Oh my, King Nebuchadnezzar. We would be wise to acquire wisdom from this King’s story. He was a great conqueror but he also had a great problem with pride. Uncontrolled pride is self-destructive, and we see how God deals with it.
This was one night of many where King Nebby was very shook up and frightened by a dream he had; God sent him a series of dreams with prophetic messages that could be revealed and understood only by a servant of God. He called on Daniel (King Nebby gave Daniel the Babylonian name Belteshazzar, meaning “BA’AL protect the king”). The secret was revealed to Daniel in a vision…
Bad news for the king. Daniel was stunned, and wondered how to break the news.
“Belteshazzar replied, ‘I wish the events foreshadowed in this dream would happen to your enemies, my lord, and not to you! The tree you saw was growing very tall and strong, reaching high into the heavens for all the world to see. It had fresh green leaves and was loaded with fruit for all to eat. Wild animals lived in its shade, and birds nestled in its branches. That tree, Your Majesty, is you. For you have grown strong and great; your greatness reaches up to heaven, and your rule to the ends of the earth.
Then you saw a messenger, a holy one, coming down from heaven and saying, ‘Cut down the tree and destroy it. But leave the stump and the roots in the ground, bound with a band of iron and bronze and surrounded by tender grass. Let him be drenched with the dew of heaven. Let him live with the animals of the field for seven periods of time.’
This is what the dream means, Your Majesty, and what the Most High has declared will happen to my lord the king. You will be driven from human society, and you will live in the fields with the wild animals. You will eat grass like a cow, and you will be drenched with the dew of heaven. Seven periods of time will pass while you live this way, until you learn that the Most High rules over the kingdoms of the world and gives them to anyone He chooses. But the stump and roots of the tree were left in the ground. This means that you will receive your kingdom back again when you have learned that heaven rules.” Daniel 4:19-26
King Nebuchadnezzar’s story has been running through my mind a lot lately. Perhaps it’s because quite a few of us have had our trees cut down and destroyed. We have had to learn that God is Sovereign. He alone is God, and one of the most difficult lessons to learn is how to walk humbly with our God. Learning humility took me on the most difficult ride of my life. These words from a dear friend echo in my mind…
Oh how my heart identifies, and how my soul resonates with that statement! Pride can stifle you. It can lie to you. It stunts growth. It’s poison to the soul.
Pride goes before destruction, and haughtiness before a fall. Proverbs 16: 18
In this account, there is a warning to all not to think of themselves pridefully while they harden their hearts against God. After King Nebby was greatly humbled and mortified, he acknowledged God’s dominion over him – there is a God that governs the world and has a universal, incontestable, absolute dominion in and over all the affairs of the children of men. Other reigns are confined to one generation, and other dynasties to a few generations, but God’s dominion is from generation to generation.
After King Nebby was humbled, his kingdom was restored unto him; thus ‘Cut down the tree and destroy it. But leave the stump and the roots in the ground’.
That’s good news.to all of us who’ve had our trees cut down and destroyed . WE”RE COMING BACK!!! BUT WE”RE NOT WHO WE USED TO BE!!! HALLELUJAH!!!