Episode Transcript
Our message this morning.
Daniel four, verses twenty six through twenty eight.
The title of the message this morning is Pleasing Advice.
Pleasing advice.
In our text last week we learned the interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar's second dream.
Down to the stump of the tree.
Remember, he was represented by this tree that grew tall, reached up to heaven.
Branches reached across the earth and it provided sustenance and uh economic gain to um everyone in the world, because Nebuchadnezzar was the ruler of the Babylonian Empire about 500 years before Christ came.
And so during his reign he had two prophetic dreams, at least so far, and uh that that we know. here in the scripture he had two prophetic dreams and uh we're looking at the second one Daniel interpreted it all the way down to the stumps last week and uh Daniel said the king would be driven from men And given the mind of a beast, and he had live outside eating grass.
Never have to sneak into church.
We're glad to see anybody coming to church.
You just come in with your head held high.
We're glad you're here.
And he'd be outside eating grass for seven periods of time until he learned that the Most High God ruled in the kingdom of men and gave it to whoever he wants to.
And this morning, God willing, we're going to learn the interpretation of the stump and the roots, and we're going to hear the advice that Daniel gives to King Nebuchadnezzar concerning this trying time to come.
Giving the interpretation of the stump, Daniel said, if you'll look now with me in Daniel 4, 26, and in that they commanded to leave the stump of the tree roots.
Now when he's saying they, he's referring to the watchers.
Or the angels, so one and the same.
He's referring to God's cherubim, who came down and uh cried for the, gave the order for the tree to be chopped down.
And so these watchers are charged with executing this divine decree from God.
And they commanded to leave the stump and the roots of this tree.
Now to remove a tree forever, what do you have to do?
You have to remove the stump, you've got to dig up the roots.
Or else the tree can sprout back up again from that stump.
But God specifically decreed for the stump and roots of Nebuchadnezzar's kingdom to remain in the earth And Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar that because God commanded to leave the stump and roots of your kingdom, look back in your text, he said, your kingdom shall be sure to you.
You see that?
Your kingdom shall be sure to you.
Let's pray.
Father, we thank you for your precious word.
Thank you for each and every person here.
And I pray you'll give us the understanding of your word today.
May all eyes be on you, Father, we pray.
Edify your saints.
In Jesus' wonderful name.
Amen.
So your kingdom shall be sure to you.
Now to be the ruler of the world, I'm sure, is a very envious or enviable place to be, right?
If you're one of Nebuchadnezzar's close associates, and you see that he has become uh mad, he's got a mind like a beast, and he's outside in the field eating grass like a cow.
Can't you imagine there'd be a lot of people just rubbing their hands, can't wait to seize the throne during this time?
I'm sure there were many of people who would love to take Nebuchadnezzar's place, and this is going to be a national embarrassment for Babylon.
He's going to be completely incompetent to rule the kingdom, and it's a perfect time for someone to usurp it from him.
Surely Nebuchadnezzar, having heard the interpretation of this dream, immediately was concerned about losing his kingdom.
Will someone slay me and take the kingdom from me?
You know, they used to do that back then.
God, I'm going to be in this prophetic pathetic condition and what's going to happen to me?
What's going to happen to my kingdom and God?
comforting him in this concern, promised him that your kingdom shall be sure to you.
Someone asked me the other day for advice on how to deal with a particular family member in a certain situation, someone who had wronged them.
They wanted me to go to the internet, particular website that they had read an article at.
I get asked to do this all the time by people by the way.
And I don't do it.
I don't have time to do it.
They want me to go to the internet, read an article, and then give them an up or down on what I thought about the article.
I just don't have time to do that.
I I try like spending my time in the Bible and then teaching her what the Bible says.
It's a whole lot better.
And so I told them, I don't need to read the advice on the internet because we already know from God's word how to respond to someone in that situation.
I told her, all we have to do, and this is for you too, all you have to do is notice how God responds to people in various situations in the Bible.
And then we respond to people the way God does.
It's that simple.
God has given us such great examples of how He deals with people.
In certain situations and all we have to do is do what he did.
And that works in every situation except for times of God's divine sovereignty, right?
I mean he's God and there's certain things that God does with people concerning judgment and things like that that we not being God don't have that uh That venue, it's outside our purview.
But in Luke chapter 10, Jesus told the parable about a man who was robbed by thieves and left for dead.
Three men passed by that victim, but only one man stopped to help him.
And then after giving the parable, Jesus asked some people in Luke 10, 36 through 37, Which now of these three thinkest thou was neighbor unto him that fell among the thieves?
And he said, He that showed mercy on him.
Then Jesus said unto him, Go and do thou likewise.
You remember that Command, go and do thou likewise.
If you'll take what Jesus said in that example that Jesus gave in Scripture, And you'll apply it to other examples that God gives us in Scripture, you will have the perfect advice for every occasion in your relationship.
Watch what God does.
Watch how God said something should be done in the scriptures, and then go and do thou likewise.
What you see God do to others, or recommend to be done to others, you go and do that likewise.
Jesus said in John 13, verse 15.
John 13, verse 15, He says, For I have given you an example.
That ye should do as I have done to you.
In other words, I wash your feet, I sacrifice my life for you.
Go and do thou likewise.
You do as I have done to you, or you do as you've seen me do for others.
You see?
And so you look at how God deals with people in Scripture And you can tell someone, this is how God treated someone in that situation.
This is how you should treat that person in that situation.
The apostle Peter said in 1 Peter 2.
21.
For even hereunto were ye called.
You ready for your calling, Christian?
Here's your calling.
Because Christ also suffered for us.
Leaving us an example that ye should follow his steps.
In other words, go and do thou likewise.
So as we see God securing what's precious to Nebuchadnezzar, you see how God's treating Nebuchadnezzar in this situation?
As we see God securing what's precious to Nebuchadnezzar when Nebuchadnezzar is weak, you and I should follow in God's steps concerning others who enter into times of their weakness.
God told him, Your kingdom shall be sure to you.
And when we see someone struggling in their time of weakness, We should assure them that their position is secure as well.
We should assure them that we're not going to try to take advantage of their weakness and rob them of their position.
When I was younger, I used to fill in for pastors on occasion when they were sick or out of town.
Now suppose That I was a member of a church and my pastor became stricken with some kind of illness.
Maybe he had cancer.
Maybe he had some serious heart trouble.
And it laid him flat on his back, and it prevented him from coming to church and preaching.
And here I am, and he knows I can preach.
And let's say that that pastor were to ask me, Brother Richard, would you fill in for me?
I can't preach.
I'm ill.
Now, one of the very first things that I would need to do in my heart would be to secure that sick pastor's position in his church.
I would need to determine in my heart that I was going to pray for that pastor's recovery.
And I was going to encourage the people of the church to anticipate his return Because until God takes him home, that's his place.
And I would need to assure that pastor.
That his place in the pulpit would be waiting for him as soon as God raised him up again, if God did so.
You see, like God, I would need to go and do thou likewise.
I would need to tell him, your pulpit shall be sure to you.
You see that?
I was sick once and I couldn't preach for a few weeks.
And a pastor told me as they had someone fill in.
A pastor said, brother, don't worry.
That church will be there when you get well.
It'll be there waiting on you.
I thought, how mature of him How godly of a response that was.
I won't forget that.
Don't be a vulture.
Waiting on someone to die so you can take their place.
You know, people think that way.
They'll be at work, there'll be a boss, that boss comes down sick and in their mind they think, hey.
This may be my big chance.
Maybe I can work my way in here and the other bosses see me do a good job while my boss is sick.
Maybe I can kind of bump him out and take over.
And they're not thinking, is the boss ready for retirement yet?
Can he pay his bills if he doesn't have his job?
Can he pay for his medicine?
What about all the years he's put in trying to work toward retirement?
Don't be a vulture waiting on someone to die so you can take their place.
Be an encourager. and secure the place that belongs to the weak and the distressed.
Rest assured, church, God does not fill voids with vultures.
Vultures sometimes fill voids, but it's not God putting them in there.
He said, Your kingdom shall be sure to you.
And in this gracious statement, we can see that God cares for us when we are weak.
If God cares for Nebuchadnezzar when he was weak, he cares for us when we are weak, and he assures us that our weakness cannot hinder his plans for our lives.
If God cuts you down to size to teach you a lesson, rest assured God loves you.
And he'll leave the stomp and roots.
When your lesson is learned, you'll spring up again In fact, it was this very weakness that ensured the uh Nebuchadnezzar that the kingdom would be guaranteed for him, for God told Nebuchadnezzar that the kingdom would only be given back to him.
Look in your text.
After you have known that heaven rules, that's when you get the kingdom back.
That's when you quit.
Grazing out there on the grass like a cow, and you get back in the throne ruling the kingdom where you belong.
Once you remember, once you realize that heaven rules, not you.
Unless and until Nebuchadnezzar learned the lesson of the sovereignty of God over his creation, he would continue to be exiled from the throne.
Daniel said, It is only after you have known that heaven rules, that the kingdom will be restored to you.
And this should be a great encouragement for us when we enter into a time of our our fiery trials in life.
Seek to learn from God the truth that He wants you to know during that trial.
I promise you, whatever trial God brings you into, there's a truth to learn if you'll learn it.
I promise you there is.
I believe one of the reasons Job's trial lasted so long was because he was trying to figure out what he had done wrong. rather than trying to learn what God was doing right at that time.
God had something wonderful in Job's life planned for him.
And God was going to bring his honor and his glory, make it known. through Job's affliction.
And Job kept being focused on what have I done wrong instead of trying to learn what God was doing right.
And we have to enter into each trial, each heartache that we enter in life.
With a heart willing to learn from our time of pain what we didn't know in times of pleasure.
I promise you you'll learn a whole lot more suffering.
Then you will celebrate.
Can y'all say that?
Can y'all ca have you learned more when you suffer than when You've been celebrating in life.
It's when you go through hard times that you learn the most.
And we got young people in here who've never gone through difficult times.
And when you grow up and you run into difficult times and you will, you remember this lesson.
Be like Nebuchadnezzar, as God wanted Nebuchadnezzar to learn this lesson.
When you know that heaven rules, then you'll get back on your throne.
King Nebuchadnezzar had a tough road ahead of him.
And there was no way out of it.
There was, however, some good advice that he could put into practice.
Daniel said, you have a tough road ahead of you, Nebuchadnezzar, verse 27.
Therefore, O King, let my advice be pleasing to you.
Now, this is good for the sufferer and from those who watch the person suffer as well.
When you see somebody suffer, And you come alongside of them.
Do you know what the first thing a person thinks of when they're going to go visit someone who's suffering?
Whether it's an illness or some family trouble or whatever the situation is.
Do you know what one of the first things a person thinks of when they go see someone suffer?
I wonder what I should say to them.
Ain't they right, Brother Doug?
What grand piece of wisdom Can I bring to this person?
Come alongside them.
I give them this piece of wisdom.
And when I leave, they think, I am so much better off because Brother Doug said A, B, C, and D.
This way we think, what can I say to them?
And most of the time we struggle with what to say Well, here's something that you can give a person when they're in a fiery trial that'll work every time.
If you deliver it correctly.
So he says, Nebuchadnezzar, let my advice be pleasing to you.
He has some good advice for someone about to go through a fiery trial.
In church, we don't always know the best advice to give or take, but here's some you can use.
And this advice should be pleasing to the person you give it to.
And if someone gives you this advice, it should be pleasing to you as well.
Biblical advice should always be welcomed with an eager ear Daniel said, listen to my advice, look in your text, and break off your sins by righteousness.
Break off your sins by righteousness.
Now to break off your sins, that word break off or that term break off, it means to sever, to cut off from you So you sever yourself from your sins, and thus you're discontinuing whatever unbiblical behavior you were doing.
He says, Nebuchadnezzar?
If there's anything in your life that is contrary to the God I serve, break it off.
This is my advice to you.
Break it off.
Now, now watch how breaking off sins is accomplished Does he say break off your sins by stop doing your sin?
Is that what he says?
He says, break off your sins by what?
By righteousness.
By righteousness.
The only way to quit doing wrong is to start doing right.
It's the only way.
A lot of people try to quit doing wrong.
But they don't start doing right.
And there is no way to truly quit doing wrong unless you begin doing right.
People often celebrate their sobriety They do.
I've seen people get on social media or say, I've been sober for five years, been sober for a year now.
And everyone praise the Lord, thank the Lord, and all that stuff.
And you know what?
I celebrate when someone is sober too.
But they they make the mistake a lot of times.
People make the mistake of celebrating their sobriety as their crowning achievement, and it's not.
You see, what good is it to stop Being under the influence of drugs and alcohol, if you don't start being under the influence of the Spirit of God.
Now to think about it.
Being under the influence of the Spirit of God is to be under the influence of God's word, which the Holy Spirit is the author of.
The Bible says, be not drunk with wine.
We're in his excess.
It's wrong to be drunk with wine.
But be filled with the Spirit.
You know what that it means, brother Duck?
Watch how this works.
Be not drunk with wine, we're in as excesses in the book of Ephesians, that's breaking off your sins.
But be filled with the Spirit, that's by righteousness.
You see, if you're not drunk with wine, you're emptying yourself of the former influence.
But now what do you have?
No influence at all.
But if you fill yourself back up and replace the alcohol with God's word, now you will be under the influence of the Spirit rather than the spirits.
Make sense?
You break off your sins by righteousness.
So someone, let's say they're they're uh uh celebrating their sobriety from drugs and alcohol and and uh and and unless you start yielding to God's word Then you go from being misguided by the drugs and alcohol to now being misguided by your fallen flesh.
Because we all have a fallen flesh, and that's why we all have been given a Bible.
So we can be guided by God's perfect word rather than our imperfect flesh that we inherited from sinful Adam.
Again, the only way to break off unbiblical behavior is to begin with biblical behavior.
Daniel said, break off your sins by righteousness, look back in your text, and your iniquities by showing mercy to the poor.
Now he's giving Nebuchadnezzar specific instructions that's relative to him being a ruler as a king.
The word iniquities here means perversion.
That means anything that deviates from God's word.
So break off your deviation from God's word. as a king by showing mercy to the poor.
And the word poor here doesn't necessarily mean someone who doesn't have money, even though it can, but it means someone who is depressed or browbeaten.
Depressed or browbeaten, the king had been so preoccupied with building up his power and his wealth as that great tree that he had failed to consider Those people who were broken by his political system.
Isn't that what governments do?
People who have a lust for power.
Do you know what they want to start doing?
They want to start raising taxes.
People who have a lust for power, they want to impose more taxes.
And by doing that, they're not considering the burden they're putting on society.
They're considering the gain that they make by increasing those taxes.
So he says, Nebuchadnezzar as a ruler, you need to, you've been deviating from God's word.
You need to start considering.
The people that you've broken by your political system and your lust for power.
An unrighteous leader will enact laws and policies that benefit him or her.
A righteous leader, however, is going to consider how do my laws and policies affect the people who are under me.
I love how President Trump bombed those ISIS terrorists on Christmas Day.
Absolutely loved it.
I thank God for it.
We have a school there in Nigeria.
And they're killing and kidnapping Christians.
And when he did that, he was showing mercy to the brow beaten.
To those poor Christian souls who've been kidnapped and had their family members murdered.
I love how he's lowered taxes. for the working people and those on Social Security.
He does this because he cares.
How his leadership affects people under him.
The other day I was watching a meeting between him and American farmers.
And one of the farmers told him how certain govern governmental rules were hurting American farmers.
Tammy and I were watching this together.
He says, Mr.
President, this and this is happening and this is how then how it's affecting us.
And he's listening to it.
And President Trump said, Oh, that's an easy fix.
He then turned to one of his cabinet members.
He said, take care of that.
He said, Yes, sir, Mr.
President.
See, this is what Daniel's telling Nebuchadnezzar to do.
He's saying, start being a leader who cares about people under you.
A righteous leader serves the people, an unrighteous leader serves themselves at the people's expense.
Jesus said in Matthew 20, 27 through 28, and whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your leader.
What?
Servant.
If you want to be promoted up, you have to remember to care about the people who are down under you.
Whoever seeks to be chief among you, whoever wants to run for political office, do so with a servant's heart.
He said, even as the Son of Man, that's Jesus, came not to be ministered unto, but to minister and to give his life a ransom for many.
Oh, King Nebuchadnezzar didn't have that kind of heart.
All King Nebuchadnezzar cared about at this time was, I want to get higher and higher and bigger and stronger.
I'll be like the Most High.
Be like a God to the world.
No, he wasn't like a God to the world because our God made himself a servant and died for our sins.
And God says, Nebuchadnezzar, you've gotten too big for your britches.
I'm going to make you graze like a cow in the field till you know that I'm the one who rules the world and not you.
I put you on that throne.
Now Daniel said, Nebuchadnezzar, take my advice of breaking off your sins by righteousness.
Because we don't know, look back in your text, whether there will be duration to your prosperity.
Look here at the text.
I don't know where that verse came from.
I just read it.
And that is wrong.
That's why I look back here.
I thought, where did that come from?
If it may be a lengthening of thy tranquility.
Huh?
Yeah, I don't know how that got there in my notes.
But apparently I put it there.
I wrote 'em.
Tammy writes my sermons every other Sunday.
No, I'm kidding.
I'm kidding.
Okay.
I must have got a different translation and pasted it in there, and I'm like, that is not what it says.
If it may be a lengthening So let's just read the whole thing.
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 it may be a lengthening of thy tranquility.
You know what he's saying?
Look, we don't know if maybe by you learning the lesson early.
And starting to do right and follow God's word.
Perhaps God will lengthen the time of your prosperity and shorten the time of your judgment.
Your judgment's coming.
Everything God said is going to happen to you.
But perhaps he'll give you a reprieve, a lengthening of days that you can enjoy before this judgment comes upon you.
Church, you never know if God may shorten your time of tribulation.
Are you yielding to his word when that tribulation comes?
The best advice you can give to someone when tribulation comes is this.
What Daniel gave to Nebuchadnezzar.
If there's anything wrong in your life, anything at all.
Do what God's Word says to do.
Make whatever necessary changes you need to make.
And then trust God through your trial.
That's the best advice you can give to someone.
And Daniel did both.
Number one, he assured Nebuchadnezzar that his kingdom would be sure to him.
Number two, he counseled Nebuchadnezzar to follow the word of God.
And we need to do the same to others.
The advice you give someone when you're called to someone is tell them this, number one.
Make sure if there's anything wrong in your life that you haven't been living for God in, you change that and you make that right with God.
And number two, once having done that, you trust God. through this fiery trial, that he's going to teach you the lessons you need to learn.
And he's going to keep his promises to you.
Whatever those promises may be in his word that apply to you in that situation.
This is what Daniel told Nebuchadnezzar, and this is what I'm telling you.
When you come to a hard time.
The first thing you want to do is this.
Do a self-check.
Is there anything in my life that's not right with God?
If there is, confess it to God.
Make it right.
And once you've done what you know to do, then just commit your way to God and trust Him through that fiery trial.
God will do you right.
God will teach you what you need to learn.
Not every trial is due to your sin.
And when we enter into a fiery trial, we don't always know why.
Job didn't know why.
But that's what we need to do.
God, whatever the reason is, I trust you Help me to correct whatever is wrong in my life, and help me to trust whatever you've told me in your word.
Verse 28.
All this came on King Nebuchadnezzar.
All this came upon the King Nebuchadnezzar the prophecy that we heard and did vice That Daniel gave, it all came on King Nebuchadnezzar, and it came on him, meaning it is like a package, an unwanted package delivered to his address that he couldn't refuse.
That's the way fiery trials are.
You get an everything's going well in life.
And then one day You get a knock at your door, you open it, and there's a very unpleasant package, and you can't refuse it.
You've got to accept it.
I kid you not, this actually happened.
The the day before I had a bout with Aphib and had to go to the hospital That previous that night before Tammy and I took Tammy out to Longhorn Steakhouse and man we ate good.
It was good And I'm drinking some iced tea and eating my steak, and I remember thinking to myself, I'm not kidding, I remember thinking to myself, My life is going so well right now.
I mean everything's perfect.
I wonder how long it can go this way before something bad happens.
I remember thinking that That next morning in the middle of the night, it will go my heart.
Oh boy.
And next thing you know, I wind up in the hospital.
We don't know what's gonna happen.
We don't know why it's gonna happen.
Did God make my heart go go like that because I've been doing something bad?
I know one thing.
It was an unwanted package delivered in my doorstep.
There wasn't anything I could do.
I had to accept it.
So what do you do?
Lord, if there's anything wrong with my life, I want to make it right.
And God, if there's anything I need to learn I want to learn it in this fiery trial.
I went to a fiery trial one time, a very, very, very bad time in my life.
And when that package landed on my doorstep, I'm driving down the road and I'm pulling out of my neighborhood going to work.
And I told God, God.
I do not want this difficult time to be wasted.
I want to learn whatever lesson you have me to learn.
And I want to grow closer to you as a result of the pain that I'm experiencing.
That's what you do when all this comes upon you as it came upon Nebuchadnezzar.
And God willing will take back up in verse 29 the next Lord's day.
Aren't you glad you have a Bible?
I mean, we we can we can open up situations like this that happen to people.
Watch the advice God gives them, watch how God deals with them, and then we can take that real-life practical wisdom.
And just apply it to our lives.
That's what we've been given a Bible for.
Father, we thank you so much for your precious word.
Thank you for how you dealt with Nebuchadnezzar.
Thank you for judging him righteously.
Thank you for cutting him down, that you may grow him up a better man.
Thank you for doing us the same way, and thank you for your wonderful promises and your word.
That if we're a child of God, a believer in Jesus Christ, Lord, the tree may come down, but praise God, because of the cross, the stump always remains.
And I thank you for teaching Nebuchadnezzar the most valuable lesson he needed to know, and that is who you were to him.
And thank you for converting him and making him a believer, as we'll learn soon.
In Jesus' precious name, go with each and every person here today.
Give them a good day and a good work week this coming week.
We ask them in his precious name, Jesus Christ.
Amen.
