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And a very good morning to you all, and thank you very much for coming along. And once more, thank those who have come, some of them from a distance, to lead the discussion groups. It is upon their labours that a great deal of the strength and the value of these occasions depend, and I particularly am grateful to them. The particular passage with which we begin this morning is Daniel chapter four, and I shall take it that we all have had opportunity to read the passage, and therefore shall not delay by reading it again now.
But you will remember from last week's studies, if you were here, or if you were not here, you will find it helpful to look at the, uh, layout of the contents of Daniel, if you are anywhere near a copy. You will remember that, though Daniel has, of course, as we all know, a very large interest in things prophetic. Many of his chapters point us to the future using such symbols and images as God gave him to use, in order that we might foresee what is happening in years to come.
But the while that is so, we saw last week how that half of his book, perhaps more than half, lays a similar emphasis on the importance of life in the here and now. So that today, three at least of our four sessions will be concerned with the importance of getting our values right in the here and now, and will deal with exceedingly practical things related to the way we live and enjoy our lives. And so I suggest to you we must not grow impatient with Daniel, impatient to get on with the prophetic things that sometimes people feel are the all important things.
We must trust to the proportions of inspired holy writ and gird ourselves this morning to think with Daniel about the importance of our daily living. Now you will notice, if you care to look once more at the, uh, layout of the contents of the book, that they are divided into two parts. There are the chapters one to five that deal with Daniel's life in the empire of Babylon. And as the Babylonian come- empire comes to its end, so we reach the midpoint of Daniel's book. Daniel chapter five, Belshazzar is slain, loses the Babylonian Empire to the Medes and Persians.
By the end of chapter five, we have come to an end, an end in the history of the first great Gentile empire that was given of God to control the Jewish nation. And then the second half of the book, from chapter six to chapter twelve, Likewise, in five parts. Let us notice again this morning, therefore, that the first set of chapters one to five, deal constantly with the question of values. The second set of questions deal, uh, second set of paragraphs deal with the question of laws.
So we noticed last week that in chapter one, Nebuchadnezzar comes to Jerusalem and takes the golden vessels out of the house of the Lord. In our next session, we shall be much concerned with those golden values. They s- bespeak Israel's highest value. And then in chapter two, as we saw last week, we have the vi- image of Gentile empires and a critique of their comparative values, as they are portrayed to us in a glorious image made of valuable metals, gold and silver and copper, and then iron. And similarly, in chapter three, Nebuchadnezzar, we were told, uh, made a large image and set it up in the plain of Dura.
It was, suitably enough, an image of gold, for it represented to Nebuchadnezzar his glorious empire, his supreme value, and to that image of the state, he demanded that all his officers bow down and yield ultimate loyalty in the form of worship. Worship of what, according to Nebuchadnezzar, was life's supreme value, that is the state. So we notice that chapters two and three deal with the question of life's values in the area of politics.
Just as chapter one had dealt with the question of life's values in the area of education. Now, this morning, we must pass on to chapters four and five, and we shall find that they too, of course, deal with the question of values in a slightly different sphere, chapter four, in the realm of culture, of art and architecture, of town planning, and so forth and so on. And chapter five, likewise dealing with life's values, not at quite such a high level. Perhaps Belshazzar didn't rise to those higher things of art and architecture and town planning and so forth, but he went in for banquets.
And chapter five is the story of one of Nebuchadnezzar's glorious banquets, put on with all the splendor and sparkle that that royal, uh, viceroy could manage. Life's values, therefore. Now again, if we would, um, uh, concentrate for a while on chapter four and see it in its context, let us look further at that table of, of contents. We notice that chapter four, not only in the series of stories that deals with values, but in that layout, you will see it stands over against chapter nine, and I would like you now to pay very close attention to that, if you will.
Chapter four standing over against chapter nine. The layout of the book will help us find our way to the message of this particular chapter. You will notice what similarity they have, those two chapters, four and nine. In chapter four, Nebuchadnezzar has a dream, and in that dream is given to see himself as a glorious tree, the top of which reached towards heaven. The leaves of it were beautiful to look at, and in it there was much fruit for all, for man and beast, and shade from the torrid heat of the plains of Babylon. In his vision, Nebuchadnezzar saw and heard the watchers, the executives of God's judgment, as they pronounced judgment upon Nebuchadnezzar's tree, crying to it that the tree shall be cut down.
Only a stump of it to be preserved and girt around with a band of iron and left in the grass and bedewed with the rain of heaven. A magnificent tree cut down under the disciplines and judgment of God, and the disciplines of God to last upon that tree until seven times were passed over it, and then, lovely to relate, the tree was to be restored to its former dignity and pride. A story, then, of the disciplines of God upon a Gentile king and upon the culture that he had created.
Whereas if you look at chapter nine, you will see it is dealing with a theme that is not s- dissimilar. For chapter nine deals with Ba- with Jerusalem city, and of course it makes a pair, doesn't it? Jerusalem with Babylon, and Babylon with Jerusalem. All the way through the prophets, the major prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, we shall hear those two cities put in opposition, the one to the other. Jerusalem City, Jerusalem the golden with milk and honey blessed, and Babylon the great, two great cities, and standing in their day for completely different ideologies.
We shall eventually have to try and perceive the difference between the ideologies for which those two cities stood. And if that seems a little obscure for you at this early hour, twenty past ten of a Saturday morning, to be troubling about such things, let me just, uh, uh, suggest that you might grasp the issue better if you were to present to your thinking this morning the city of Moscow and the city of London, or if you don't like that, the city of Paris. And observe how those cities are beautiful cities and treasure houses of art and culture, extending over the centuries, so much so that some of you are prepared to pay a hefty sum to go on your tourist holidays and visit the museums and gape at the architecture and say, what ho, and isn't that magnificent, and how tremendous it is, and you feel your money is very well spent.
Here is history encapsulated in the art and the architecture and the town planning and the paintings and the gardens of the cities, it is delightful. And there is Paris. Cool. The schoolboys know exactly what Paris stands for and has stood for and still stands for among the nations, the city of Paris. And then there's that Moscow city. Brilliant too in its art and architecture. And what a long history and colorful history and sometimes troubled history it stands for, and what it stands for among the cities of the world today, the leading exponent of certain ideologies.
Not otherwise was it in the ancient world. Babylon stood for something, Jerusalem stood for something. We are considering an a part of history where Daniel, royal prince of the city of Jerusalem, was now in Babylon, and his own city, loved and near to his heart, standing in broken ruins, laid waste and des- devastated by the aforesaid Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. And Daniel himself has been translated to, um, uh, Babylon City.
As he thinks of God's discipline on Nebuchadnezzar, the builder and beautifier of Babylon. So naturally and eventually his heart will go to Jerusalem City, now standing in ruins. And how will he view it? And why is it ruined? And how long will it remain ruined? These are the questions that surge up into his mind and heart. And in chapter nine, he tells us of a, of a concern he had to search the scripture. How long would Jerusalem remain desolate? And he was given to understand things about the disciplines of God.
For chapter nine two is about the disciplines of God. How not merely Nebuchadnezzar, but God himself disciplined Jerusalem city. And disciplined it very hard and sore. And said that it should be disciplined for seventy years. So he said through Jeremiah the prophet, until it should be restored. When the time was drawing near for that city to be restored, Daniel gave himself to prayer, asking God, now, is it time for Jerusalem city, beloved of your people, to be restored?
And the answer came back, yes, in a sense it will be restored. But because of the continuing sin of the people of God, yet further desolations are decreed upon the city. Terrible desolations. If the desolation of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, lasted seven times, the desolations of Jerusalem city are going to last seventy times seven. And until the end, uh, desolations are determined. In one sense, therefore, we shall be dealing with solemn things, not only things in the here and now, but solemn things.
We are to think in these two chapters of the disciplines of God. And we notice at once how interesting it is that the disciplines of God upon Jerusalem City, God's own city, are more severe in this context than they are upon Babylon and Babylon's king. Indication, of course, that here we are dealing with the God of heaven, as we saw last week. While he disciplines in the kindness and wisdom of his heart, disciplines the Gentile nations for their good and recovery, disciplines his people even more.
Let me bring that immediately into the context of our own practical experience as believers. One Corinthians eleven reminds us that if we really belong to the Lord, then the Lord will discipline us. If we would judge ourselves, we would not be judged, says Paul. But if we grow careless, and we live our lives, and we build our homes, and we run our businesses, and we go about our culture, careless of the claims of the Lord Jesus upon our lives, and fall into unhappy and sinful and selfish ways, and we do not judge ourselves.
Then the apostle says, the Lord will judge us. And when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be ultimately condemned with the world. These are realities in daily life, and we know of them as the people of God. But now this morning, we are to think not of God's judgment and discipline of his people, but of his discipline of a Gentile nation. Now let us notice finally the one lovely and glorious thing about these disciplines of God.
In both cases, whether it was the king of Babylon the Great or whether it was the city of Jerusalem, God's discipline ended in their restoration. Oh, how lovely that is, isn't it? You know, you might have expected Daniel's prophecy to have said that Jerusalem city is going to be restored, and all the ravages done by that evil Nebuchadnezzar are going to be put right by God, and Nebuchadnezzar will come to some terrible sticky end under the judgments of God. And surprise, surprise. Daniel four tells us that when Nebuchadnezzar was disciplined by God, God in his mercy set the limit to the discipline.
And the discipline was aimed not at destroying Nebuchadnezzar, but in restoring him and correcting him and bringing him back to health and sanity. And if that idea is a little strange to us, then we shall have to stay with it this, this morning in our first session. God's concern for the Gentile cultures around us, not merely for his people, for culture in the present, for Gentile culture and those who lead it. And God's discipline of the nations, that he might preserve them and keep them and restore them to a certain amount of health and sanity.
So let us come now to the reason why God had to discipline, uh, Nebuchadnezzar, to cut down his tree. And here, of course, we shall have to go careful, can't we? Because Babylon City, because of its ideologies and sins and idolatries, comes eventually in scripture to be a kind of a symbol of all that is false in the way of religion. We read in the New Testament of mystery Babylon. That seems, by the descriptions they're given, uh, to be the conglomeration of false religion.
Religion that has ceased to be faithful to God, if it ever was, and now, like some common prostitute, is trying to control Earth's politics and prostituting her beauty and attraction to gain the favors of the Gentile world. And with all in her position of power over the governments of men, turning to persecute those who wish to live godly in this present age and maintain faith in the gospel and in the Savior. Babylon, mystery Babylon, a very evil thing. And of course, eventually mystery Babylon, says the book of the Revelation, will be utterly destroyed.
Now, because that is so, and because when we read prophetic books in scripture, this is the image that is prominent in our mind when we think of Babylon, we shall need to go carefully this morning. For this morning, we're not thinking of Mystery Babylon, we're thinking of the literal city of Babylon, the city down whose roads you could drive and take a taxi, though it would have been horse-drawn in those days, and whose gardens you could have got round and looked at the zoos and the lions in the cages and things, and hoped you didn't get put in them if Nebuchadnezzar was cross. And then the ziggurat that you could have admired and wondered how on earth the architects designed it, and how on earth did the contractors build it?
And then that beautiful river running through, and the ships on it, and all those gardens that the Nebuchadnezzar had made for his queen. Oh, weren't they luscious? Oh, how they were arrayed. Weren't they beautiful, you know? Not like my backyard with a few dandelions varied by a few azaleas that very rarely bloom, but a delightful set of gardens, and all architectured and sculptured so that it pleased the eye. Oh, a delightful thing, such that when on an evening in the cool of the evening, Nebuchadnezzar eventually came out on the roof of his palace and surveyed the glorious spectacle that was the city of Babylon, like you look over Belfast from Knock Hill.
Ha. Bab- uh, Nebuchadnezzar said, is not this Babylon that I have built? It was a glorious achievement. And the credit, of course, goes to Nebuchadnezzar. As history tells us, he was the rebuilder, not the founder, but the rebuilder and beautifier of Babylon City. And of course, he didn't do it accidentally. It was his set policy to do it. For when he conquered various nations, he would leave the humble people and the laborers in that city to look after things as best they could and to plow the land.
He normally destroyed the cities, but they could get on farming the land as best they could. But he creamed off all the artisans, the architects, and uh, the builders, and any head body that had expertise in tile making or image making or chariots or what have you, whatever their technical expertise, he creamed off the very best of them and took them to Babylon. So Babylon was a veritable storehouse of experts in art and architecture and engineering. No wonder it came to be one of the wonders of the ancient world, a delightful city. And I have brought you just a few meager cards.
Sorry I was not able to make slides of them to show you, but here on this table, if you care to come and look when you are munching your cake and drinking your coffee, you will see here pictures of some of the artwork that was in the palaces and on the gate, the great formal gate and the processional way, and on the buildings of Babylon City, as they have been restored by the German archaeologists who discovered it and have tried to reconstruct it. The reconstruction is now in one of the museums in East Berlin, but even these meager little cars will perhaps give you some idea of the beauty, the color, the glory that was Babylon.
What was wrong with it. Here I say we shall have to go very carefully. Um, I want to maintain to you that what was wrong with Babylon was not that, uh, Nebuchadnezzar made it a beautiful city. He certainly did that, as we saw last week. Here are some of the ruins, just, uh, uh, restored a little bit by modern archaeologists. And, uh, if you look at the cards that are there on the table, uh, you will see they are relief work, in various mythical animals and so on.
And if you come near here, you'll see some of these in the larger forms on the pillars of the great buildings. Here is the great processional way that led into the city, and all these buildings with delightful tile work and art forms all over them. What was wrong? To find out why God took exception to all this, we shall now have to look at the image that God gave Nebuchadnezzar. Nebuchadnezzar dreamed a dream, and as he told Daniel in his dream, he saw this great tree, and the top of it reached to heaven.
It was a magnificent, luxuriant tree, and the leaves, he says, were beautiful, and the fruit of it was much. In it there was fruit for all, all were fed of it. The beasts found shade underneath it, the birds nested in the branches, and all fed from it, all flesh. As we read that description given of God, I'm going to ask you to take the imagery very seriously and to compare that tree with what we read of God's sense of artistry in the book of Genesis, in the story of creation in Genesis chapter two.
Nebuchadnezzar's tree, notice the two phrases, the leaves of it were beautiful, the fruit of it much. And we go back to Genesis to see God's idea in creation. Now, for a moment, let's sit back and enjoy it. God made, we say, out of the ground he caused to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and then good for food. Oh, let's notice those two things. Aren't you delighted with God and his sense of architecture? He could have made trees of iron girders, you know, and hung a plum or two here and there upon it just to satisfy our need. The world that we live in could have been as gray as old Mars and as drab and utilitarian.
But that's not God's idea. When God made his world, he made it beautiful, not merely carrots for the stomach, but flowers for the eye and for the mind. You know, there have been ages, haven't there, in the history of the people of God, days of strong Puritanism, when ideas have come into people's heads that God is only interested in the utilitarian. He's interested, of course, in carrots and, uh, potatoes and food and things like that. That's okay. But art and painting and music, aren't these a bit questionable? And sometimes people are to be heard to say, but what is the use of painting?
What good is it? Now here, let's come back to the sanity of the creator and his healthfulness. Yes, the trees have got fruit to heal our hunger, but as well, and indeed before that, notice the order of things, the trees that God made were pleasant to look at. All the loveliness of it. You'll see man is not just stomach, is he? Man has a stomach, and it needs to be fed, but man has a mind, and that needs to be fed. And God has filled his world with color and beauty and shape to delight our minds, to satisfy our aesthetic appetites, and indeed to keep us safe and sane.
Suppose you have a friend desperately ill in hospital. They've had some internal operation. What do you take them? Bag of carrots. Well, no, certainly not. Say carrots are very important. Well, I know that, yeah. The doctor says you mustn't even give them grapes. So now what do you do now? You go to the florist and get the most beautiful bunch of flowers that you can think of, and you stand in there on the patient's locker, and the sight of lovely flowers does something for the patient's mind and perhaps even restores in him the will to live. Beauty. We mustn't let our evangelical faith make us oddities, may we?
God, by his salvation, restores us to sanity, and that means not only physical health, but mental health. And we are to love and enjoy the beautiful things that God has made for us. Let's come to the New Testament and listen to the Lord Jesus. Oh yes, of course, he had much more important things to talk of than simply, uh, art and beauty. He had the tremendous question of the salvation of man's soul. But now and again, and apropos of other things, he made his comments on creation around us. Behold the lilies of the field, he said.
And when you behold them, you will get God's idea of art, of clothing. For God clothed the lily, he says. Oh, stand back, Eve St. Laurent and all the rest of them. Stand back and have a look at God's idea of couture. Who God invented and designed and clothed the lily. There you are, says Christ, with all the pride of son of the father, admiring his father's handiwork. There you are, he says. And Solomon in all his glory, he had the most exotic dress, but Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. And all the magnificence of God.
The lily, it today is, it's almost a weed in Israel. Today is, tomorrow it's in the oven. And God doesn't say, oh, well, that's only a temporary thing, bother it. Anything drab will do for that. No, no, no. Temporary though it is, God Almighty extends all the ingenuity of his creatorial powers in clothing the lily and making it beautiful and resplendent in its different colors, such as it has in the land of Palestine. God's idea, the creator's idea on art and beauty, given us for our enjoyment and to keep us sane and healthy. When God wanted to portray to Nebuchadnezzar the great beautiful city Babylon and Nebuchadnezzar's part in it, he portrayed it in the figure of a tree.
Can't you see how like the trees in the Garden of Eden it was. Beautiful. I cannot find it in my heart to say that God was thereby criticizing Babylon and saying all that art and architecture was bad and wicked. Quite the opposite. Very good. And using the symbolism of the imagery, God is indicating how lovely a thing Babylon City was for its inhabitants. Babylon was a torrid plain, and all those thousands of people living together in the beauty of Babylon, its river, its gardens, its art, its architecture, its town planning, they found shade, relief from the heat of the day, and perhaps relief from the tensions and stresses of life in its beauty.
Still, God gives to men in his mercy, even among Gentiles, artists and such like people that make life pleasant. And we may escape life's tensions by sitting in our, in our room sometimes and playing a lovely bit of music, or wandering into a museum and admiring its beauty. God in his loveliness. Let us, as Paul says to Timothy, acknowledge that all things come from God and enjoy them. He gave them to us, all things richly to enjoy. And of course, there was food for all. The organization of a big city. What was wrong with it then?
Well, first of all, we may notice what Daniel says in verse twenty seven of the chapter. Wherefore, O king, let my counsel be acceptable unto thee, and break off thy sins by righteousness, and thine iniquities by showing mercy to the poor, if there may be a lengthening of thy tranquility. Two things, iniquity, unrighteousness, and secondly, neglect and oppression of the poor. It's a sad thing, isn't it? I don't know if it comes to your heart as you're going around the old, uh, stately homes, be it in England and Ireland or on the continent, and you think of all their splendors, and then you think of some of the iniquity on which those splendors were based, some of the great stately homes of England based on the slave trade.
Some of them based on very questionable business still. And then you think of the sweat and labor that provided a lot of the money that beautified those stately homes. Pity, isn't it? And here is God registering his protest against Nebuchadnezzar for his unjust ways and for his neglect and oppression of the poor. Of course, it's difficult, I suppose, for a government. I've never been one, and I'm thankful this week I'm not. Difficult, I suppose, for a government to, to, to decide how much of the national budget is going to be given to the museums.
Hey, what? And how much to be put in the health service. How much money should be sent to the relief of the Ethiopians, and how much money be de- be devoted to astronomy. Difficult problem in our own lives, isn't it, as believers to go off at a tangent. Do you like nice things? Oh, I like nice things. And the fact I like nice things, sometimes just a little bit, uh, uh, deceiving. How am I going to, um, apportion my budget? How much is going to relieve the poor? In all senses of that term, the physically poor?
And what about the spiritually poor that cry out for the bread of life and no one brings it? How much of my li- money am I going to spend on the new record, young folks? Of course, there's nothing wrong with the music, of course not. Well, I hope not. Uh, it's beautiful music, we shall presume it. Can be expensive though, can't they? And how much is going on the old records? And you, my sister, how much on the new suite? Well, it would make the room look a lot more beautiful, wouldn't it? Because I love nice things, you see.
Her down the road there, she doesn't like nice things, so, oh, I see. So she can give her money to the missionaries while you put yours into nice things. Well, not like that, you say. No, it's a bit of a job, isn't it? And we're not meant to live as Spartans, are we? We're not meant to live as if we were in prison. No, of course not. That's precisely what I've been saying. But it raises a question of stewardship very sharply, doesn't it? As responsible people of God, how shall I allocate my resources and keep the balance between enjoying the lovely things of life, as distinct from the mere utilitarian? And how much shall I give to the poor, both physically and, more importantly, even spiritually?
Yes. My brother, my sister, I hope God doesn't have to cut me down one day under his disciplines because I have lived selfishly for myself and have forgotten the poor. He could do it, you know. If as churches we became increased with goods and rich and felt we had need of nothing, like the dear believers in Laodicea, another delightful city. If we got to the point where we were spiritually impoverished because we'd paid too much attention to life's culture, then our Lord might have to discipline us, mightn't he?
What else was wrong in it? Um, oh, look, if you will, at verse thirty. In spite of the warning that God gave, uh, to him and and Daniel's call to the king to repent, the king spake and said, is not this great Babylon, which I have built for the royal dwelling place by the might of my power and for the glory of my majesty. And notice in that please two fundamentally wrong attitudes to life. He said, I built this glorious place for my habitation by the might of my power.
All the pride that filled a man's heart at that moment as he strutted across the roof of his royal palace. By the might of my power I've done it, and so was fundamentally wrong when it came to the source of all these lovely things. Foolish man, to boast as though the source of these things were in himself, as though his gifts, his sense of artistry, his abilities came simply from him, whereas they came from God. And he ought to have been humbly on his knees, so to speak, saying, God be praised for these magnificent gifts that you've allowed me to work.
You know we can be stupid, can't you? You've never done it? Have you never been in a drawing room or somewhere where somebody said you should see the Mountains of Morn? Ooh, we've got some lovely mountains, and somebody said, ah, but we in our country, we've got the biggest mountains, as though it were his credit. Well, suppose you have, my man, did you make them? We have the biggest river. Uh, sounds a little bit silly, doesn't it? If you're merely recording the geographical fact, we've got some delightful mountains, God be thanked. Okay. But stop boasting about it as though you made them because they're in your country, and how...
nonsense. Oh, well, of course you don't do that kind of thing. My child is top of the form. Well, as a matter of fact, that's, thank God, that's marvelous. Oh, be careful. For the moment that turns over into saying, oh, but you know, my child is the cleverest. Oh, look at me. Well, you are being stupid. Where'd the child get the brains from? How we can be tricked, can't we? You'll notice we don't do that with the bad things. When we do bad things, we say, that's not me, really. But the brains and the abilities, that is me.
Stupid. Said Paul to the Corinthians, who were boasting even of their spiritual gifts. What a pathetic thing. We've got better preachers than you. So that, well, it's to your credit or something. Says Paul, what have you got that you didn't receive? These are God's gifts to you. You mustn't boast about them as though the credit goes to you for having them. And if you received them, why do you boast as though you didn't receive them, as though you got them by your own effort and the credit goes to you. I think it was C.
S. Lewis who once recorded of a young gentleman, a student, and his tutor said to him, my good man, you've got the best brains in the college. And the man blushed. How stupid. Because in that moment he felt that somehow the tutor was con- was praising him for having the brains. No, if we've got brains or artistic ability or money or home, it's not our credit, is it? And if we're going to enjoy them as they should be enjoyed, we shall ever need to be careful to remember from whom they come, for the greatest beauty of the lot is that they come from God and were meant to lead us in gratitude back to God.
Nebuchadnezzar made not only a mistake about the source, he made a mistake about the goal of them. I built it, he said, what for? He said, I built it for the glory of my majesty. In that very moment, he was smitten. You say, what's that so serious about that? For God made his world and gave us delightful things, not so that we should make ourselves and our desires the great goal of all our activities. All that's idolatry.
Rather that all these lovely gifts from God might lead us to give back the glory to God. You know, beauty is a thing that's very difficult to handle. In the Old Testament, there was a city called Tyre. It was a beautiful city. They were a merchant empire. They had made the world realize the wonder of beauty. You didn't just have an old clay pot to keep a few sardines in. The Tyrians, uh, persuaded you that you must have a lovely modern pot with designs on it, you see, that when you've used the sardines, you could stand it on your mandrel show because it's so lovely, and it was on a special offer, you'll see. And the Tyrians hawked these things around the world and increased the living standards of the world.
What's wrong with that? Nothing. Beautiful. Only, says God, talking to the king of Tyre, you've got beyond yourself. Infected with the infection that destroyed the devil himself. He sealed up the sum of beauty. He was in the very presence of God. He was the cherub that covered, was his great satanic majesty, and was betrayed by his beauty to usurp the very place of God. We are not big enough to be the goal of our own endeavor. That is idolatry.
And to work for our own vainglorious boasting. That is cardinal sin number one. As we pass, let us look what John says about the world. All that is in the world, he says, is not of the Father. The lust of the flesh, the desires of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the vain glory of life. Now, John is not contradicting the fact that God is delightful and beautiful and has given us all lovely things to enjoy and wants us to enjoy them. John is talking in this sad situation where Satan himself has taken God's beautiful world and all the beautiful things to draw man's heart away from God and to leave God turning his back on God.
And now man stands gazing at all the lovely things of this world, and they become an end in themselves. That's what they live for. And their sense of success and achievement is not that they pleased the Lord, but they got the biggest and better car than anybody else, or the best garden, or what have you. And vainglory and boasting becomes the object and end of life. That's worldliness, and it's a tragedy. More people will eventually be damned, be led to their eternal perdition by the beautiful things of life, than by the nasty things.
Satan used the beautiful things to get them away from God. And now we must come to the, um, God's discipline. It's a sad thing when individuals become proud and vainglorious. It's even a more serious thing when nations do. What a lovely thing scientific achievement is, isn't it? I hope you're interested in physics and astronomy. I would love to go to the moon if I could be sure of coming back again, wouldn't you? You wouldn't?
Never mind, you go to Mars then somewhere more beautiful, you'll see. But, uh, what a magnificent achievement done to the glory of God. What a sad thing it was, if the report be true, that the Russians went round the back of the moon and came back and said they hadn't seen God anywhere. When I first came to the university to work, there came eventually a student who, on his exercises, his written essays and things, put at the top the four letters AMDG, and being an awful ignorant Englishman, couldn't make out what these letters were.
They didn't seem to coincide with the man's initials. Couldn't make it out at all. It was only some year or so after he'd gone that I suddenly realized, you judge the depth of my spiritual depravity, that I hadn't realized before that the letters were ad maiorem Dei gloriae, to the greater glory of God. He was doing his essay in his university course. I hope you are too, my brother, my sister. Be the best economist you can be. Oh, but pray be it for the glory of God. Now God's discipline.
The tree was cut down, yes. But Nebuchadnezzar came to the sorry state where he started to live like an animal. And so we now meet for the first time in, in, in, in Daniel this theme of man and the animal. It will occupy us in many chapters. Forgive me then now if I go a little bit about it. It is so very important. Man and the animal. What's the difference between a man and an animal? I mean, you see, obviously, I mean, this is tragic.
Nebuchadnezzar, the once-time beautifier of Babylon, the mind that could conceive all those lovely and glorious things and impose the proportions and lay out the city and design the gardens, and oh, what a mind a man has, and now he's behaving just like an animal. You say that's a tragedy. Obviously, I don't need to prove it. What is the difference between a man and an animal? Not to insult you, we've got a lot in common with the animals, haven't we? Lions have a mane, and some of you gentlemen have hair.
Lions have stomachs. So do we. They like beef steaks, so do we. Physiology of hunger is the same. They fall in love with their lionesses, and you gentlemen have fallen in love with, well, what shall I say? The, the human counterparts. Yeah, beautiful. And the physiology at the base of it is the same, isn't it? Then what's the difference? Between man and animal, human and beast.
God's word calls attention to some of the details in Nebuchadnezzar's discipline. He ate grass, like an ox. You wouldn't get upset seeing an ox eating grass, would you? You would get very upset seeing a man eating his food like that if it were grass or even if it were caviar, wouldn't you? Because while eating in man and eating in the animal serves the same physiological function, yet in man, oh, what a different thing it is. Different in cleanliness, of course. We're careful what we eat. Different in aesthetics.
You should see when the ladies have done it, what, oh, that beautiful table and the napkins have been chosen, and if you please, the cup has been chosen, even if you didn't were such a crude Philistine, you didn't notice it, because the particular decoration on this set of cups matches the tomatoes that are all cut up in beautiful shapes, not just push on the plate like that. No, they're all cut up, and all that lovely splash of green that matches the red luscious meat, you see. And when the old sweet comes in, why, it's a venerable creation. Oh, it's a pity to put the spoon in it and spoil it, isn't it? Ha, the aesthetics of it. Don't you say it's always a waste of time? Oh, grab a sausage as you're running out of the door sometimes, yes, but this artistry, ha, sets the old stomach juices going, doesn't it, just to look at it.
It's part of the pleasure. Yes. Who say I don't want an enormous great meal, but it's just that little thing, oh, so lovely served. Isn't that beautiful? Thank God for women that have the ability to do it. Yes, there's a difference between the way man eats and the animal eats. And then manners. You be very careful the next line you come near to. If you should please, be pleased to pass him a a a a beef steak, don't ask for it back. Ha. Or say please pass the carrots or anything like that.
Ooh. A lion will die you for it at once, won't it? What ho? There's no sense of morals, of what's fair, or questions of whether other people have had enough. No. Just brute appetite, that's all. The morality of it? No. And as for the spirituality of eating a meal, anything spiritual about eating a meal? Yes, for I've seen you, you bow your head and give God thanks for it and for the hands that have prepared it. And the thing is raised to a spiritual level. I never saw a lion saying his prayers. When men forget God, then if they're not careful, they will deteriorate, and the satisfying of appetites becomes more like an animal.
I said before that a man's love for his wife is physiologically the same as a lion for his lioness, but oh, what a different thing it's meant to be. With beauty and morality and a spiritual dimension, as Christ also loved the church. And oh, for this ghastly age that has forgotten God and reduced that beautiful thing called love to the level of the animal. A beastly satisfying of mere physiological desires. That's culture gone wrong.
Here's old Nebuchadnezzar, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven. Oh, you say, to poor old boy. You'd have gone to his court when he was sane, he'd have been dressed in the most magnificent clothes, and now he couldn't care. Body exposed like a beast. And God, who knows us humans in our fallen state, arranged that we should have clothes, because part of the human personality has to do with shame and respect and value. And God wants us to honor our bodies. And Nebuchadnezzar grew careless.
Talk about the cult of the scruffy. Bother to cut his hair. Bother to cut his nails. Animals in the wild, their nails ordinarily get cut in their activities. Man is given the task by God of keeping his own body beautiful. With clothes and personal toilet. And here is a man. We're not thinking about salvation now, we're thinking just of a man and all the tragedy of it. The great artist who was used to imposing form and beauty on life is now so neglecting his body. His hair grows wild, his nails are like an animal.
You'll think I'm a granddaddy, won't you, when I say that I seem sometimes to see, sometimes ideas of a modern society that has forgotten beauty and developed the cult of the scruffy. What happens when men forget God? And our modern society is an example of it. How does it come? I'm just going to remind you finally of what Paul says in Romans. He tells us that when men forget God, part of God's present discipline is that he gives them up.
It's not only that the wrath of God will be revealed one day, but the wrath of God is being revealed in society down the centuries when men forget God and choose not to retain the knowledge of God, then God gives them up. And like Nebuchadnezzar, they dishonor their bodies. They lose their sense of shame. The body becomes a cheap toy thing. And God gives them up to uncleanness. Then the body gets perverted.
The Hebrew word for such perversion was dog. God gives them up in their mind. And the fact that in some societies you can see all sorts of value judgments that are immoral and disgusting, and yet people think they're wonderful, is a sign that God has given up their moral judgment, their minds. You can't live in God's world and reject God and suppose man is going to retain his dignity, beauty, and glory.
Now the last note. Nebuchadnezzar recovered. Isn't that delightful? Pray notice that Nebuchadnezzar recovered. For as a result of his discipline, he came to know God, however dimly, and God restored him to his brightness and to his majesty. That doesn't contradict the fact that Daniel was one day hoping for the Me- Messiah's kingdom to come. Doesn't contradict the fact that Daniel saw no ultimate hope for man, save in the coming of Messiah. But in the short term, yes, in the short term, things don't always go completely to the bad, but God restores them.
Read history and find how evil in certain things the Greek civilizations were, and came the flood of Christianity, and how things on certain, in certain centuries improve. They've improved in England once, didn't they? After the crudities of an earlier century, there came the great evangelical awakening, and life in some part became sweeter, even at the natural level, because of it. And it's worth our while being Daniels in a world and witnessing to the God of heaven, and where health and sanity and beauty truly lie, not merely in things external, but in the relationship of a man's heart towards his creator.
I've kept you a long, long while this morning. Forgive me, do please forgive me. Uh, but now in, if this in this session you like to, uh, begin your discussions, say for a quarter of an hour or, or twenty minutes, is that so? The next session is a very easy session because it is chapter five, and it is a less, a chapter that has been used by gospel preachers galore. There's scarce a gospel preacher here present but what has preached on it and knows all about it, and many have taught it in their Sunday school classes, so that I shall not need to say very much about it, and we may carry over the rest of your discussion of this chapter into your discussion of chapter five.
