Season two of Love in Context podcast welcomes you.
Get ready for engaging unscripted conversations with your host, Ben and Spencer.
Our mission remains unchanged to explore the Bible through the powerful lens of love.
In this new season, we'll embark on a journey together, unearthing fresh insights and gaining
deeper understanding of how we can love God and live out our faith in practical ways.
So let's dive into this season of Love in Context, where love in the context of the
Bible intersect to transform our lives.
Welcome back podcast, Love in Context.
I said that in like, it was like a Yoda version with a very horrible impression of his voice.
No, that was, that was a perfect, that was a perfect Yoda.
You ever heard my Chewbacca?
Hi Spencer.
How are you?
Disney, if you're looking for a replacement voice actor.
We found, we found a candidate for you.
So well, Kings and Kingdoms, week number four.
Yeah, let's go.
If you are with us today, what do you mean if they're with us?
They're literally watching the video or listening if you're with us today.
So if you're listening today, I'm tired.
Okay.
I just want to let you all know this.
I'm tired.
Haven't got much sleep lately, but well, I will say if you, if you are watching, you'll
notice that Spencer cut off a lot of his beard and his, his wakefulness was actually in his
beard.
So when he cut it off, he got much more sleepy.
Yes.
100%.
So we're going to be talking about Nebuchadnezzar today.
Nebuchadnezzar.
Yeah.
So there's some references, good old nebby, but really Daniel is probably the place you're
going to want to hang out with.
Right.
And, and then, so before we jump into this, just a reminder of where we are in the series,
we're talking about the, the non-Israelite Kings and their impact on culture, their impact
on the Bible, the impact on the world around them and how God was working in and among
that area.
Yeah.
Amongst that area.
I forgot the G on that.
And you'll notice as we go further and further into the series that you might be listening
and be like, wow, they keep pulling up more and more cultural context for each King, the
further and further they go.
There's a reason for that.
Yeah.
It's actually really simple.
The further back you go in time, the less written record we have about stuff.
And so, so you might hear us reference some different cultural context, contextual pieces
for these Kings moving forward.
And that's just how it is.
Yeah.
In a few weeks, we're going to be on like Herod the great and Caesar Augustus.
And there's so much, there's so much information.
I wouldn't even be surprised if those episodes are a little bit longer, about four hours
long.
Yeah.
We're not going to do a four hour episode though.
Yeah.
Somebody would listen.
Somebody would.
There is, by the way, if you're the listener, like just welcome, but there is a listener
that we have in Singapore that has listened to every episode.
Yeah.
I don't know who it is, but welcome.
We love that you're here.
Yeah.
All right.
So let's jump into Nebuchadnezzar's life.
So as far as time period, we're looking at about 605 to 562 BCE.
That's before the common era, era, era, era, era, era.
And episode already.
And Nebuchadnezzar is known historically, like beyond how he's known in the Bible.
He's known for a couple of things.
He's known for his military conquest, his archaeological, or sorry, architectural achievements.
That's different than archaeological.
And then the third is actually his role in Jewish history.
So I want to touch briefly on some things historically, talk about his architectural
achievements.
So he had these massive building projects, the two that have survived, right?
Because there were others, but these are the two that have survived.
There's the Ishtar Gate and the Hanging Gardens.
Now if you've heard Hanging Gardens before, you know that's actually one of the seven
wonders of the modern world, right?
Or ancient world.
And they symbolize, yes, innovation, but there were so much about wealth, sophistication
of Babylonian culture, being like, hey, we can do this better than anybody else can.
Well, and the Hanging Gardens were also in a desert wasteland, right?
The city that they were in was surrounded by nothing.
So you had Nebuchadnezzar being like, I can do anything I want.
It basically is a power status.
He's basically claiming that he's on the same level as a god.
Yeah.
And I mean, if you need to think of a modern example, think about Las Vegas.
It's literally in the middle of the desert and there's no reason a city should be there.
And there's like, we're going to make it happen.
Yeah.
And then we're going to have a city, we're going to have a city like a thriving city.
Now it has a football team, right?
And it's not a thriving football team, but you step outside of the city and you're reminded
almost immediately.
Oh yeah, we're in a desert.
Uh huh.
Yeah.
And they're real hot.
Yeah.
So beyond that, there was like I said, the East Stargate, the Hanging Gardens, and there's
a number of places that you can actually see some of his achievements.
There's a thing called a cuneiform.
It's basically an ancient tablet, but there's inscriptions that detailing his victories
and his various building projects.
And so while they can't always find all the building projects because time, right?
And conquest and you know, all those different things that happen over the, over man, I'm
getting a ton of emails.
I mean, yeah.
All right.
I'm going to have to all the conquests and all the things that happen over time.
There is a list of a bunch of different things that he has said to have done and it would
just radically shaped the world.
So to Spencer's point, like you said, he's like, Hey, I'm like God, I can just turn the
world into whatever I want to do, which is very common with dictators.
Yes.
Right.
With Kings that are conquest Kings.
We're going to see this a lot with Nebuchadnezzar.
We're going to see again with Darius.
We're going to see it with Osu!
Areas.
You're definitely going to see it with Caesar Augustus, right?
Like this whole like status piece on the military side of things.
They he greatly expanded Babylon's territory.
I mean, they became one of the most powerful empires of the Near East.
It included Judah, Syria, parts of Egypt, and it established Babylon as a dominant political
force.
And then beyond that, he started to establish alliances and vassal states.
Now we've talked about vassals in the past when we were talking about covenants, right?
But essentially what a vassal is, is it's a state that's run independently.
You pay tribute to.
But if you have a country and let's just call it Spencer Stan, that's a great name for it.
It's Spencer Stan and he is he is a vassal of Babylon.
He says Babylon says I will send you X amount of my exports every year in tribute.
But if I get invaded by one of my neighboring countries, you're going to come and back me
up.
Yeah.
And so while you're technically free and you haven't been placed subservient, you're basically
a servant of the more powerful nation.
It's the equivalent of being in like Army Reserve or something like that.
Yeah.
Right.
And now it's good for these countries because one, they don't get run roughshod over and
like Babylon could have just wiped them out completely.
But the other piece is now they actually have this protection because they're paying tribute.
They're paying their subscription fee to Babylonian army that if somebody comes in and tries to
challenge them or tries to wipe them out in other country, Babylon will step in and say,
nope, these are our guys.
Right.
So that was a that was a that's a very different move, by the way, at this time of warfare
because it was about controlling the territory.
But like Babylon is now like, hey, we're going to take some of your supplies, but then we'll
back you up with our might where they're going to let these people continue to be independent.
But really, they're underneath their thumb.
Like that's just a shift in military warfare.
Now, the Babylonians, they actually were one of the first nations to really try diplomacy.
And this was like kind of the method they were did it through was like, hey, like a
little bit barter trade and you're going to back us up.
We'll give you this, so on and so forth.
Well, and because of that, you have a lot of like cultural intermingling going on.
Right.
So you have people, the conquered people blending traditions, languages, religious practices.
It starts to really just shift in and and and change like the art that's being created,
the literature that's being written and the philosophy of the ancient world.
Right.
And Babylon actually specifically was became like the center for like knowledge, too.
Like they started having libraries and scholarship and preserving advanced knowledge, specifically
three areas, astronomy, mathematics and literature, which isn't surprising if you're actually
going to be involved in a lot of building that those would be the big ones.
And so you're having this this massive shift, like to your point, why don't we have these
things with like Neco the second and like the previous people we've talked about?
They weren't writing things down like that.
Like there's no printing press.
There's no established process to write these things down.
And it's also a lot longer ago.
Yeah.
So things sometimes survive and sometimes they don't.
Yeah.
And so Babylon, they really they really kind of operated in a little bit of a different
way.
And the other thing to mention with them going back to like military conquest, they were
brutal in the war tactics.
Yeah.
Like they they had a diplomacy about them.
But when they're like, yeah, we're done.
We're going to take you out.
They were ruthless.
They did a lot of siege warfare.
So so instead of just going in and wiping the city out, which they actually had the power
to do, they're like, no, we're going to starve them out and torture them.
Yeah.
Right.
You got to get a real like step up of a Syrian vibe.
Yeah.
They took what the Assyrians were doing.
Like we can do this better and anything you can do, I can do better, says the Babylonians
to the Assyrians.
But and so like when they but like when they did the siege on Jerusalem, like it was a
siege that lasted a long time.
Yeah.
It lasted I think it was years.
Yeah.
It was not a short one.
No.
And so and they basically starved the city out into some into submission.
And one of one of the things we haven't necessarily talked about these, but a lot of times like
these cities that are being Jerusalem and different cities that are being like where
they're being put in the ancient Near East is because they're actually near a water source
of some sort.
Yeah.
So to actually starve out and like a city under siege takes a while because you actually
a lot of times inside the city walls will have food and you'll have water and you'll
have protection.
And so you have to be have great supply lines and different things to be able to actually
siege that place.
So it's just a it's a it's a growing modernization of warfare.
Yeah.
Right.
And but the brutality isn't getting any less brutal.
It's still brutal.
Yeah.
One of Babylon's key things was cut off the water.
Yeah.
Like they when they would go into a place to lay siege to it, they would they would actually
go set up camp around the water supply so they would have all the water they need.
But they would also cut off the supply to the rest of the city.
Right.
And we have you don't have water, you don't have food, you're not going to last forever.
Yeah.
A couple of places you can actually read about Nebuchadnezzar specifically is in the Babylonian
Chronicles and then of course in the Hebrew Bible, which we're going to be talking about
today.
But those are those are some of the places that you can actually read about him historically.
And then of course, the geological evidence, archaeological evidence of himself.
So the let me grab my Bible here.
So in the in the Hebrew scriptures, though, the place that he is most prominently talked
about is actually in the Book of Daniel.
And so we're going to we're going to turn to Daniel.
So if you have not been in Daniel in a while, why don't you just pause and flip over there
with us so that you can read it as well.
Let's go ahead and look here in the beginning of Chapter one in Daniel, it says here in
the third year of the reign of Jehoiachem, king of Judah.
Now we remember Jehoiachem because that was Necho the second Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon,
came to Jerusalem and besieged it.
And the Lord delivered Jehoiachem, king of Judah, into his hand, along with some of the
articles from the Temple of God.
These he carried off to the temple of his God in Babylonia and put the treasure in the
treasure put in the treasure house of his God.
So this is at the end of Necho the second Babylon has come in and attacked Egypt.
And now they've come into Jerusalem and they actually are taking over Jerusalem and getting
ready to take over the southern kingdom overall.
Yes.
Right.
So this is Jehoiachem, who was actually reappointed by Necho the second, which, by the way, I'm
just saying this to connect you to last week's episode.
So now we're now we're being introduced in this book of Daniel that this is a book about
that's going to be about captivity.
Right.
Because this book is Daniel and his friends are being taken out of Israel and they're
going to a foreign land and they're going to be serving in their court.
And it's going to be how do you remain faithful to Yahweh in a foreign land?
Yeah.
And if you guys aren't familiar with the story of Daniel, go get familiar with it.
We are tackling the side of Nebuchadnezzar today.
Correct.
We're not tackling the Daniel side as much today, which we will still reference it because
it's part of the story.
Right.
But that's not going to be the focus.
I'm going to recommend the Bible Project overview of the book of Daniel.
They have a lot of really good short clip videos that will help you get the context
of what's going on there.
So if you want, if you're not familiar with the book of Daniel, I'd recommend going over
to the Bible Project and doing the read scripture on Daniel before you come back and listen
to what we're talking about.
So we got to talk about Daniel a little bit just so we know that where he's at in the
story in relation to Nebuchadnezzar.
So Daniel was brought to Israel.
His name is actually Daniel.
And then they actually changed it to Belshazzar.
Yeah.
That's just going to roll off the tongue.
Roll off the tongue.
Yeah.
If you're having kids, just start reoccurring.
And then there's a few other prominent players, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
Also known in the Hebrew names as Hananiah, Mishrael, and Azariah.
And so Daniel is shown as someone who is faithful to God and gentle in his approach.
Right.
Like he's not shown as someone who is this mighty warrior.
He's not shown as someone who is going to go take over the nations.
He is someone who's I'm going to be faithful to God, lobby so I can follow his decrees,
and show that he's going to be blessed through his faithfulness to God.
And so what happens is through a series of events, Nebuchadnezzar starts to see this
in Daniel.
Yeah.
I think in chapter one, what you see is when they come to this thing about the diet, because
they want to fatten everybody up to be part of the king's court.
And Daniel says, no, we need to actually hold to our ways, the Yahweh ways, and God will
take care of making us the way we need to be.
And so they start to, in chapter one, you see them starting to trust Daniel's instincts.
Because Daniel has instincts and his God is in his corner, which then leads into chapter
two, which is where Nebuchadnezzar has his dream.
So I think probably it's important to really emphasize, we talked about this a little bit
in spiritual gifts, but in the Bible, dreams are much more significant than we treat them
today.
Yes.
Yeah.
And that was all cultures, like their dreams, especially dreams that were significant.
And I always think it's crazy that these guys wake up and they remember everything about
their dream.
And I've had a couple of those and they've always been related to God speaking specifically
in my life.
But most of the time, yeah.
I've also had times where I've woken up and my wife's been like, man, you must have been
having a bad dream.
I was like, I don't know.
Like I've just, yeah, I've had those times too.
Right?
So, so remember what we said?
Nebuchadnezzar has been accumulating.
He's been accumulating systems of knowledge.
He's been accumulating people.
He's been accumulating wise men and all these different cultural experiences, all these
different cultural perspectives.
So then he has a dream and he brings all the smartest guys to come and talk about it.
Right.
And, and he asked everybody, Hey, I need you to interpret my dream.
And nobody can.
Right.
And even if they could, some of them don't want to take a shot at it just in case they're
wrong because, well, Nebuchadnezzar Babylonian King, most powerful person in the world.
You don't want to give him wrong information because I usually, it ends up with your head
being on, right?
Which was common practice.
Like if you went into a King's court, like Nebuchadnezzar and gave misleading information,
it was common practice to be like, all right, prison, the rest of the life or death.
Yeah.
Like one of the two.
Right.
Yeah.
So, so in the, in the story, Nebuchadnezzar, he's like, he's like, man, is there nobody
that can give me a solid answer here?
Right.
Nobody who can give me a solid answer.
And which point they, there are somebody gets wise and they say, Hey, you know, there's
this guy by the name of Daniel and maybe they're throwing him under the bus because he's a Jew.
Right.
Well, may I?
Yeah.
Great.
I personally, like when I read this story and it wasn't till last couple of times I've
read it where I was like, Oh, his wise men were making a political move.
So they want to get killed.
Right.
Like they're like, there's this guy who seems to know something.
Let's throw him under the bus.
Cause he's just a Jewish outsider.
So who cares if he gets it wrong and gets killed.
Right.
Like that's on them.
That's on, that's on him for getting it wrong.
And we were just giving misinformation.
So there's this, there is this piece of like, their wise men be like, we're going to just
throw them under the bus.
Yeah.
And metaphorical cause they didn't have buses.
But we're going to throw them under the chariot, the chariot, throw them under something that's
going to kill them.
Okay.
Yeah.
And, and we'll let him take the fall for our incompetence.
Yeah.
No, that's, that's 100%.
Well, that's 100% what I feel is going on.
We can't say it definitively, but you go read the story and see what you think.
That's my interpretation.
So then Daniel gives the interpretation and I want to read, not Darius, Nebuchadnezzar's
response to what Daniel has to say.
So as this here, verse 46 chapter two, then King Nebuchadnezzar fell prostrate before Daniel.
Okay.
Stop.
The king of the most powerful country in the world just bowed down to Daniel, who is a
slave, Jewish slave.
Okay.
And he paid him honor and ordered that an offering and incense be presented to him.
Okay.
First of all, Daniel probably doesn't want this, but that's okay.
The king said to Daniel, surely your God is the God of gods and the Lord of Kings and
a reveler of mysteries for you were able to reveal this mystery.
Then the king placed Daniel in a high position and lavish many gifts on him.
He made him ruler over the entire Providence of Babylon and placed him in charge of all
its wise men.
Moreover, at Daniel's request, the king appointed Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and ministers
over the Providence of Babylon while Daniel himself remained at the royal court.
Okay.
That's going to be important because that has to do with the one in the next stories
of King Nebuchadnezzar coming up.
Yeah.
So you've got this ultimate dictator, right?
Has this dream.
Nobody wants to touch it.
Right?
What about this Jewish slave?
Right?
We heard he's got some thoughts and then he comes in, he delivers this interpretation
of the dream and he's like, yep, that's it.
That's it right there.
Right?
And some of us would be like, oh, you know, Daniel's just, you know, putting pieces that
would fit, that would, you know, please the, no, that's not what's happening.
What's happening is God is saying, okay, you guys are going to try to like, this is my
interpretation.
There's going to be people who disagree with me.
There's lots of actually debate about Daniel chapter two.
One of the nice things about the love and context podcast is you're welcome to disagree
with us.
That's yeah.
Yeah.
You have Daniel being thrown under the bus and then God being like, how would I just
make fools out of them?
And so through the end of through the end of chapter two, what you see is you see, okay,
you're going to throw my boy, Daniel under the bus.
Daniel is now going to be your boss and he's going to appoint three more Jewish slaves
as administrators for the province.
Yeah.
And so, um, yeah, the King bowing down to Daniel, the most powerful person.
And then, uh, Daniel is actually rising from slave to ruler over an entire Providence.
It feels like I've heard this story before.
I feel like in the book of Genesis, there's a guy by the name of Joseph and under very
similar circumstances that God does a story.
And by the way, you should be connecting this story and Daniel back to the book of Genesis.
That is not to say that the story is, uh, is, uh, that the author is, is he's putting
pieces in there to connect you back to this truth back in Genesis.
That's going to be very common in these books to connect back to Torah.
Yeah.
And I point that out because I'm actually going to point something out later that connects
back to Genesis as well.
Um, that's very common in the book of Daniel.
So then, uh, Daniel suggests that, Hey, we should appoint Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
Right.
Or as a pastor Tyler would say at Abednego, uh, that is an inside joke and he may or may
not listen to this ever, but I love it.
Um, so the next story, the next story, literally the next chapter, next verse is coming in
here is this story that a lot of you are probably familiar with, but, um, but that's probably
from veggie tales.
Uh, the rack shack and Benny episode where it talks about the, which by the way, contextually
they get a lot of stuff wrong.
So many things.
Yeah.
So, so we'll, we'll address a little bit of that.
Yeah.
Um, so there is, uh, there is this, this, uh, decree that now kingdom of Knesser, he,
uh, once again, very full of himself, King, right?
He makes a, uh, image of gold and he says, you know what?
I think everybody needs to worship this.
Right.
Uh, and most people fall in line, but there's three guys who won't fall online and it's
a problem because they're also very powerful people now because of the previous story.
So he has three powerful people who refuse to bow to, which is one thing veggie tales
gets wrong.
Yeah.
One thing.
Also, it wasn't a chocolate bunny.
So, uh, I'll quit calling veggie tales.
I love veggie tales.
Yeah, no, it's, and it's made for kids to kind of like understand like pieces of the
story.
So, um, you have, you have three powerful people in his province being like, no, I'm
not going to bow down to that.
Yeah.
And so he's like, well, this isn't going to work because you, you, I, you really need
to understand, like you need to contextualize who Nebuchadnezzar is.
He is the guy you do not say no to.
And he's got three people who will say no, by the way, Daniel at this point hasn't said
no to Nebuchadnezzar.
I'm sure there's something he said no to, but you know, but like he hasn't said no in
the text, right?
Um, he has given him advice.
He at one point has interpreted a dream, but, uh, everybody has said yes to Nebuchadnezzar.
Now there's three people appointed by Daniel and that he says everybody has going to have
to bow down and worship this.
And they go, no, we're not going to do that.
And specifically, I want to point out what they say.
Let's see here.
Well, and while you're, while you're looking that up for the person who's typing on the
keyboard being like, well, Daniel's not mentioned in chapter three.
I was like, that doesn't mean he's not present.
Correct.
It just means he's not mentioned.
All right.
So take a look here.
He talks to them.
He says, is it true Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego that you do not serve my gods or
worship the image of gold I have set up.
Now when you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipe, or any, all kinds
of music, if you are ready to fall down and worship the image I made, very good.
But if you do not worship it, you are going to be thrown immediately into a blazing furnace.
Then what God will be able to rescue from my hand.
Now what is the blazing furnace for?
It's probably for consuming sacrifices.
Right?
So in other words, I'm going to sacrifice you to my gods.
Right?
Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to him, King Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend
ourselves before you in this matter.
If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from
it and he will deliver us from your majesty's hand.
But even if he does not, we want you to know your majesty that we will not serve your gods
or worship the image of gold you have set up.
So one of the things I always like to point out about these guys and the way they answer,
they have absolute trust in God.
Right?
They were slaves, they were elevated to positions of authority, but their authority is not so
important to them that they forget where they come from.
They don't forget their story.
And they say God is perfectly able to do this.
But if he doesn't, I'm still not going to do it.
And I think sometimes when we're living in a culture where it is not Christian, or living
in a place where it's not Christian, and we have difficulty with that statement, it's
like, even if it costs me, I'm not going to change what I believe.
I have faith in what God has done in my life.
And so it can cost me everything and God is perfectly able to see me through the storm.
If he doesn't though, it's not going to change what I believe.
Yeah.
So you have Nebuchadnezzar's response to this, which is he's like, it says he was furious
and heats the furnace up a lot.
Yeah.
Right?
He was like, okay.
He's like, so burning you alive is not good enough now.
We're going to make sure it really hurts.
It's so much that literally people die trying to throw them in the fire.
Yep.
And which, by the way, should show your regard, like Nebuchadnezzar's regard for human life.
Right?
He's like, he's so furious at the people who said no to him that he's like, I'm willing
to lose people who are loyal to destroy the people who are not loyal to sacrifice them
to my gods.
Yeah.
I'll show you.
Yeah.
And so you have, many of you know the story.
So then you have, there's a fourth person that shows up in the fire after Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abednego get thrown in and they walk out unscathed.
Yeah.
Right?
And then you have Nebuchadnezzar.
Let me find it here.
I should have...
Before you get there real quick, while you're looking for that, I want to give people a
couple of tidbits because I think it'll be fun for you to research.
There is actually a story in the Mishnah that talks about Abraham being in the fire, in
the furnace, as a fourth man.
So I just think it's interesting because that is a piece that has been around prior to the
book of Daniel being written.
Yeah.
And so this fourth person in the fire is not a new piece.
And so I always wonder if there's a little bit of connection back there to some of the
oral tradition.
Yeah.
And then later, since you're going to the Bible Project anyways, I'm going to tell you,
like, they have a lot of stuff on the son of man.
Check out some of those videos because it's going to be really interesting if you track
that theme throughout the Bible.
And then when Jesus comes as the son of man, what's actually being said.
We're not going to talk about it today, but it's really cool.
So do check that out.
Yeah.
So when Nebuchadnezzar sees a fourth man walking in, he reverts back to his response that he
gave Daniel in chapter two.
And this is verse 26.
Nebuchadnezzar then approached the opening to the blazing furnace and shouted, Shadrach,
Meshach, and Abednego, servants of the most high God, come out, come here.
Okay.
So you have the guy who was just pronouncing himself as God saying, okay, I can't do that.
So you guys who serve the most high God, I want to see you now.
Yeah.
You have Nebuchadnezzar who just tried to pronounce himself as God saying, okay, I'm
not, I can't do what your God just did.
Your God's the most high God.
And then you jump over to verse 28 and Nebuchadnezzar says, praise be to the God of Shadrach, Meshach,
and Abednego.
I feel like we've heard this before already in the book of Daniel, right?
Where he's already praising God.
You already see this kind of wave of Nebuchadnezzar's life where he's like, I'm a God.
Nope, you're the God.
And then, nope, I'm the God.
So you kind of see that wave happening here.
Who sent an angel and rescued his servants.
They trusted him and defiled the king's command and were willing to give up their lives rather
than serve or worship any God except their own God.
Now any God there, interestingly enough, he's referring to himself because that's what he
was trying to give him to worship.
Therefore I decree that any person of any nation or language who says anything against
the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego be cut into pieces and their houses turned
into piles of rubber, rubble.
Rubber.
Rubble.
Yeah.
For no other God can save in this way.
No other God can save in this way.
By the way, you skipped over this verse, but I just want to point out when they came out
of the fire, the sat traps, prefects, governors, and royal advisors crowded around them.
So they come out right in the middle of all the most powerful people in the nation.
And there's not a mark on them.
The ropes are gone.
The guards who throw them in, they're gone.
And they walk out completely unscathed.
Right?
And by the way, if you're wondering, you're like, hey, you've talked about repeating text
before.
I wonder if there's a chiasm in Daniel.
There is.
There's actually multiple chiasms in the book of Daniel.
We're not going to get into them today because that's not really the purview of this episode.
But it is a really good place for you to go start looking into.
Yeah, so they walk out into the most powerful crowd in the world, right?
The world elites and Nebuchadnezzar makes this proclamation of like, do not speak ill
of their God.
And then he, and it's really interesting because he's like, oh, praise be to this God.
By the way, if you speak ill of this God, I'm going to do what I just tried to do to
them.
Yeah.
Right?
So he hasn't had a heart fully turned yet, but he's like recognizing there's this powerful
God.
Oh, by the way, if you diss him, I'm going to kill you.
Right.
Which actually leads us into the next chapter, which is the last place in Daniel that we're
going to see Nebuchadnezzar.
So Nebuchadnezzar has this great dream of this great tree.
And, and, and ultimately Daniel translates this for him.
That's going to be a subsequent humiliation and restoration of what's going on to him.
He shares his dream and Daniel and he explains it.
He says, so that Nebuchadnezzar is going to be like a wild animal in the field.
He's going to eat grass and he's going to be crazy basically.
And then that actually happens, which by the way, it makes you wonder what's going on in
the government in Babylon.
Right?
That aside, he comes back and he makes this statement here at the end, written from the
perspective of Nebuchadnezzar in verse 34 of chapter four.
He says, at the end of that time, I Nebuchadnezzar raised my eyes toward heaven and my sanity
was restored.
Then I praised the most high.
I honored and glorified him who lives forever.
His dominion is an eternal dominion.
His kingdom endures from generation to generation.
All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing.
He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the people of the earth.
No one can hold back his hand or say to him, what have I done?
At the same time that my sanity was restored, my honor and splendor were returned to me
for the glory of my kingdom.
My advices are noble, sought me out and I was restored to my throne and became even
greater than before.
Now I Nebuchadnezzar praise and exalt and glorify the king of heaven because everything he does
is right and all his ways are just.
And those who walk in pride, he is able to humble.
This is quite the story, right?
It's just a crazy story, right?
Because I think even though we've tried to explain how big of a deal Nebuchadnezzar is
at this point, he's it, right?
He is the most powerful human on earth at that point.
There's nobody else.
And he has this dream and he starts acting like a wild animal, loses his sanity and he
just disappears and apparently nobody goes to look for him because God's going to do
what he's going to do.
He's going to humble the proud.
Right.
And he brings back Nebuchadnezzar, the most powerful human in the world.
And he goes, yeah, I got nothing on God.
This guy, this guy knows what's going on.
Right.
Well, you see the story of Nebuchadnezzar and this, this is what the history books and
archeological achievement people will, won't tell you, but you see the story of where first
encounter with God, he's like, okay, this God's real.
And then he immediately reverts back to him.
His old self second counter is like, okay, I'm going to praise this guy because he can
do stuff I can't do.
But by the way, if you diss him, I'm going to cut you into pieces.
And then this, then this third encounter and he probably had more than just these three.
This is just what we have written down.
This third encounter, he gets to a point where he's like, man, I was at the top of my game
and I got cut down and the Lord's going to restore me and I'm going to praise and worship
him, give him everything I have.
And here's the interesting thing throughout this whole story.
Where in this story does the text say God was mad at Nebuchadnezzar?
There's no indication that that's the case.
No, the indication is that you have a God that was seeking him out.
Yeah.
It'd be very patient and drawing him in.
I'm actually going to, I'm going to take that idea and poke it a little bit further because
I'm going to come into Jeremiah 25.
And I want to read something that God says about Nebuchadnezzar through the prophet Jeremiah.
Therefore, the Lord Almighty says this, because you have not listened to my words, I will
summon all the peoples of the North and my servant, Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon, my
servant.
Jeremiah mouthpiece for the Lord calls Nebuchadnezzar, who's servant?
God's servant.
Interesting.
And then in chapter 27, he says this of Nebuchadnezzar.
He says, now I will give you all your countries into the hands of my servant, Nebuchadnezzar,
King of Babylon.
I will make even the wild animals subject to him.
Okay.
Can you remember anywhere in the text where the wild animals were subject to a single
demon?
I'm being facetious.
Yeah.
Was that back in Genesis?
It was back in Genesis.
Oh, okay.
Yeah.
In other words, it's almost like he's giving him the mandate of Adam, right?
That he's to rule this area and subdue it.
Now of course, the media thing that you should be in your life, I hear it.
I hear it, right?
People type in to us is like, but you just said Nebuchadnezzar was brutal.
And you said that he did all these different things.
Yes, he did.
Yes.
And God still wanted him.
And God still used him.
And God still worked through his life.
And God still revealed himself to him, right?
We have a God who's like, I'm going to show you that no one is beyond redemption.
Well think back to season one when we're talking about this conflict between God and Pharaoh.
And God is bringing the 10 plagues and he's judging the gods of Egypt, right?
And there's this interplay where God is pursuing Pharaoh and the people of Egypt and inviting
them to something.
Now ultimately they reject it, but God's invitation is still there the entire time.
Well some of the Egyptians go.
Some of the Egyptians go, yeah.
And so one of the things that I've always loved about this story and I try to pass on
to other people is don't write off the horrible people, right?
The Lord wants to reach them and wants to redeem them.
There is a difference between not appreciating but not accepting the actions.
You can absolutely look at the actions.
For example, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego say, listen, we're not going to bow, right?
I understand you're the most powerful person in the world.
I understand you can squish us like a bug.
I understand that you can heat that furnace up and try to toss us in.
We're still not going to do it.
And God's capable of saving us, but if not, we're still not going to do it.
That is standing firm in the midst of chaos, right?
And so there is a call to be able to do that.
But when we're standing against evil, we still need to realize that God is pursuing people.
So make sure you're standing against evil and not the people doing evil.
Now you're going to split hairs there, and I understand, but God is still passionate
about those people.
Yeah, you just have to be able to distinguish between the people and actions, right?
Because people can be redeemed.
People can be redeemed.
Right?
Through the power of Christ, people can be redeemed.
And you have to think like in your brain, listeners, I want you to think about that
person who just can't do it.
God loves that person as much as he loves you.
And he feels about that person the same way that he feels about you.
And if we're going to be followers of Jesus, we have to figure out a way to feel, not to
say the same way, because I think it's going to be hard, but at least to live in such a
way that we want to feel that way toward the people that have completely wronged us.
What we're not saying is that the wrong is OK.
Doesn't mean that it didn't hurt.
Doesn't mean that it's not going to take time to get over.
But God is a God of redemption.
He's a God of restoration.
He's a God of putting the broken back together.
And that's the call of the Christian community, even in the midst of a tyrannical government
like Babylon.
If we live like Daniel and Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, we say, how do we live in the
middle of a world where we're the remnant?
And we stand completely firm in the middle of a lot of things that are against us.
But we do so in love and compassion, but with unyielding, not unyielding, unwillingness
to compromise our faith.
And I think that's really hard.
That's super hard.
Well, and if we're just being honest, it's really easy to be selfish when we see that
quote unquote horrible person that we despise be redeemed.
That can be a really hard thing because in our selfish nature, we don't want to see that.
And so when Nebuchadnezzar returns to power and he's like, I am following after the Lord,
it was probably a shock to some people.
And there's probably some people who he really harmed that they're like, we don't want to
see him as a good person now.
Right?
Yeah.
I mean, think about the countries that he literally carted off in his slavery, right?
And I mean, take that concept and you could tie that to the one person that the Lord redeemed
that you know that was a horrible person before.
And you're like, I don't want to see them redeemed.
And there's a heart check you got to do, right?
You got to check your heart and be like, no, the Lord loves them just as much as he loves
me.
Just as he redeemed me.
Right?
He wants to redeem them or he's redeemed them.
One of the things that they so one show that I've recommended multiple times is called
The Chosen.
I think that it does a really good job of helping you think about stories in a different
light or think of them as real stories rather than just text on a page.
Right?
But one of the things that I had enjoyed enjoyed about that is this ongoing conflict of the
disciples struggling with Matthew, the tax collector, you know, this guy who was like
Jesus calls him.
But he was the guy who literally exacted taxes from you on behalf of a foreign government
and lined his pocket at the same time.
And there are a lot of like, I mean, you see the Pharisees are like, he eats with tax collectors
and sinners like they're so bad, you can't even listen with sinners, you know?
And and yet Jesus calls one of them to be a follower of his and they leave everything
to go do that.
Yeah.
Like those people who are on the outside are the people that God wants.
And it's a really it's a really difficult thing.
The last thing I would say here is we kind of emphasize Nebuchadnezzar is one of the most
powerful people, probably the most powerful person in the world at that point.
I think that there is a tendency when we read this story specifically in America to see
ourselves as the remnant.
I think that we need to be honest is that we actually exist in a much stronger position
of power than most people in the world.
I think about technology and authority and all these different things.
And we are going to the story when we read it, I think there's a good question to ask
yourself is with the power that's been entrusted to me by God.
Yeah.
Am I using it to promote justice and love, compassion, forwarding the kingdom of God,
or am I building golden castles for myself to worship?
Yeah.
And that's a good question for you to ask.
Like it is it's it can be humbling at times.
And sometimes you'll be like, nope, I'm doing good job.
Sometimes you're like, whoo, missed it with that one.
But when we when we're born into America, we're born into a lot of power and authority
and what we do with that matters.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah.
Kings and kingdoms.
Well, if you enjoyed it, keep listening, keep listening and tune in next week.
If you didn't enjoy it, you probably didn't hear this message at the end.
Yep, probably not.
Have a good one.
And that's a wrap for today's episode of Love and Context.
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