A CHANGED MAN!
Daniel 4:34-37
(A short exhortation for Youth)
A legend from India tells about a mouse that was terrified of cats until a magician agreed to transform him into a cat. That resolved his fear…until he met a dog, so the magician changed him into a dog. The mouse-turned-cat-turned-dog was content until he met a tiger-so, once again; the magician changed him into what he feared. But when the tiger came complaining that he had met a hunter, the magician refused to help. “I will make you into a mouse again, for though you have the body of a tiger, you still have the heart of a mouse.” (David Yarbrough)
Changed, yes! --but what a hard process!
How much easier if Nebuchadnezzar had submitted to God freely, while he had the chance! In any case, God touched him, and he was never the same again.
I. HIS ATTITUDE TO GOD WAS CHANGED
Like so many people, the farthest he had come so far was to pay God nice compliments--nod his head to him politely, as it were. Now it all became personal, as you see from verse 34. His heart is bowed before God.
II. HIS ATTITUDE TO HIMSELF WAS CHANGED
The last part of verse 37 shows that Nebuchadnezzar’s attitude to himself is changed -- he’s no longer obsessed with his own power or infallibility. He’s no longer looking down at the city he’d built, but...(34)?
III. HIS ATTITUDE TO HIS PEOPLE WAS CHANGED
Everyone in the kingdom would benefit by the change. The change was "for the glory of my kingdom," he said (36).
I think that meant "for the good of my people," and that he’d treat them now as persons, not as property.
Nebuchadnezzar’s reason returned when he became rightly related to Go. How far can a person be truly "rational" if he doesn’t know God?
One of Hitler’s bodyguards was a man named Kurt Wagner. He adored Hitler and reverenced him as a god. At the end of the war, with Hitler a suicide in a Berlin bunker, Kurt’s faith was shattered and he planned a suicide. Going for a final cup of coffee, he picked up a discarded Gospel tract and read it—first carelessly and then with interest. As a result of what he read, he sought out a pastor who led him to Christ. Kurt was transformed from a hardened man into a peace-loving man. He became a new creation in Christ.
(SermonCnetral.Com)
Let’s pray for all who are putting personal ambition before the glory of God.
God bless!
