THE
BEAST HEART
Dr. W.
A. Criswell
Daniel
4:28-33
03-07-71
10:50 a.m.
On the radio, on
television you are sharing the services of the First Baptist Church in Dallas,
and this is the most fortunate pastor in all of God’s world. I am the
undershepherd of this precious flock. The title of the sermon is The Beast
Heart, and it is an exposition of the last half of the fourth chapter of
Daniel. We are now preaching through the Book of Daniel, and the first message
in this series was presented last Sunday morning at this hour.
Several people this
week have asked me: “You say that the fourth chapter of the Book of Daniel is a
tract. It is a personal testimony written by Nebuchadnezzar through Daniel.
If that is true,” they have asked me, “how is it that you say that the Bible is
the inspired, inerrant Word of God, when this is a tract written by a heathen
king?”
We must understand what
is meant by that inerrant, infallible, inspired Word of God. The inspiration,
the infallibility, the inerrancy lies in the truth of the record. It is here
just as it happened. In the Bible, Satan speaks. But those words are
truthfully and inerrantly recorded, what Satan did and what Satan speaks. In
the Bible, long pages of what Job’s comforters say; and they were like vermin.
But it is written here in the Bible. In the Bible, you have the sayings of
false prophets and false witnesses and false apostles.
But the inerrancy lies
in the truth of the record. It is exactly here in the Bible as it happened.
And when I read the Bible, I am reading the truth of the record. So in the
fourth chapter of the Book of Daniel, I have a tract written by a heathen
king. And it happened exactly as it is recorded here in the immutable,
infallible Word of God.
Now, a brief summary—it
starts off with the king being at rest in his palace in Babylon. His wars of
conquest are done. He is now consolidating his world authority and building
his golden city. And as he lies at rest you would think he would dream dreams
of affluence and wealth and splendor and grandeur, but instead he sees a dream
that frightens him. It is a tall, towering, terrible tree that is cut down.
And when Daniel finally
is invited to interpret the dream, the dream is a message from God to
Nebuchadnezzar. It is a rod of smiting and correction. He shall be insane
seven years until he repents and before God bows in acknowledgment of his sins,
turns from them, and receives the Most High God as the Lord of his life.
Now, the decrees of God
as He threatens men with judgment are always conditional—always. The universe
apparently runs by mechanical laws and motions. Actually, it is not true. The
universe and we are run by a personal God. So, when Daniel has delivered that
message of awesome judgment to King Nebuchadnezzar, he closes with an appeal,
“Wherefore, O king, let my counsel be acceptable unto thee.” As graciously and
as sweetly as a courtier could bow before his monarch, does Daniel plead with
Nebuchadnezzar: “O king, let my counsel be acceptable unto thee. Break off
thy sins by righteousness, thine iniquities by showing mercy to the poor; it
may be”—for He’s a God of mercy and forgiveness—“that it shall be the
lengthening of thy tranquility” [Daniel
4:27]; that God will forgive and will
bless.
Now, why this awesome
judgment upon Nebuchadnezzar? Ah, could you imagine the threatening of God,
seven years to be insane and to live like a beast? Why that awesome judgment
upon Nebuchadnezzar? For several reasons: one, he was a personally cruel and
tempestuous and violent man. He had no self-restraint in his anger. And every
conquest added to his arrogancy and his vanity. He was cruel beyond what even
Oriental monarchs are and have been known to be.
For example, in the
Book of Daniel, in the second chapter he is preparing to butcher a whole class
of men because they could not recall to him a dream he had forgotten. In the
third chapter of the Book of Daniel he is heating a furnace seven times hotter
for the roasting of three Hebrew young men who refused to bow down before his
golden image. In the twenty-ninth chapter of the prophet Jeremiah he names two
Jews that Nebuchadnezzar roasted in the fire. In the twenty-fifth chapter of
the 2 Kings he refined cruelty and put out King Zedekiah’s eyes only after he
had slain his sons before his face. In the twenty-fourth chapter of the 2
Kings he takes Jehoiachin—who is only eighteen years of age—he takes Jehoiachin
and imprisons him for an offense for thirty-six years. Nebuchadnezzar
personally is cruel, and violent, and tempestuous, and fiercely antagonistic
and vindictive.
All right, another
thing; politically he brought untold misery to the world, not content with
laying under tribute the nations that he conquered. But he learned that bitter
lesson from that cruel Assyrians. He uprooted the people, and he deported
whole nations and scattered them and resettled them among strangers and in a
strange land. Think of the hopelessness and the helplessness and the untold
and indescribable misery of whole peoples as they were deported out from their
homes and land into a foreign and a strange country. Why, the very path of the
victor’s march could be marked by the corpses of women and children and the old
and the sick, who were not able to keep pace with the army.
And think of those
people as they lifted up their eyes and their homes gone, and their nation
destroyed, and they’re living in a strange and a foreign land. I can feel the
heartthrob and the blood drops and the very tears of the one hundred,
thirty-seventh Psalm: “By the rivers,” by the canals, “by the rivers of
Babylon, there we sat down. We wept when we remembered Zion. We hanged our
harps upon the willows in the midst thereof. For they that wasted us required
of us a song. And they that carried us captive required of us mirth. How do
you sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?”
That is Nebuchadnezzar;
not only was he personally cruel and vindictive, not only was he militarily and
politically indifferent to the cries of the helpless people, but he was himself
arrogant and prideful and lifted up. Why, when Daniel said to him, “Thou art
that golden head,” Nebuchadnezzar wanted the entire image to be made out of
gold, and he, that image, in the third chapter of this book, Nebuchadnezzar
sets himself above his gods. They do his bidding, and if one of his gods
displeases him, he burns the priests, and he razes the temple even with the
ground.
Why the judgment of God
upon Nebuchadnezzar? Again, he refused to repent. Nebuchadnezzar the king, in
his authority and in his grandeur, had before him a courtier. And that
courtier bowed before him and said, “O king, let my counsel be acceptable unto
thee. Break off thy sins by righteousness. Turn away from thine iniquities by
showing mercy to the poor.”
Did he do it? Why,
though he was eminently, preeminently successful—the greatest general possibly
who ever marched at the head of a conquering army—yet righteousness was no part
of his program. The prophet Habakkuk describes in prophecy prediction the
coming of the army of Nebuchadnezzar. Quoting the Lord:
Lo, I raise up the Chaldeans, that bitter and hasty
nation, which shall march through the breadth of the land…
They are terrible and dreadful…
Their horses are swifter than the leopards, and are more
fierce than the evening wolves. They shall come all for victory, their faces
shall set to the east, and they shall gather captives like the sand.
[Habakkuk 1:6-9]
“Righteousness”? He
didn’t know the word, nor did he propose to learn it. And as for mercy—“Break
off thine iniquities by showing mercy to the poor”—I don’t know whether he ever
heard the word or not. To us it is second nature to think of the desperation
and despair of the poor. But Nebuchadnezzar, like Napoleon for one thing, they
were cannon fodder. And as for his golden city, he was building it with slave
labor. And he populated his empire, around Chaldean Babylon, by those
miserable, unhappy wretches, whom he dispossessed from home and homeland and
brought to be his slaves and servitors. Mercy? Whoever heard that the poor
had rights? Mercy? They were like animals to him to be used for the
furtherance of his own prideful ambition.
And the day of judgment
fell. At the end of twelve months, twelve months, how earnestly did the Lord
plead and wait! At the end of twelve months, why, he’d forgotten about it; it
had gone out of his mind, the appeal of his servant and statesman, Daniel.
Twelve months—God waited, hoping, praying, maybe! But at the end of those
twelve months, ah, Nebuchadnezzar may have forgotten, but not God.
The mills of the gods grind slow,
But they grind exceeding small.
And though he tarry long in grinding,
Yet, with exactness he grinds us all.
[Longfellow]
And at the end of
twelve months that judgment fell. If a man will not listen to the quiet
pleadings of the Lord, if he hardens his heart and closes his ears against the
sweet whisperings of the Lord of heaven, then the Lord has terrors in His
hand. He has damnation and judgments at His command. He has a smiting rod and
a correcting staff. And those judgments of God are awesome to behold. It came
about like this.
At the end of twelve
months, he was walking on the top of his golden palace. I can just see
that—the king, proud, arrogant, the dictator of the whole civilized earth. The
riches of the Mediterranean and the Persian Gulf, the Elamites, the Egyptians,
the Armenians, the Assyrians, the Jews—the whole earth were his, all of them,
all of it. I can just see him as he walks on the top of his golden palace, followed
by his administrators, satraps, his lords and his counselors, as he walks they
reverently, at a distance, follow behind as he walks.
When he comes to the
end of the terrace, he turns, and they obsequiously, sychophantly bow on either
side, and open a way for him to walk in between. He does not mark their
presence. Not even mindful at all, for he’s filled with pride—selfish,
egotistical, vain. The king spake and said, “Is not this great Babylon?” And
I can see him look over the balustrade of his golden palace at the horizon of
Babylon from sky to sky, it rises in splendor: “Is not this great Babylon that
I have built for the house of my kingdom by the might of my power and for the
honor of my majesty?” Oh, every syllable of it describes the vainglory and
pride of that arrogant monarch.
And just when he said
it, like a clap of thunder, like an earthquake, like an intervention and
interdiction from heaven, like lightning and fire, his mind snaps! He’s
insane—standing there in that moment, in grandeur and arrogance, the
authoritarian, totalitarian monarch of the civilized world, his eyes steady,
his gaze clear, his mind, the gifted genius of that golden head—and the next
moment his eye is unsteady. He has the countenance and furtive look of a beast.
He’s mad! And as one in fear and despair and dismay hides himself, so the king
ran away from his fears—an ox, an animal hiding himself in the thickets along
the Euphrates River. The abasement was abysmal. It was complete and
remorseless. This king, who as the general of his army conquered the whole
earth, now hides in fear and desperation in the thickets, in the fields, in the
forest, in the wilderness. And this man who sat at the table, tasting of all
of the dainties of the earth, now eats grass like an ox—a monomaniac—all of his
faculties and emotions except just one. The horror of it! The agony of it!
The distress for seven long, interminable years; “And at the end of the
days”—seven years—“I Nebuchadnezzar lifted up mine eyes unto heaven” [Daniel 4:34].
What does that recall to you? The one hundred twenty-first Psalm: “I will lift
up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from
God, who made heaven and earth.”
“At the end of the days
I Nebuchadnezzar lifted up mine eyes unto heaven:” Does that recall to you the
story of the prodigal son who, far away from home and in a far country and in a
pigpen, came to himself? “He came to himself…” Does that bring to your mind
the Gadarene demoniac, whom Jesus healed? And he’s now sitting and clothed and
in his right mind, looking up into the face of Jesus.
“At the end of the days
I Nebuchadnezzar lifted up mine eyes to heaven.” He had turned. He’d
changed. He’d repented. “And I blessed the Most High God. And I praised and
honored Him that liveth forever and ever.” He found the Lord!
Some men won’t find Him
any other way. They have to be beat down. They have to be smitten unto the
rod of God’s correction. They won’t learn any other way. And Nebuchadnezzar
was that. Under the awesome judgment he raised his eyes up to heaven and
blessed the great Most High who liveth forever and ever. And is God merciful?
He always is! When you change, He changes. When you turn, He will turn. The
smiting hand and the correcting rod become our staff, our strength, and our
blessing.
“And my reason returned
unto me” [Daniel 4:36]. Well, you could just preach a sermon if we had
time. When a man’s outside of God, he’s mad. When a man turns aside from the
mercies of the Almighty, he’s insane. He’s lost his mind. But when a man is
his best self and his finest intellect, when a man has reached the zenith of
his glory as a thinking, intelligent, moral creature, his reason has come
back. He’s thinking right: “My reason returned unto me; and the glory of mine
kingdom; and my counselors and my lords sought me; and I was established in my
kingdom, and the excellency and majesty was added to me.”
Look at that just for a
moment. Do you realize what that says? Why and how could it have been that
that kingdom was maintained for Nebuchadnezzar for seven interminable years
while he was mad? Why, it’s something that God had to do. Did you know that
when Nebuchadnezzar died, his son, Evilmerodach, inherited the throne? He
reigned three years. He was murdered by a usurper.
And did you know the
kingdom only lasted twenty-seven years after that? And it was destroyed
forever. It disappeared from the face of the earth. And yet, for seven long
years the kingdom is maintained for Nebuchadnezzar. Why, would you not have
thought that those nations that he had conquered would have rebelled? Would
you not have thought that those wild tribes that he held in subservience would
have been on pillage, and rampant, and rampage, and plunder? Yet the kingdom
is quiet. How can that be?
I think for one thing,
his wife Amytis, the queen—the Median, mountain girl whom he had married, and
on whom he had lavished those unbelievable, ah, how many things of grandeur,
raising a mountain there called the Hanging Gardens, the seventh wonder of the
world—the queen, Amytis, must have been a part of that. But above all and most
of all, I think it was his faithful vizier, Daniel, who did it.
He guided the affairs
of the kingdom, keeping the promise of God before him, that at the end of those
seven years, if Nebuchadnezzar humbled himself, God would give him back his
scepter and his throne and his kingdom. And known to Daniel the exact day of
those seven years, I can see that glorious statesman prophet and faithful friend—isn’t
that a strange thing? He seemingly loved that king despite his vindictiveness
and his cruelty and his fierce, volatile spirit. Daniel seemed to love him.
And I can just see Daniel at the head of the king’s counselors and lords and
governors. I can see him at the head, searching in a wilderness, in a forest,
in a thicket.
“The counselors and my
lords sought me.” And led by Daniel, they find the king in some wilderness
place. And he’s the same glorious monarch that had conquered the world and
built the golden city and kingdom of Babylon. Except this, except this—the old
arrogancy was gone. And the old pride was gone. And that bitter, volatile,
cruel, vindictive spirit was gone—and humble and bowed, lifting up his eyes to
heaven, giving glory to God. Ah, what a scene! Wouldn’t you have liked to
have been there that day and have witnessed the colossal, celestial, heavenly
change in the life of that golden monarch?
And the first thing he
did now—and that’s the last and concluding verse—“Now I Nebuchadnezzar praise
and extol and honor the true God” [Daniel
4:37]. And in his testimony he asked the
whole world to know and to listen and to rejoice with him. Nebuchadnezzar the
king—that’s the way it begins—“Nebuchadnezzar the king, unto all people, and
nations, and languages that dwell in the whole earth: it is good for me that I
tell you the wonders God hath wrought toward me” [Daniel 4:1-2].
The testimony of that heathen king—should we be
ashamed of what the Lord has done for us? Should this heathen king out-speak
and out-testify and out-witness us, who have been saved by the cross of the
sacrifice of the love and sobs and tears and grace of the Son of God? As he
wrote to the whole earth this tract that all peoples and nations might know of
the grace of God given to him, what of us?
Are there no words of
testimony by which I can thank Jesus for the grace and mercy that extended down
to me—dying for my sins, raised for my justification, interceding in heaven
that I might finally some day make it through those golden gates and glorious
streets? O Lord, are there no words that I can speak, no sentences that I can
say, no prayers and praises of exaltation and gratitude? Lord, where are my
testimonies and my expressions of thankfulness? God, touch my tongue.
“Pastor, you don’t
realize. I am not gifted in speaking and in testifying.” Listen, we’re not
asked to be philosophers, and metaphysicians, and theologians, and
rhetoricians, and logicians. My brother, in the kingdom of God, and in the house
of the Lord, and in the faith of Christ, the burning logic always is when a man
says, “This is what I have felt in my heart. This is what I have seen with my
eyes.” That’s logic and rhetoric. That’s philosophy and theology that burn;
it’s touched with the coal of fires from off of the altar of God.
I don’t know how to say
it; don’t have syllables, and sentences, and words, and nomenclature, and
language, and vocabulary to put its meaning—but this I know: “One time I was
lost, and now I’m found. One time I was blind, and now I see.” I have found
the Lord! Oh, blessed be His name! Praises to His majesty! All glory to
God! I’ve been saved! I’ve given my heart to Jesus! Always and everywhere
our testimonies, sweetly, quietly, beautifully, deeply meaningfully ought to be
made—the sacrifice of love and prayer and praise placed at our Savior’s feet.
Would you do that
today? In a moment we shall sing our hymn of appeal; would you come down here
and tell me that? “Pastor, I want to be numbered among the people of God. I
want the Lord to have me. I open my heart heavenward, Christward, Godward, and
I’m coming today.” A family you, in the balcony round, on this lower floor; a
couple you, or just you, “Here I am, preacher; I’m coming today. The same Lord
God, who in His grace spoke to Nebuchadnezzar, calls me, and I feel it in my
heart, and I’m coming.” Make the decision now just where you are. Lord, Lord,
make the decision now. And in a moment when we stand up to sing, stand up
coming down that stairway, or into the aisle and down to the front, “Here I
am. I make it today.” Do it now. God will bless you and see you through.
Come now, while we stand and while we sing.
