Gooding, David: 4 - God and Culture: A Tale of Two Cities

In our book of Daniel, and we have come, in fact, almost to the midpoint of our small series. It is therefore appropriate, surely, that we look around us at the beginning of our study this evening to take our bearings and to see where exactly we are in the book of Daniel. Shall we do that by taking in hand our sheet of notes with which we have been provided, and facing page one, look at section Roman numeral number two, contents of the book of Daniel. And we notice there the two columns, and the first item in column one is, of course, Daniel's refusal to eat the king's impure food, and Daniel and his colleagues, in taking that stand, are vindicated. We studied that incident on Sunday last, in the second of our studies, and saw it contained Daniel's critique of Gentile pagan education. For the setting of that incident was the university in the imperial city of Babylon. Then we moved on last, uh, on Sunday evening, we moved on to chapter two, to consider Nebuchadnezzar's dream image, and we found that the setting had changed. It was no longer a setting of education, but a setting of politics. And here, through Daniel and through the vision given to Nebuchadnezzar by God, we had one of the two divine critiques of the politics of the Gentile imperial. Now, if tonight we went on to study chapter three, which in fact we shall not be doing, if in- if we were to study chapter three, we should find that it continues the theme of Gentile politics from another point of view. In chapter two, uh after all, the central feature was the image of a man given in the vision by God to Nebuchadnezzar. In chapter three, we should meet another image, the golden image which Nebuchadnezzar made and set up for political reasons as an attempt to achieve political coherence amidst the rulers and deputy rulers in his vast empire. However, tonight we shall not be looking at chapter three. that remains for our final study on Sunday next, God willing. We shall move tonight, first of all, to chapter four, and We shall find that once more the setting changes. It is no longer the university and the general setting of pagan education, nor is it particularly the setting of Gentile world. It is what you may call, if I may use the general term and not be misunderstood, culture, Gentile culture. For chapter therefore is about Nebuchadnezzar as the one who was responsible for the rebuilding and the beautification of the city of Babylon. That genius of an artist and builder and planner that made the newly rebuilt city of Babylon one of the seven wonders of the world, majestic and glorious for the splendor of its arts and architecture, its city planning, its murals, its hanging gardens, and so forth. We are now in chapter four in the context of Gentile culture. And so we shall still be when in our last study next Sunday, God willing, we come to chapter five. For perhaps we oughtn't to use so exalted a term as culture of the event of chapter five. Uh, perhaps we might dismiss it as socializing, but it is the story of a glittering banquet that Belsh- uh, Belshazzar, the Prince Regent, put on in the city of Babylon towards the end of his reign. It was a magnificent banquet, with all the splendor that the Prince Regent could muster in that marvelous civilization. A banquet given to a thousand of his lords and all their ladies, every one of them dripping with diamonds and tiaras, and the nobles with their military medals and their dress. It was fantastic, and as for the cuisine, I forbear describing it to you, lest your lips should water over much, you'll say. If it wasn't high culture like art and architecture, yet the building in which they held the banquet was, it was a magnificent showpiece of Babylonian architecture, and inside they had a banquet such as I would suspect would make the Lord Mayor's Banquet of London look like a, a lorry driver's cafe. So tonight then, we are going to begin this, uh, uh, question of Babylonian culture and God's critique of Gentile culture. It is to be a story, you see, of Babylon rebuilt and restored. I never could never. But alongside of that, we shall go to the right hand column, to the item that stands opposite, and that is chapter nine in the prophecy of Daniel. Now, that is an exceedingly famous chapter in Daniel, as you well know, for in its few concluding verses, there is one of the most notorious prophecies of the whole of the Old Testament. They not only, uh, uh, describe the final restoration of Jerusalem, they tell us the times, as the rabbis would put it, the times of Messiah. They prophesied when the Messiah would be born in Jerusalem, and how he should be cut off, and what would be the result of his nation's rejection of him and crucifixion of him, how that as a result of that crucifixion, desolation should come on to Jerusalem until the very end. And they prophesy when that end shall be and give us a detailed, detailed timetable regarding the same. Daniel chapter nine therefore, is exceedingly famous and has been the subject of much detailed studies by many a learned preacher and commentator. Tonight we shall not be dealing with that aspect of the prophecy. My limited abilities would not stretch that far anyway, but we shall not get the time to do that. What I wish to do is to call attention to the theme that chapter nine has in common with chapter four. For as you look at those two chapters, you'll see they are a tale of two cities. And to see that more in detail, let's turn over the page to page two of your sheet of notes, and look down the columns to chapter four on the left hand side and chapter nine on the right hand side. Chapter four deals with Babylon City, the glory of the magnificent city of Babylon rebuilt by Nebuchadnezzar. Chapter nine over the other side deals with an equally perhaps more famous city, not Babylon this time, but Jerusalem. The two great pivotal cities of the ancient world and indeed of the Old Testament. And not only the pivotal cities of the Old Testament, but in a sense the pivotal cities of the new. For all of you, I suspect, will be familiar with the fact that when the book of the Revelation comes up to, comes to sum up the history of mankind and what has been going on through the centuries in our world, it finds it convenient to use, on the one hand, the figure of Babylon the Great, and on the other hand, the New Jerusalem, the bride of the Lamb. These two cities, therefore, have that much in common. They are about the two famous cities. And in my way of vivid and eloquent contrast, chapter four deals with the glory of Babylon. It describes the time when Babylon stood there at the very peak of its splendor. And over the other side, chapter nine describes Jerusalem during one of those sad periods when the city of God stood in ruin. Then they have another thing in common. Chapter four is the story of how God disciplined Nebuchadnezzar, the great monarch, the rebuilder and restorer and beautifier of Babylon City. God disciplined him. And chapter nine accounts for the desolations of Jerusalem. Not so much on the ground that it was bad, this same Nebuchadnezzar that destroyed it, though that was true. It accounts for the desolations of Jerusalem in terms of God's own discipline of his ancient people and his city. The magnificent thing about chapter four, however, is this, that God took the trouble to discipline an old ungodly monarch like Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, if you please. It is at once an extraordinary demonstration of the magnificent grace of God, is it not? Who would have thought that the Almighty God would have troubled his head five minutes about Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, whether his fingernails grew long or short, or whether his hair was nicely cut, or whether he lived like a beast. Oh, but the fact is, the amazing fact is, and one we should try to digest again this evening, that God is concerned not only with his people that know him by the ties of redemption and salvation. God is the savior of all men, though of course he is the savior of those that believe in particular. And God is concerned still, as he was concerned with Nebuchadnezzar, for Nebuchadnezzar's mental health and his aesthetic taste, moreover, and his moral health, and for his spiritual welfare. And so concerned was God for Nebuchadnezzar that he took the trouble to discipline him, and that not to destroy him. Do try to believe it. God disciplined that, uh, Gentile godless monarch who had destroyed Jerusalem city and lay waste to its temple and stolen its sacred vessels. God taught the trouble to discipline him that he might bring the man to his senses and, and notice it please, and restore him. Isn't that magnificent? God restores Nebuchadnezzar. And hence, as we shall read, when the watchers and the executives of God's discipline pronounced their sentence upon Nebuchadnezzar's tree, they gave careful instructions that the tree was not to be rooted out and destroyed completely, simply cut down, but the stump bent and a band carefully put round it, that in due course, after seven times, the tree might grow again. And if we gain no other lesson from our study this evening, it will be a heart-widening experience and reminder of the magnificent grace and mercy and patience of God. And if chapter four is about God's discipline and eventual restoration of Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, chapter nine is about God's discipline of the city and people of Jerusalem. And I will notice a solemn thing that we noticed in our first study last Saturday evening, that whereas Nebuchadnezzar's discipline lasted for what is termed seven times, the disciplines of Jerusalem are said to last for seventy times seven, Nor yet are they complete. That's a heart-chilling observation, isn't it? And the question immediately rises, why is God apparently more severe with Jerusalem than he was with Nebuchadnezzar? Part answer, of course, is this, that in Nebuchadnezzar God was dealing with one individual. In Jerusalem, he is dealing with a city and a nation. But there's a deeper reason, isn't, isn't there? Jerusalem City was God's city, its inhabitants his people. Hence his disciplines are not less, but more severe. You only have I known amongst all the nations, said God through Amos the prophet to Israel. Therefore, I will visit upon you your iniquity. For all the solemnity of that announcement, yet of course through its shining at the end of that long, long tunnel comes the assurance that Jerusalem city will one day be restored. As we read these historical and prophetic things, tonight, of course, we shall be particularly interested in what they have to say to our own hearts, both as creatures of God, like Nebuchadnezzar was, in the ordinary affairs of daily life. Then in the second part of our study, as children of God, for we have not come to a literal Jerusalem city, have we? Ours as Christians is another calling, but we have come to the New Jerusalem, the heavenly city of God, and we too need grace that we may seek to serve God in all godliness and godly fear. Or as those who represent the Jerusalem that is above, for our citizenship is in heaven, isn't it? We too stand under the discipline of God. So without further ado, let's come to the story of Nebuchadnezzar in chapter four of the book of Daniel, to consider this question of God's discipline of the king. And I suggest to you that at this point we shall have to take especially great care, lest we misinterpret what we are about to read. You'll see our danger lies in this, that in many parts of the Old Testament, Babylon City has got to itself an exceedingly bad reputation. The beginnings of the city of Babylon in the book of Genesis, they are related. The beginnings of the city of Babylon were inauspicious indeed. They started on altogether a wrong foundation, spiritually as well as physically. Later in Old Testament times, the sins of Babylon rose so high towards heaven that God pronounced his judgment upon them. And then in the New Testament, as we have already remarked, that the Babylon eventually becomes a symbol of consummate evil. Babylon, mystery of great, the mother of harlots, the home and den of every evil beast, unclean bird, and evil spirit and demon. And because of that, if we're not careful, we might misinterpret what now chapter four of the book of Daniel is going to tell us. We might suppose that Babylon City itself was so evil that that was the cause why God disciplined Nebuchadnezzar. But that, of course, is not so easy. In chapter four of Daniel, it's not the city that comes under God's judgment, it is the city's king who comes under his discipline. And you won't say that he was disciplined because he was king of Babylon either, will you? For the very same chapter tells you it was God who raised him up to be the king of Babylon. Nor will you say, will you, that it was because he had made the city of Babylon too brilliant and splendiferous where he was judged. Because when he was judged, disciplined, he was eventually restored, and he tells us that God restored him to his former brilliance. In fact, he gave him even more brilliance, and for the brilliance of his glory, all his lords and dukes and whatnot sought unto him once again. It was God who gave him the brilliance in the first place, and it was God who restored to him his brilliance after his discipline. We must get that straight to start with, else we shall go astray. What was wrong then with Ba- uh, Babylon's king Nebuchadnezzar? Why did God have to discipline him? Well, just let's remember again the significance of Nebuchadnezzar. He was the, as I have said, the rebuilder and restorer of Babylon, and a magnificent job he'd done. You'll see it was Nebuchadnezzar's policy, actually, as distinct from the later Persians. The Babylonian kings had the policy that whenever they invaded a foreign country and defeated it, they would cream off all the intelligentsia, the philosophers, the political leaders, the architects, the artisans, the technicians, anybody that had any craft and any sense in his head or any special ability, they would cream them off. They would just leave all the dregs behind, and they would cream off the leading men and take them to Babylon and set them to work beautifying Babylon. For you could make something of Coventry if you pursued that policy, couldn't you? Uh, well, you have already, of course. I'm not disputing that or questioning the fact, is it not the jewel of England, Coventry? But I mean, if you had all the architects and artisans of Germany and France and Italy, not to say of Russia, and you brought them all to Coventry and set them to beautifying Coventry, before you could say Jack Robinson, Coventry would be the talk of the world, wouldn't it? A brilliant. So that's what Old Nebuchadnezzar did for Babylon, you see. No wonder its gardens were one of the seven wonders of the world. The art of the place. Have you seen the murals in the Pergamon Museum, museum in East Berlin? Some of them original, some of them restored. Oh, how magnificent they are. And the symbolism in the bas relief figures of whatever they are, animals of one kind and another. Perhaps you'll say it's a bit naughty because it's a sort of a mythological and idolatrous theme. Well, if it's naughty, don't copy it in your gospel hall, but, but, but from a point of view of art, it was magnificent, wasn't it, eh? Those blue tiles. The archaeologists rave about them still, and so do the artists. And then the street and the layout of the city, the city planners. Oh, it was magnificent. The sweeping boulevard. And then those ziggurats. Why, when Daniel first saw a ziggurat, he gets me where he was. The breath nearly left his body. They hadn't got anything like that in, in Jerusalem, they hadn't. It made Jerusalem buildings look like cottages in a village. That magnificent ziggurat. Where did the architects get the mathematical know-how to do it from? I don't know. And then, of course, there was a sweeping river, properly now channeled, so it graced the city with the gardens for the royal figure going down, uh, to the rim of the water. It was a magnificent city. And you say, what was wrong with that then? Well, nothing. Nothing that I know of, is there? There would be nothing wrong in making Coventry the best and most beautiful city in the world, would there? And now we have to get it out of our heads that the God of heaven is somehow against art and architecture and doesn't like beautiful things and prefers us to be drab and poverty stricken looking. That isn't true, is it? And you will see that isn't true, because when God gave Nebuchadnezzar his critique of his culture and gave him for the purpose of dream, watch how God sums up the situation in this beautiful Babylon city. He likened Nebuchadnezzar to a great tree, and the top of it reached towards heaven. It was visible, the world round, you see. And he says, in the words of the dream, that the leaves of this tree were beautiful. Wasn't some old scraggy old sycamore or something, you know? It was a magnificent tree. The leaves are beautiful to look at. And not only leaves, but there was fruit in abundance, only good to look at, but nourishing for food, you see. And then the tree spread and gave shade, and if you can imagine the hot plains of Iraq, to have a tree that gave you shade and relief from the heat and relief for your poor brain. I don't know about you, but when it's hot, I can't think at all. When it's cold, I can't think much, but when it's hot, I can't think at all. And to have a shady tree so that you could sit down and think in cool and peace. It was a contribution to sanity, wasn't it? And all the beasts found, dear old beasts, they found shelter and comfort under it, they did indeed, and everybody was fed from it, and the little birds found security in it. What's wrong with that? That's God's assessment of what the Nebuchadnezzar was and what he done for Babylon. And if I must deduce another scripture to prove that in God's estimate there was nothing wrong with it, let me point out how these very words echo the handiwork of God himself as he describes the Garden of Eden that he planted at the beginning of our race. Genesis chapter two and verse nine says that the Almighty God planted a garden. Isn't that a delightful idea, you'll see. I suspect modern plant planners would have planted a skyscraper first, but God planted a garden, you'll see. As Bacon said a long time ago, God Almighty first planted a garden, did he not? Which shows the rest of the world wasn't garden, incidentally. And he planted a garden not only for Adam and Eve's delight and enjoyment, but as an example of what they could do, and therefore learn as little children copy a father, that they could copy their creator and make a garden of the whole world. They were to subdue the world and make something of it. That's God's idea. And God says, with loving attention to detail, that when he planted the garden, he put trees in, and basically there were two lots of trees, he says. There were trees that were good to look at, and then there were trees that were good for food. I personally like to think that the order is significant. Which order would you put them in first? The first necessity in life, if I would have put the trees for food first. Oh, plums and, uh, apples and oranges, they are my priorities in life. If I had to choose, well, I'd choose them. Well, I suppose you'd have some wisdom, wouldn't you? Of course, if you're going to enjoy life at all, you'll have to, you'll have to, uh, survive, won't you? And you better have some oranges and apples on the trees. But that isn't the order in which God Almighty puts them in his word. He put first trees that were good to look at. He was, of course, concerned with men's stomachs, of course, he made them. And hasn't he made them a lovely way? I hope your stomach is still functioning, my dear brother, my sister. Forgive me mentioning such humble things, but isn't God marvelous, you'll say? He could have made us like cars, couldn't he, where we just pumped the old, uh, food in without feeling it. Mm, mm, so it was just like filling up a car with petrol, you'll say. He hasn't done it that way, has he? Oh, magnificent God he is. He first gives us an appetite for the very pang hunger pangs are good, aren't they? You enjoy them for the anticipation of, uh, satisfying them. And then, of course, when you come in, your wife has adorned the table. Is it magnificent, the color of the broccoli and that against the carrots and the way she put the meat? Oh, delightful! And then that gorgeous feeling as the state goes down into the inwards. Marvelous. Don't you laugh at it? Because if you do one of these days, you may get a stomach ulcer, and then you'll wish you'd thank God for a healthy stomach and the magnificence of God the Creator that made us so that we could enjoy even these humble necessities of life. Apples even are rosy, aren't they? They're good to look at as well as good for food. Yes, God is interested in the stomach. He's more interested, isn't he, in the mind. Aren't you? What would you say is more important in life, the stomach or the mind? The mind, of course, isn't it? And the mind is made up of many departments, and one of them is aesthetics, of course. That's why God has made the world such a beautiful place, hasn't it? Just imagine living in a country where all was colorless and drab. It would be like a living prison cell, wouldn't it? And God hasn't made it that way. Filled it with color, green for the grass and blue for the sky, and birds galore with all kinds of feathers. What a delightful God he is. For he made our mind. And he knows how important mental health is. He's given us lovely things to look at, to preserve our mental health and satisfy the aesthetic sense he's given us. And there are times, aren't there, where beauty and flowers are more important even to survival than, say, potatoes. I've still got a friend dangerously ill in hospital. What do you take him? Bag of potatoes and say, there you are, my, my sister, have this, that'll help you. If you don't, it'd possibly kill them if they try to eat them. What do you do? You find the best bunch of flowers in town you can find, don't you? And you leave the flowers in the hope that the weary patient looks at them, he can see the flowers and say, how lovely. And that sense of loveliness gives an added incentive to fight the illness and to survive it and to come through. In one hospital, they found that taking a simple harp, an auto harp through the wards, and playing it softly helped many a patient to recover, restored the will to live. The God of music. What a magnificent God he is, who gave us ears and delightful sounds to fill and satisfy them. That's God. And when chapter four of Daniel says that God raised up Nebuchadnezzar to the throne, it wasn't simply that he raised him up to pass laws, to govern the people, though he passed enough of them and they were stringent indeed. He raised up the man as a genius in that part of the world, to add something of the marvel of the color of life to the people of that day, and be like a lovely tree whose leaves were beautiful and its fruit plentiful, shade and peace and refreshment and sustenance and security. Oh, my brothers, we have them in abundance. Some nations scarce have them today, do they? And we take them for granted. How rarely do we thank the Lord as we should for his marvelous provisions at that natural level. It wasn't then for beautifying Babylon that God complained at Nebuchadnezzar. What was it then? Well, we learned that from the advice that, uh, uh, Daniel gave to Nebuchadnezzar, verse twenty seven of chapter four, when he expounded the dream to him. Wherefore, O king, let my counsel be acceptable unto thee, and break off thy sins by righteousness, and thy iniquities by showing mercy to the poor, if there may be a lengthening of thy tranquility. We notice two things there. The people to whom God has given such lovely natural gifts and beautiful things don't always manage to produce beautiful behavior. Never could met her that had been so gifted, and in spite of it been indulging in iniquity, and in particular, he had ground down the poor. Babylon was marvelously beautiful, but a lot of it was built on sweated labor, and that casts a bit of a shade, doesn't it? Over its beauty. How much beauty and grandeur in our own country in centuries past was produced to our present enjoyment and amazement, but if we look back carefully, we should find it was built on the sweated labor of the poor. And you know, incidentally, why we come by that, we, we ought to s- turn aside at just a fraction of a second, didn't we, to talk to ourselves as Christians. It's not wrong to love nice things, is it? Not wrong to have beautiful homes, haven of peace and color, relaxation, refreshment, and sanity. But there does sometimes come, and come easily, a temptation, where because we like nice things, we forget, forget to be generous to the poor. And we who are Christians and have altogether higher honors and responsibilities will think of our duty, won't we, to the spiritually poor of the world. God give us sanity and wisdom in deciding how much we spend on beautiful things, how much we decide for the Lord's sake to sacrifice, that his gospel may reach the spiritually poor and the lost. But that aside, there was another element in, in Nebuchadnezzar's sin, that you may judge from the point at which the blow of God's discipline fell upon him. Is not this great Babylon, said he as he walked upon the roof of his palace, which I have built. For the glo- for the royal dwelling place, by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty. Verse thirty. Foolish man. He got so carried away by his arts and architecture, by his own sophisticated abilities. But first of all, he made a mistake about the source of his abilities. He said, is not this the great battlement which I have built by the might of my power? Tracing his abilities to himself rather than God, and puffing up his royal chest, indulging the naughty pride of his heart as though he were responsible and the source of all this magnificence. It wasn't true, was it? How we are in danger when we get that stupid idea into our head, don't we? And it's a, it's a persistent disease, actually. It's liable to crop up in the most unexpected places. Paul had to warn his fellow believers at Corinth about, uh, making the same mistake. He says, now, now, wait a minute, those spiritual gifts you have, um, uh, where did you get them from, I ask? Do they come from your own resources, or have you given them? Oh, well, we were given them. Well, if you were given them, if you have received them, why do you boast and parade yourself around as if you hadn't received them, as though they came from your own abilities? Oh, we could take our very spiritual gifts, couldn't we? And so parade them to forget that the credit is not ours. These things are given us. The story is of a young boy at school who came before his headmaster just before he left school, and he'd done so brilliantly in the exams, and the master said to him, you are a very gifted boy. And the boy blushed. He said, don't be so stupid. I wasn't, uh, I wasn't, uh, uh, con- uh, I- I- I wasn't praising you. I was praising the one who gave you the gifts. I said you were gifted. That's not to your credit, is it? Are you gifted, my brother? Well, I hope you are. Don't you take the credit for it, will you? And don't let's parade it as though, uh, it were to our credit with nothing but what we received. But you should hear us. Ho ho, particularly when we've got foreigners around. You've got mountains? Oh, would you to see our mountains? And we've got the biggest river in the world, have you? Really? Well, that's magnificent, but that isn't to your credit, is it? Did you put the river there or the mountains? How stupid can people get? Oh, my boy. Ooh, now you're going to hear something. My boy was the top of his class, was he? Well, thank God for that, my sister. But don't you boast about it, and least of all amongst your fellow Christians. Well, if your boy is a credulous, that's only because God gave him that. And God loves the boy who isn't the cleverest. And God gave him his gifts as well. You know, sometimes God has got it the difficulty to be kind to us, hasn't he? Because if he gives us gifts, here we go off and berate ourselves as though it were to our credit and not to his glory. And then Nebuchadnezzar made a mistake not only about the source of the gifts, but the goal of them. He said, I have, um, built this royal dwelling place by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty. Now, instead of letting all his artistic gifts flow back in a peon of praise to the glory of God, he shut himself up in a dead end and posed as the goal of all his gifts, his own glory. And man is too small for that, isn't he? We're not big enough to be the goal of life, are we? The man or woman who exercises her gifts simply for her own or his own glory and satisfaction soon finds that the goal they have set themselves isn't big enough. And all we do, from the smallest to the greatest, should be done, shouldn't it, to the glory of God. I remember once I had a student, and I had to mark his Latin phrases. He wasn't a altogether very brightest student that I'd ever met, but he was diligent, and his name was Mullen. And he, I noticed on the top of his Latin prose when he handed it in, was the four letters AMDG. I couldn't make it out. I thought that was perhaps his initial, A. Mullen, and that he was writing my initials on for some reason, D. Gooding, you see. Doesn't tell my abysmal ignorance of the matter. It was only later on, after some many weeks, I, I stumbled to what he was writing. For those four letters are the initials of four Latin words, aren't they? Ad maiorum Dei gloriam, to the greater glory of God. And here was a student writing his Latin prose in school. For the greater glory of God. I wish I could say it always marked them for the greater glory of God and not lost my temper with some of the students sometimes. And Baba, do you work your computer to the greater glory of God, and lay the bricks and repair the car, and you, my sister, do the cooking and the sewing? Ad maiorem Dei gloriam, to the greater glory of God. We're missing our vocation if we don't, aren't we? And here, you see, is the desperate danger that nestles in the heart of lovely things. God made trees good to look at, says Genesis, and good for food. But there was one tree in the garden that also had leaves that were good to look at, and the, a- a- and the, uh, fruit was good for a lot of things. And there was nothing wrong in the tree itself, but God had said you mustn't touch that particular. You know what happened? The devil came along and he said, you know, Eve, my dear, I am sorry for you. You know God is such a cute joy, isn't he? He was a, he, he, I understand he's told you you mustn't eat of any of these trees in the garden. Oh no, that's not right, said Eve. Uh, we, we may eat of them all except this one. Oh, well, makes no difference, she said. You know, that's God, isn't he? Is there God all over? He put the people to play in front of you, all attractive and lovely, and then says you can't have it, you see. That's the kind of God he is, always tantalizing people. It's all the lovely things in life you mustn't enjoy. And you know, there've been millions of, uh, uh, believe that nonsense, haven't they? Look at the tree, my dear, he said to her. Just look at it, good woman. And so he had another look at it, and she saw, oh, the tree was beautiful to look at. That's aesthetic satisfaction, isn't it? And it was good for food. That's physical satisfaction. And it was desirable to make one wise. That's intellectual satisfaction. There it was, said Satan. That's it. Don't tell him, my dear woman. That's life. She was saying, take it, woman. Aesthetic satisfaction, physical satisfaction, intellectual satisfaction, that is the sum total of life. You don't need anything more. That is life. Take the fruit, woman. And he said, oh, but no, God has said we mustn't do it. God has said that in the day thou eatest thereof, you shall surely die. I, I, I must obey God's word. Oh, come off it, he said. Come off it, woman. When will you grow up? Nobody around here accepts God's word these days, woman. You won't die. You'll enter into life, that's what you'll do. And she was deceived by it, wasn't she? And she took of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, gave to her husband, and they fell into the abysm of sin and alienation from God. And we Christians need to listen to that as well as the world, don't we? The world has swallowed the lie. Have no time for God. They have time for their music, not for the God who made the music. They have time for their food, but not the God whose hand provided it. They have time for the art, but not for the God who gave them the ability and gave them the eye to see with. They're like a girl who takes an engagement ring but isn't interested in the fellow who gave it to her. So the boy got into the cockpit, started the engine, picked them up, waved to his father goodbye, flew off, and never came back again, and had no time for his father. Do you not suppose the father would curse the very day he gave the boy the airplane? Oh, love not the world. Our hearts are such deceitful things, aren't they? Enjoy what God gives, but love it. Love the heart, and let all his greatest gifts draw us nearer to him. And so God had to discipline Nebuchadnezzar, and the discipline was not arbitrary, was it? Yes, the discipline humbled him, of course. From being highly intelligent, artistic personality, he now began to behave like a wild beast. Didn't bother to clothe himself, let his hair run wild, didn't cut his nails, lived outside on the grass, went on all, uh, went on all fours and ate the grass like an ox. The discipline certainly humbled him. And God could have humbled him in ten thousand and one ways. Why did he choose this way? And the answer surely lies in this. Let's observe that we now meet what we shall meet many times in our studies. Indeed, last night we met it. A constant reference in the book of Daniel to man and the animal. Here in chapter four we have a man who began to behave like an animal and then was restored. In chapter six it's a story of Daniel being thrown into the den of lions, and they're pretty sizable and ferocious animals. And in chapter seven, it's a story of four wild beasts, isn't it, standing over against the Son of Man. And in chapter eight, it's another two beasts, wild and ravenous. Man and the animal. And of course, the thing is symbolic and highly significant. There's a difference between men and animals, isn't there? At least I hope there is. You observe. We do actually have a lot in common with animals, of course we do. Take eating, for instance, if you're seated at your table eating a juicy beef steak, your dog Fido catches sight of you, and if you let him in the room, he'll come sidling up, wagging his tail, won't he? And his jaw- jaws will begin to dribble because he has a stomach like you've got a stomach. And physiologically, they serve the same purpose, don't they? And he knows some of the enjoyment that you have, and he he would like to share it with you. Of course he would. We have a lot in common with animals. A lot of our appetites are the same, aren't they? And yet how different man is. Even when it comes to eating, he's different. He was meant to be different, wasn't he? Give the old dog a burn, and he'll go and eat it anywhere, in the filth and dirt of the backyard or on the doormat. He doesn't care where. He doesn't get out a nice beautiful plate and put it on spread of white tablecloth. No, no. And he hasn't learned to use his knife and fork in the right way, or, you know, not put his fork to his mouth. It's a silly thing, he'll eat it any old where, surrounded by all the filth of the world. He has no concept of aesthetics. Oh, no. And I tell you what, he hasn't got no concept of manners either, nor morality. He'll be all friends to you until he gets the beef steak. When you put it in his trough and he's starting to eat, don't you try and take it away? You'll find he hasn't any manners. He doesn't say you just go sir. No, to think not. No, no concept of morality. And I've not observed any dog bowing his head before me like you and giving thanks to God either. Man is different. It's meant to be different, isn't it? I know eating is the same physiological base as the animals, of course it is. That's not how you set up your business, is it, madam? Eating for really human people, except on a picnic, of course. Oh, what an a- what a thing this, first of all, the aesthetics of it, a beautiful tablecloth or table mats or what have you, and the food put nicely in the range so that the very color system helps the digestion, doesn't it? What artistry our dear good ladies have, haven't they, at their command? And then when you're seated there, of course, there's good manners, isn't there? You don't want to be served first, you wait till everybody else has been served, of course, yes. And then there's a bit of morality. It's a difficult thing in some countries, you know, like southern France, when some of the early Christians get converted and their background is so bad, you'll say, when they invited, when you're invited by them to dinner, you have to ask questions as to whether they've stolen the joint or not, okay. So they're used to stealing their dinner. You wouldn't think of it, would you? You'd go hungry first. You're not an animal. And then there's the morality and the, ah, the spirituality of it. And before your meal, you bow your head and give thanks to God. And there's a spiritual dimension even to your Kellogg's cornflakes, isn't there now? Well, at least I, I thought you were sincere when you said thank you to the Lord for it, and you recognize it comes to you from the very hand of God. There's a spiritual dimension even to your breakfast, my good sir. We're not animals. And when it comes to love, love between man and lo- wife, that has a physiological base too, doesn't it? Like the animals have. But human love was meant to be a far more exalted thing than just the animal passion, wasn't it? Alas for our modern world. That is fast turning that lovely thing into sheer disgusting animalism. So it is altogether subhuman. The thing pervades our literature and pervades the television. And men go like animals. What a disaster it was to see Paul of Nebuchadnezzar. He had failed to live for the glory of God. He'd made himself the chief end. He didn't want to know God. And now the great beautifier of Babylon who'd imposed order on the wastelands of that part of the world and made something beautiful of it by imposing order on it, is now living like an animal. He can't be bothered to comb his own hair. His clothes are scruffy. He's just let himself go without any order whatsoever and living like a beast. The The discipline discipline. carries a message by itself, doesn't it? Listen to the New Testament talking about these things. Those Solomon black verses in Romans chapter one inform us of this. When men decide not to retain the knowledge of God, what happens now? Well, God judges. Not merely he will judge them in the day to come, he judges them now. And because they refuse to retain the knowledge of God in their mind, God gave them over to a reprobate mind. God does it. It's not that they develop a reprobate mind and then God judges them for having it. The reprobate mind is God's judgment on them. They wouldn't retain God. They said you could enjoy life without God. The discipline of God on that kind of thing is to deliver people over to a reprobate judgment, and their judgment goes all school with, it goes all school with in morals, doesn't it? And they come to dishonor their bodies, and then they come to glory in perversion. Oh, how they glory in it these days, don't they? It's not merely that God will judge them for it. This is the judgment of God. They shall receive in their bodies their due rewards, says Paul. A mind that can no longer discern what is truly healthy and lovely and beautifully human, but descends to the level of the beast. This is God's judgment on men and women who won't, uh, continue the knowledge of God. And listen to Peter talking to the church. He says, you know, there are false teachers coming to the church, and they're preaching permissiveness. They're preaching that premarital unchastity is okay, just like the world does it. They are, says Peter, like brute beasts. Beasts. Here's God's judgment on a decadent civilization. We need that part to evaluate the culture that surrounds us, doesn't it? Don't we? And our young people specially need help and guidance in this very matter. When the peer pressures in school and in society are so tremendous, when Satan finds it so easy to represent God as he did to Eve as a killjoy who wants to keep us back from beautiful things and lovely experiences, it is so easy to swallow part of the lie, isn't it? And think to indulge ourselves that this is the way to health and maturity. It isn't. We need to evaluate our, our, our, our, our art, don't we? Not all art is good. Much of it is, isn't it? I love going down art galleries. Not all of it's good. Some of it's positively evil. Not all, uh, literature is good, you know. It secretly used to amaze me to see young Christian women coming up to a university and reading subjects that involve them in reading literature written by the most rabid existentialist philosophers, preaching their values. Good literature is good, isn't it? Like good bread and butter is good. And not to be despised. We don't have to avoid the world's good literature. But out in the world there is good and healthy literature, and there is also poisonous literature. And not all you see on the TV is good, is it? And it isn't good when believers are watching programs late of a Saturday night, for which they'd need to repent before they came to the Lord's Supper in the morning. Is it? Our Our minds minds. are our most valuable things. Listen to the advice of the apostle. It's not that we are to be puritanical and dress all in black. Whatsoever things are lovely, of good report, of pure and good. Think on these things. Fill your mind with the immoral trash and beastliness of the world, and what you sow, you will reap. Huh. Oh, I'm tempted. Shall I yield? Oh, well, perhaps I will, and you'll forgive me because I'm very, very old. Older, I think, than Nebuchadnezzar was. So here speaks a crotchety old man to his fellow younger Christians, and you'll speak to me afterwards, won't you? I'm sure you will. But my dear young folks, you don't have to yield to peer pressure and dress scruffily, you know. You don't have to. I remember one student coming to me, and I was his advisor of study, and we got on well together, and he was talking to me, and he said, I couldn't dress like you did, sir. I said, why not? Oh, he said, that's impossible up here. And he was dressed pretty scruffily, I tell you he was. Oh. You know, it's a mysterious thing to me. Someday one body will explain it to me. I can understand young people coming to me and saying, you fuddy old duddy, you, you colorless clothes, you, you, uh, no. No, we're going to be beautiful. That I could understand. You'll see, I've listened to the Lord Jesus and his ideas on dress, and he said to his disciples, see those lilies, oh, aren't they magnificent in their color and their leaves? Oh, they are glorious. And I'm telling you, says Christ, that not Solomon in all his glory, his velvets and his satins and his royal colors was arrayed like one of these. That's God's idea of dress. And when our Lord died and the soldiers got his robe, they found it was a beautiful piece of cloth, didn't they? And a lovely piece of weaving. It was woven from the top throughout. It was such a beautiful coat that the soldiers, rough soldiers though they were, were impressed by its beauty, and they said, let's not rend it. That's God's idea of undress. He loves to make you as beautiful as he can make you. You don't have to be scruffy if you don't want to be. And I'll cease and say no more, but that's it. And having said all that, the final lesson from Nebuchadnezzar is, isn't it, that God, having taught him his lesson, showed him where human pride and godlessness leads in the arts and music and architecture. It leads eventually to the dehumanizing of man. Then, when he'd learned his lesson, God restored him. And I lifted up my eyes to heaven, he said, ah, lovely gesture. And saw again that there was this other bigger dimension to life. For life's lovely things are meant to lead us to him as the source of all loveliness and beauty, who seeks by these humble gifts of his loveliness to lead us to his heart and eventually to his home. And Nebuchadnezzar was restored as a healthy, sane individual and given his former glory. And he stands as a lesson. You know, history has not always been a slide down from goodness to badness and to perdition. Has it? Civilizations have risen up, and they've become exceedingly beautiful, and then they decay, and they go corrupt, and then they vanish. And what then? God raises up another law, doesn't he? And here in our own country, the country before Wesley came was in the pit of filth and rottenness. What lovely things God did through that evangelical awakening, restoring sanity to a nation. God is the God of restoration, isn't he? And God cares for the world outside. God give us to be Daniels in our Dan generation, that we might show the world not only the way of salvation, but what it means to lead a sane, healthy, human life under the grace and government of God. And one final message. It is almost disgraceful to dismiss chapter nine of Daniel in five minutes, but that I must do. Because in Jerusalem city of chapter nine, we think now of a very different city from Babylon. It was, its task was not to lead the world in its culture. It was on times a moderately beautiful city. It had the infinitely higher honor of witnessing for the true law. Theirs were the covenant, theirs was the glory, and not now simply the glory of creation or created human abilities, the magnificent story of how the almighty transcendent Lord deigned to come and dwell and place his glory in the temple at Jerusalem. This now is not nature. This is God of grace, God of redemption, God of revelation, the God that stationed himself there, that Israel might be his servants in pointing the way to the Messiah and to the salvation that men and women sorely need. And the sorry story is that Israel abused her privilege and lives in such carelessness as compromise the very name of God, till God couldn't tolerate it any longer and turned them out of their city and had Nebuchadnezzar destroy Jerusalem and the temple. The false prophet said it would never happen. It did happen. And when it happened, they said it would only last two years. Nonsense, said Jeremiah, it will last seventy years. We don't fool around with God. We don't suppose you're going to be given the high honor of witnessing for him in the world, while at the same time you're living like the world does. And the disciplines of God lasted seventy years. And when the seventy years were nearly complete, it drove, uh, Daniel to his knees. Why so? Because Daniel saw a terrible thing had happened. Israel had come under the discipline of God. Instead of repenting like Nebuchadnezzar did, they went on and left him. And they had so prospered in Babylon City. But instead of repenting of their sin and seeking the grace of God that Jerusalem be restored, they were going on with their sin as always they had done. Now the large majority had given up the vision of being God's witnesses to mankind. What would God do? He said he would restore the city in seventy years. What would he do now when his people were utterly unrepentant for the most part? Would he restore them in spite of it? Daniel went to God and said, God, I have to confess that the people are still sinning. From that point of view, I have no ground for my intercession. Oh God, he said, I have one ground with thee, and that is this, this city, God, was called by your name. You called your name on these people. If you destroy them permanently, the world at large will say there was never anything in it, and God has failed. For your name's sake, God, he said. If for no other reason, will you not restore them? And God said, yes, I will restore them, Daniel. But listen, Daniel, I said they were restored after uh seventy years in Jerusalem would be rebuilt. Well, it's going to be rebuilt after seventy years, but Daniel, not permanently and not fully. You see, God isn't interested simply in timetable and cock and calendar. Great events of the discipline of his people wait upon spiritual decisions as well as timetable. The city will be restored, but only partially. And I'm telling you now, Daniel, because the people will continue in sin becau- in spite of my discipline. Sin will so harden them, that when I send the Savior, they will be too blind even to recognize him, and they will crucify him, and hence desolations are determined, right to the end. That's sorry, isn't it? But God's people didn't respond to his discipline so well as Nebuchadnezzar, the old pagan king, responded. Sin is terrible, isn't it? It has a hardening and a snowballing effect, and in the end hides people's eyes from the Savior himself. And the disciplines continue, and will continue until the Lord comes. Hurries up. Jerusalem one day is going to be restored. And says God to Ezekiel, now tell Israel, please tell them. I'm not doing it for your sake, he says. Be a dismayed and confounded. I'm not doing it for your sake. I'm doing it for my name's sake. I submitted myself to Jerusalem. I have a reputation to uphold before the nations, and I'm going to prove to the nations that the Old Testament revelation was true, that I did actually choose Jerusalem, and it was I who dismissed Israel out of Jerusalem. I did it, not the nations. I'm going to prove that to the nations by one day I shall restore Jerusalem. Prove the case to the whole world for my own name's sake. And there we go. Can't help but apply the lesson to ourselves, can we? We're not a member of physical Jerusalem. We are citizens of the Jerusalem that is above, our task to witness to the Savior. Oh, God help us. But if Israel stood under God's disciplines in their task, we do even more so. The very cup of the covenant that we take each Lord's Day reminds us that God has promised to write his law upon our hearts. He will do it with our cooperation if we allow him. If we become careless, he will do it still, then he'll have to do it under his chastisement, and that can be painful and severe. But whom the Lord loves, he chastens, and he's going to make us holy, hook or by crook. And why? Because his name is called upon us, my brother. If you walk out of that building tonight, the very name of the Trinity rests upon you. Oh God, help us to bear the name with dignity and holiness and beauty before the world, that we might adorn the doctrine of our Lord Jesus Christ in all things. Let God's discipline come upon us. And let the final note be where it should. For who of us could have deserved God's discipline? And if it were merely for our sakes, then perhaps we should have been lost forever. But God does it for his own namesake, and because he does it for his own namesake, he restores our souls. In these moments, let's take the word of the Psalm to our hearts, therefore. The Lord is my shepherd. He restores my soul. He leads me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord. I say, have you heard the rumor? There's a rumor going around that the place where our Lord Jesus Christ is sitting now is better than Bethlehem was. It is indescribably beautiful and magnificent, and the wealth of it is beyond description. Oh my brother, we shall soon be there, and by God's faithful care, and if need be his discipline, we shall not only be there, but one day we shall be like him, as beautiful as he. Shall we pray? And now, Lord, once more we thank thee for thy holy word. We bless thee for its rich storehouse. It more than fills our minds, and we ask grace of thee now that having spent long time at thy word, thou will give us strength in the coming days that what thou has taught us may revive itself in our minds from time to time, and the glow of thy glory may fill our lives, shedding the luster of a coming eternity already upon them, so that we may rejoice with joy unspeakable and already tinged with the glory of heaven. So bless our study for thy greater glory, we pray, through Jesus Christ Lifestyle our Lord. board. Um. Amen.