, those ways which you
are going.
Although you might think they are blessed, they
are a curse in God's eyes.
They are a curse in God's eyes.
In Colossians 1 verse 3 we read, Him,
Jesus Christ, we preach warning every man and
teaching every man in all wisdom that we
may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus.
That we warn every person.
Teaching every man.
That is important, that we warn the people
if we see that they aren't walking in
God's ways.
That is the message of a preacher.
That we warn the people that they might
be sanctified and purified with the precious blood
of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Teaching them in every possible way.
Warning them.
Telling them, listen, that way which you are
going is the wrong way.
Submit to God.
Even if you think you are on the
right way, you are not doing anything wrong.
You know that is the most difficult thing
for a person to submit, to bow, to
acknowledge, to accept, if he thinks he is
right.
Hear the king thought, he is king, he
is prosperous, everything is going according to his
plan.
And he sees all the people, all the
nations, they accept him, they honour him as
king.
And God in his love and his mercy,
he speaks to him.
How often has God spoken to you already?
And yet you continue in your way.
You continue in that what you feel is
right.
And you continue in that which appeals to
you.
But to submit and to bow to something
where you feel, I don't agree with it.
I don't feel at home here.
I, you know, it's far too pressurising.
And they put fear into my heart.
Oh, I wish I could put fear, the
fear of the Lord into everybody's heart.
But here we see King Nebuchadnezzar being addressed
by a young boy, and that young boy
interprets the dream the king had, and he
says, renounce your sins, turn away from them,
and do right.
How often has God spoken to you?
And you know it's wrong what you are
doing.
But somehow you are vindicating yourself.
You somehow try to prove to yourself that
the way I'm going is right.
Instead of just bowing, submitting, admitting, and say,
God, I bow under your mighty hand.
That's why so many people land in trouble.
That's why you see so many people, all
of a sudden it is as if God
withdraws his hand from them, and they are
in dire need.
And whatever they do, doesn't turn out to
be good.
And you work, and you pray, and you
do all sorts of things, and think, I'll
still get it right in the meantime.
You don't realise that God is against you.
And sickness comes upon you.
And accidents come your way.
Nobody understands you.
It is as if everybody is against you.
And you only see the fault in the
next person.
Instead of bowing and saying, Lord, what are
you trying to tell me?
Because everything that happens to a Christian has
passed God.
Everything works together for good to them that
love the Lord.
So if things come your way, know very
well, it's got to work together for good,
for your life.
And instead of bowing low and saying, God,
oh please help me, forgive me, cleanse me,
I don't want to go my way.
I want to submit to your way.
But know, I still try to vindicate myself.
I still try to prove to others that
I'm right.
And I'd like to give you an advice
this morning.
Submit and bow to the will or to
the mighty hand of God.
You know, it's easy to submit and to
bow to God if you know you are
wrong.
But to submit and to bow, if I
for myself think I am right, then to
submit becomes difficult.
And we forget that God's thoughts are not
our thoughts.
God's ways aren't our ways.
They are far higher than what we can
think or comprehend with our mind.
And that's why it is so important that
we learn that if God speaks to us,
if God's word warns us, bow, submit, don't
be stiff necked.
Just look at Noah.
When he was warned about the things which
were yet to come, which weren't seen yet,
he submitted and in a holy fear, he
started building the ark.
And every person on earth looked at him
and thought he was mad.
Everyone said that what you are doing is
totally insane.
Do you see, that is the moment we
try to think with our mind, with our
human mind.
We are in the danger to go against
that or not to accept that which is
in God's place.
When the wise men went to Bethlehem to
see the born child Christ, they
were warned in a dream not to go
back to Jerusalem, not to go back to
Herod.
And they had promised King Herod, we are
going to come back and we are going
to tell you where Christ is born.
Now according to our thinking, we would say,
no, well, we have committed ourselves, we have
got to go back to Herod and tell
him where the child is born.
But through a divine dream, God warned them
and said, don't go back to Jerusalem.
And they listened, they
submitted to the will of God.
Noah submitted to the warning of God.
And through that, they saved themselves.
Noah saved himself and his family by bowing,
by submitting, not to their thinking, but to
the will of God.
Joseph was warned not to go back into
his home country.
But he was warned in a dream and
said, go to Galilee.
And he lived in Nazareth from that day
on.
Here we have the wise men, we have
Noah and we have Joseph heeding the warning.
Against all human thinking.
But they submitted to the speaking of God.
And that is important.
Oh, I wish we could learn that.
And that saved them.
And if you want it to go well
with you and to be under the blessing
of God, then heed the warning that is
coming to you from this pulpit.
Heed the warning when God's word speaks to
you.
That is most, most important.
And Daniel said to Nebuchadnezzar, If
you don't acknowledge God in your life, this
will come upon you and your kingdom.
And if you don't admit and recognize and
acknowledge that everything is of God.
And that's why I asked the youth choir
to come and sing that song again.
Where we recognize and acknowledge that God is
God.
And that God gets his rightful place.
And instead of the king heeding this warning,
and acknowledging that everything he has and his
whole existence, his whole kingdom, is there because
of God, because God gave it to him.
Now just listen to this tragedy.
After God has spoken to him through that
dream.
After sending that little boy Daniel to him,
who warned him and who pleaded with him.
And he said, you turn away, you renounce,
that you turn away from your sins and
from your life in the past.
It may be that then your prosperity will
continue.
Twelve months later, as the king was walking
on the roof of the royal palace of
Babylon, he said, is not this all the
great Babylon I have built as the royal
residence by my mighty power and for the
glory of my majesty.
God had warned him, Nebuchadnezzar, don't do that,
give me the glory, give me the honor,
I want to be king and God in
your life.
And he used that young boy and that
young boy warned him and pleaded with him
and yet he didn't have a change of
heart.
Tell me, how often has your father pleaded
with you?
How often has your mother pleaded with you?
How often has your brother pleaded with you?
How often has the preacher pleaded with you
from the pulpit?
How often maybe through you reading the word
of God, God has spoken to you, pleaded
with you, warned you and you didn't change.
And you just say, no, I'm continuing, I'm
carrying on the way I'm used to.
I'm driven by my feelings, because I'm convinced
that I'm not doing wrong.
And I'm sure people have done me wrong
and I just carry on, I bulldoze my
way through.
I don't want to listen, I don't want
to heed the warning, I don't want to
acknowledge God, you are God.
I take it out of your hand, you
are doing this to humble me, to attain
your purpose with me.
Lord, I bow to your will.
I submit my whole being to thee, whether
I understand it or not.
But here we see the king going on
to the top of the palace and he
looks over Babylon, over all that what he
has done and he said, that's what I
have done.
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.
Oh children, pupils, parents, how terrible when that
voice rings out from heaven and says, all
your royal authority has been taken away from
you.
All that what you thought you were, all
your work you have worked for 10, 20,
30, 40 years and all of a sudden
you realize and you feel it, it's been
taken away from me.
What a terrible day must that have been,
where all of a sudden you realize, hey
that what I had, I have lost.
That prosperity, that joy, that feeling of being
good, all of a sudden it's gone and
you feel empty, you feel desolate and you
feel forsaken.
And he was driven away from the people.
All of a sudden he wasn't amongst the
people anymore.
He didn't feel at home anymore.
You don't feel at home amongst the Christians
anymore.
And you go, we in English say you
go to the dogs.
And we go to the animals, we live
with the wild animals, we eat grass, we
behave like an animal who hasn't got a
brain.
And just imagine this king, he was eating
grass, he was behaving like an animal, he
was sleeping with the animals, he was amongst
the animals and he was quite happy there.
Because his mind was taken away from him.
And oh Christian be careful, be careful, be
careful that you don't end up there with
the animals.
You eat grass, you behave like an animal
and you don't even realize it.
And for seven years he lived like an
animal, outside in the wild, in the desert.
Terrible if a Christian ends up in the
desert amongst the wild animals, amongst the cows,
the goats, the donkeys and that's where he
feels at home.
Tell me where do you find yourself today?
In your spiritual life.
It would be good if you just think
for a moment, where am I spiritually?
Am I still there where I once was?
Or have I lost everything?
I just do as if everything is in
order.
But in the meantime I'm living with the
animals.
You know there's only one thing, when I
read this, I just bowed down and I
said God, there's no God like you are.
Although I have failed so utterly,
although I've been living with the animals, I've
been living in the desert.
I've behaved like an animal.
God has a time and when God's time
was fulfilled, those seven years,
he lifted his eyes to heaven and acknowledged
God.
And when he lifted his eyes and acknowledged
God and said God, you are the first,
you are the last, you are the only
one, you are God and everything is of
you and from you, his mind and his
senses came back to him.
Thank God that there is a time.
And maybe God is giving you that time.
Please lift your eyes to the one, to
our creator, the one who died for us
on Calvary.
Oh, that you don't fall into more sin.
That you don't fall into deeper darkness.
That you don't wander off into the desert
and it's deserted.