In Daniel chapter four we read of a king gone mad. This, by the way, is not unusual. There are many instances in history (and in modern culture) of those who have achieved great status, wealth, power or fame, ending up mentally and/or emotionally disturbed.
Sometimes it is directly tied to the use of mind-altering drugs. But the lust for power, fame and fortune can be drug enough to drag someone into a fantasy world.
Lest we feel smug, we must remember that self-defeating behavior does not only inhabit the lives of the culturally "elite". Every human struggles with habits and weaknesses by which we often shoot our own selves in the foot.
But how can we stop the madness?
How can we reinvent ourselves so that we don’t continue to be our own worst enemy?
First of all, Daniel 4 teaches us:
1. We need the Holy Spirit to guide our thinking. (Daniel 4:1-18)
Fear is often the catalyst to our self-defeating behavior. We’re afraid, so we do stupid things in our feeble human attempt to cope with our fear.
Even kings are afraid sometimes. In verse five King Nebuchadnezzar told Daniel, "I had a dream, and I was afraid."
There’s an awful lot said about dreams in the book of Daniel, most of which we’ll get to later in this sermon series. Dreaming is a very interesting phenomenon because we all dream and because dreams can be so unique.
Many believe that dreams are one way the subconsious mind deals with the fears the conscious mind is unwilling to confront. We can’t explain every dream that way but let’s say that is indeed true of some of our dreams.
King Nebuchadnezzar was afraid. The stresses of his kingdom and his human inability to cope were reflected in his subconscious ramblings. He was experiencing prosperity and freedom from want. (Verse 4) But his soul was still empty. Nebuchadnezzar would have been right at home in 21st-Century America.
Before beginning his dark journey into mental illnes, the king calls on his wise men. One wonders why Neb even worried with the other counselors in his kingdom given his previous experience in chapter two. No one but the man of God, Daniel, could help him with his previous dream. Perhaps it’s because old habits are hard to break. But they must be broken if we are going to bring an end to self-defeating behavior.
Once again it is Daniel who interprets the dream. What the kings says about him is key to our first insight. Three times the king said to Daniel, "the spirit of the holy gods is within you." (4:8,9,18)
The king was partially correct in his theology. It wasn’t the spirit of the "gods"; it was the Holy Spirit of the One and Only True God that was in Daniel.
Like the king, in our minds we often fear both the past and the future. But what lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to who lives within us!
To a believer in Christ, one’s body literally becomes the temple of the Holy Spirit. (1 Corinthians 6:19) He lives within those of us who are Christ followers!
If you are not yet a believer and follower of Christ, this is one of many reasons to become one. When you accept Christ as your Savior you receive the wonderful presence of God in the person of the Holy Spirit!
God has always wanted to dwell with people. He walked with Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden so they could talk with each other. After man sinned and consequently lost fellowship with God, He began to reestablish a dwelling with people. First he had them build a tabernacle; then a temple. He even sent His own Son in human flesh.
When Jesus went back to heaven God sent the Holy Spirit to indwell each individual believer. That’s how much God wants to spend time with us!
God offers to be here in person to assist us with every fear we encounter! Our problem is, we aren’t always in our right mind - the "mind of the Spirit". (Romans 8:26-27 KJV) Our thinking gets off track when we forget how God is willing to express His presence in our lives.
Consider Romans 8:5-6 NLT - "Those who are dominated by the sinful nature think about sinful things, but those who are controlled by the Spirit think about things that please the Spirit. If your sinful nature controls your mind, there is death. But if the Holy Spirit controls your mind, there is life and peace."
The Holy Spirit guided Daniel’s thinking. That’s why he didn’t live by fear and had a clear vision of the future. His spiritual mind is evidenced by two more principles that can help us put an end to self-defeating behavior.
2. We need to think with humility. (Daniel 4:19-37)
Since Daniel allowed the Holy Spirit to guide His thinking he thought with a humble mind.
The king was proud and arrogant and had fooled himself into believing he didn’t need God. He mistakenly believed he was self-sufficient. That’s why the scripture emphasizes a specific name of God in this story - "El Elyon", the "Most High" God. (Verses 2, 17, 24, 25, 32, 34)
That name of God is used by Daniel here in his narrative to clarify that even the most powerful and influential person on the planet is still subservient and vastly lower in rank than God. Man may reach heights of achievement, but God is "Most High".
Our weakness is, we often get "full of ourselves", like Nebuchadnezzar, and forget this truth. Power, fame and wealth, or other trappings of "success", may exacerbate the problem, but all of us struggle with the temptation of pride.
The king admitted God was teaching him this principle through his humbling experience: "Those who walk in pride he (God) is able to humble." (Verse 37)
Several years ago, after being convicted for possession of drugs, a member of the rock band Stone Temple Pilots, Scott Weiland, talked to Rolling Stone about how being in jail impacted his life.
Weiland kept repeating the word "humility".
"It’s not me thinking less of myself," he says, "It’s me thinking of myself less. A lot of my ways of thinking have backfired on me. My stubbornness. My pride. My arrogance. The difficult thing is that those defects of character become assets in my business, the rock and roll world."
"It’s great being a rock star," he crows. "But you know what? Being a rock star doesn’t give you the license to view yourself as more important than anybody else. And if I am to become a better man, a man who has some compassion and humility instead of just expecting people to understand me, that doesn’t make me less of a rock star." (Rolling Stone, 6-8-00)
Here’s another example.
By college, Michelle Akers had become an All-American soccer star, earning ESPN’s woman athlete of the year in 1985 - the same year the United States formed its first women’s national team, with Michelle a starter.
In 1991 the U.S. team won the first-ever Women’s World Cup and Michelle scored 10 goals in five games, including the championship’s winner. She signed an endorsement deal and became the first woman soccer player to have a paid sponsor. She played professionally in Sweden. Michelle’s drive and tenacity were beginning to pay off. She even tried out as the place kicker for the Dallas Cowboys: her longest attempt reached 52 yards.
But just as her star was rising, Michelle’s health was declining. By 1993, the woman who used grit and determination to make life happen found her life unmanageable.
"Each day I felt like I had flown to Europe with no food or sleep, then flown right back and trained for hours," Michelle says.
She suffered from Chronic Fatigue and Immune Dystfunction Syndrome (CFIDS), a debilitating disease affecting more than a million adult Americans. "When it was really bad, I couldn’t sit up in a chair. The racking migraines stranded me at home, unable even to get up to brush my teeth or eat."
For the first time, Michelle could no longer count on her old friends - strength and hard work. She had to find a new way to cope.
"I couldn’t bear not to be the best in the world, not to be the one who could bounce back from an injury," she says. "it was the only me I knew." When her marriage of four years broke up in 1994, Michelle had reached the end of herself.
"I was so sick I couldn’t take a five-minute walk without needing two days on the couch to recover. I was forced to spend a lot of time thinking about who I was. I didn’t like what I saw."
Michelle had put her trust in Christ as a high-school student, but ignored God in college and after graduation. Now sick and alone, Michelle, reluctantly accepted an invitation from a strength coach to attend his church, Northland Community Church in Longwood, Florida. Although she couldn’t atrticulate it at the time, in retrospect Michelle says she knew she "needed to get things right with God."
"Looking back," she explains, "I think God was gently, patiently tapping me on the shoulder and calling my name for years. But I continously brushed him off, saying, ’Hey, I know what I am doing. I can make these decisions. Leave me alone.’ Then I think He finally said, ’Okay,’ crossed His arms and looked at me sadly - because He knew I was going to make a lot of mistakes by ignoring Him. He knew I would be hurting in the future."
"It took devastation before I would acquiesce and say, ’Okay, God. You can have my life. Please help me.’" (Christian Reader, March/April 2000)
God gave King Nebuchadnezzar the dream to warn him of the consequences of pride and to give him a chance to repent. God even gave him twelve months to do so, but the king did not yield until after he experienced seven years of mental illness.
If we are going to put an end to our self-defeating behavior we must let the Holy Spirit guide our thinking just like Jesus did. "Let this mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus", Paul wrote in Philippians 2:5. Christ had a humble mind. Our thinking must go in that direction if we to ever stop messing ourselves up.
Which leads us to our third and final principle for overcoming self-defeating behavior, as learned from Danial chapter four.
3. Substitute healthy activities for the harmful. (Daniel 4:27)
Daniel was filled with the Spirit therefore he had a humble mind. He also understood what caused the king’s self-defeating behavior: sin.
Listen to Daniel 4:27 - "Therefore, O king, be pleased to accept my advice: Renounce your sins by doing what is right, and your wickedness by being kind to the oppressed. It may be that then your prosperity will continue."
No matter who we are, it is not enough to try and "manage" our sin. "With eighty-twenty obedience, the twenty always sinks you." (Kenny Luck) We must repent. We must make the 180 degree turn. And if we are to stop the behavior that hurts us, we must replace it with behavior that is good for us.
Look very carefully at what God said to us through Daniel: "Renounce your sins by doing what is right." Not just, "renounce your sins." Many people don’t have success overcoming their self-defeating behavior because all they do is try to quit. We must have something to take the place of the self-defeating behavior we’re trying to quit. Nature abhors a vacuum.
Remember what Jesus said: "When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, ’I will return to the house I left.’ When it arrives, it finds the house unoccupied, swept clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes with it seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first." (Matthew 12:43-45)
Doesn’t do any good to kick the devil out if we’re not going to let the Lord’s presence in! Doesn’t do any good to quit the old habits if we’re not going to replace them with new.
One right thing the king apparently needed to do was "be kind to the oppressed". (V. 27) As a rich man he needed to take some of his excess and give to the poor. He needed to get his administration involved in charitable works. One of the reasons God blesses us is so that we can be a blessing to others.
"He who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with his own hands, that he may have something to share with those in need." (Ephesians 4:28)
There’s probably not one of us who couldn’t afford to give more time and effort to helping others. That would sure take away time for self-defeating behaviors.
In "The Essential Calvin and Hobbes" by Bill Watterson, the cartoon character Calvin says to his tiger friend, Hobbes, "I feel bad that I called Susie names and hurt her feelings. I’m sorry I did it."
"Maybe you should apologize to her," Hobbes suggests. Calvin ponders this for a moment and replies, "I keep hoping there’s a less obvious solution."
Don’t look for a less obvious solution. Repent of your bad behavior and replace it with good deeds.
Do it now. Before God has to lovingly discipline you.
Someone said, "You can’t repent too soon because you do not know how soon it may be too late." Repentance may be difficult - but delay doesn’t make it any easier.
Let’s repent of not letting the Holy Spirit guide our thinking. Let’s repent of not, therefore, having a humble mind. Let’s repent of anything that is a self-defeating behavior and ask God to give us something postitive to take its place.
