Dictionary.com has the following entry for the word humble:

This is God’s requirement. We are to humble ourselves. God hates the proud. It is His job to raise up whom He chooses, not ours.

Here is how it describes being humbled:

This is what happened to King Nebuchadnezzar because despite the warning brought to him by the dream, via Daniels interpretation, he refused to check his pride and humble himself. As mentioned in my previous post this is clearly not a good place to be.

But that is all very well for a King, or somebody else in high position. It’s clear that they have a need to remain humble and it’s probably even clear on how they can do it, but what about me? I don’t have a high position, lots of money, fame, or influence. How does this call to humility affect me?

All of us have a certain amount of pride. We want people to think highly of us. We want people to think we are good at what we do. We want people to take our side in a disagreement or to agree with our opinions on an issue. This element of pride is what God wants us to remove. We should not feel the need to “big ourselves up” and we should not be concerned, in this respect, of other peopleââ?¬â?¢s opinion of us. God’s view of us is all that should matter and he sees the heart; which is where the pride that causes all the problems lives.

I’m not saying for a second that this is easy. I myself am struggling with this at the moment with a difficult situation at work. But I know that need to remain focused on the fact that God knows my heart and my motivations irrespective of how others may be attempting to put me down. It’s God’s job to build me up, not my own. Not easy though.

I’m also not saying that it’s wrong to be proud of our achievements. We should not run ourselves down. That’s false humility, which only takes away the glory from God for the success His gifts have given us. We just need to keep all things in perspective. God gives, and God takes away.

Perhaps inspired by the vision he had seen, Nebuchadnezzar decides to build an image of gold. Verse 1 tells us that it was sixty cubits high and six cubits in width. In our terms of measurement, this would be an image that was 90 feet high and 9 feet wide. Thus, this is a very large image of gold that was erected by the king. Nebuchadnezzar gathers all of his governors and rulers to the dedication of this golden image. In verses 4-6 the command is given that at the sound of the music, all the people are to fall down and worship the gold image that has been set up. Further, anyone who does not worship will be cast immediately into the midst of a burning fiery furnace. Some of the Chaldeans go before the king and tell him that there are certain Jews who are over the provinces of Babylon that are not worshipping the gold image. In particular, it is the three friends of Daniel: Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. The Chaldeans make the charge personal to the king by saying that they “have not paid due regard to you.” At hearing these words, the king is filled with fury and rage and calls for the three men to stand before him. Once the men are before the king, Nebuchadnezzar offers them a second chance. He is going to have the music played, and if they will worship, then everything will be fine. However, if they do not worship, they will be cast into the burning fiery furnace. The response of the three men is very impressive in verses 16-18. In verse 17 we see that the three men had faith that God would deliver them from this incident. But verse 18 is even more impressive. The men state that even if God does not deliver them, they still will not worship the image that has been set up.

This response of the men angers the king even more, so much that he orders the furnace to be heated seven times hotter than usual. Archaeology tells us that these furnaces which were used to make building stones, would easily have been able to been heated up in the range of 1000 degrees. Thus, the king had the ability to make these furnaces very hot. The king then commands the three friends of Daniel to be bound and cast into the fiery furnace. To see how hot the furnace was, we notice verse 22 that those who had bound the three friends and cast them into the furnace were killed by the fire because the furnaces were so hot. Once the three men are thrown in, Nebuchadnezzar looks and sees four people loosed and walking around in the furnace. Nebuchadnezzar is confused because he had thrown only three men into the furnace. Further, how is it that they are able to walk around in the furnace? That furnace is killing those who approach it because of its great heat, yet these men are surviving. Further, verse 25 tells us that Nebuchadnezzar saw someone like the Son of God with the three men. Nebuchadnezzar wants to find out what is going on so he orders the three men to come out of the furnace.

When the men come out, verse 27 tells us,

“they saw these men on whose bodies the fire had not power; the hair of their head was not singed nor were their garments affected, and the smell of fire was not on them.”

We certainly see the true miracle of deliverance from God taking place. If you have ever been to a smoky restaurant or where there was a fire, you know that the smell of smoke clings to your clothing. Yet it did not to these men. The fire was so strong that it killed the servants who threw them into the furnace, but their hair was not even singed. Because of these men�s faith in God and their strength to not worship the golden image, God delivered them from the fiery furnace. Because of this miracle, Nebuchadnezzar decrees that no one should speak against these men and that no one should make them serve any god other than their own. Further, the men are promoted in the province of Babylon . Chapter 3 is a great lesson about what faith in the Lord can do and a call for all to be willing to give their lives for the Lord.

So, the first thing that strikes me out of this chapter is the sheer comedy of the first part of it. King Neb (forgive me but I can’t be typing that more than a few times) has a dream which he doesn’t understand and when he asks the wise men to interpret it for them he stipulates that not only must they interpret it but they must tell him the dream as well! If they don’t do this then they will be put to death – which would still leave the king not knowing what the dream meant. So when the astrologers say that this cannot be done and the king goes barmy and orders the death of all the wise men in Babylon, including Daniel and his friends.

There is some wisdom in this logic though – for King Neb knows that only something greater than humans can provide an adequate explanation of this vision and that can be done, then they will know what the vision was in the first place. We know that God can provide wisdom and insight into peoples lives just as Jesus did when talking to the Samaritan woman and it seems to me that this is a classic example of how God literally engineers a situation to bring about His will and His glory.

The thing about it is that Gods name would not have been glorified had Daniel not gone to the King and pleaded for time to intepret the dream. The bible doesn’t say that God instructed Daniel to go and plead for time with the King – it simply says that Daniel saw that if he didn’t, he would be killed and knew that his God was the only God who could rescue him. This really speaks to me – as sometimes when I live my life I am constantly asking God to confirm to me really obviously that I am doing His will. While there is nothing wrong with that in itself, this passage shows me that God has placed me in the situations I am in, in the job that I am in, with the friends that I have and God is going to use that for His glory. I don’t need a bellowing voice from God to know that I should help out a friend when they are in need for example, I should just do it – because God will be at work in that situation because He knew it was going to happen and can engineer good things out of all situations.

So Daniel tells the King his dream and interprets it for Him. The vision depicts a large statue made up of different materials and the materials represent future kingdoms of that time:

• The head of Gold we know is the Babylonian empire.
• The chest and arms of silver is believed to be the Medo-Persian empire that ruled from 539BC until 33BC.
• The bely and thighs of bronze represent the Greek empire that ruled from 330BC until 63BC.
• The legs of iron are believed to represent the roman empire.

The final kingdom talked about is the rock that is ‘cut out, but not by human hands’ that destroys the statue and forms a huge mountain that covers the whole earth. This rock represents the eternal Kingdom of God which is built on the ruins of the sinful empires of man. The kingdoms authority is over the whole earth and this has some parrallels with Revalation 21.

The last thing that strikes me about this passage is what happens to Daniel after he tells the King what his vision meant. It says the King lavished many gifts on him and gave him a better job. Sometimes in life people can make you feel guilty if you have more money than someone else, or a better job, or a nicer car, or whatever… But I really believe that God grants us these priveldges when He knows that we can be trusted to use them wisely. Daniel was granted a position of authority for what God did – but God knew that Daniel could be trusted to be wise with that and not allow it to go to his head. So when we find that we have more money than usual at the end of the month, don’t feel guilty about it! Live your life hungering after God, doing the things He wants and He will reward you and take care of our every need.