I feel a certain excitement about what God is doing among people, in our lives, in our practical work and even because we see so many visitors coming daily. God is doing so much. Wherever you look He is doing something. Do you also see and experience it? It is God’s grace if He continues to work. It is not our doing – it is God’s doing. Make sure you don’t miss the boat. Make sure your eyes are not closed - that when God speaks you are obedient, otherwise you will miss out.
When God points you in a direction, obey. When He directs your life in a certain direction, do it. He knows what is best for you. I never thought I would preach; I never wanted to preach. I was shy and found it difficult to speak in public. Recently I thought of the first time I took a service. I had to deliver potatoes to the Kingscliffe congregation. Rev Stegen asked me to attend the service and then distribute the potatoes afterwards. I phoned them there and said I would be coming and they said I should bring the potatoes and a preacher. I went back to Rev Stegen and told him this. He said to me, ‘Take the service.’ I thought I could not, but I would be obedient and do it. Some days before that, Rev Stegen advised me that if God spoke to me, make a note of it because I might need it sometime. So, I did this, not knowing I would use my notes to preach that day. I had to run, put on a jacket, grab the notes and leave. I took the service and afterwards the thought still went through my mind, ‘I am not a preacher’, but I asked the Lord that if there was one person who was touched or one person who gave his life to the Lord through the message, I would take it that He wanted me to preach. But, I said, if I heard nothing then I knew I was not a preacher, as I had always thought.
Afterwards a young man came to me. He said that he lived nearby and he had never been to that church, but he decided to attend the service at Kingscliffe on that day. During the service he made the decision to follow God and give his life to Him. I have to submit to what God has asked of me even though it is difficult, even though I think I shouldn’t stand here, even though I think there are many who could do it far better than me, even though I think I am not worthy - but if God wants something we must do it. If God wants you to do something, do it. I have experienced that there is a blessing in being obedient. It doesn’t mean it is always easy, but God gives you satisfaction if you do what He wants you to do. Do it when God opens the door.
I read recently about King Nebuchadnezzar.
King Nebuchadnezzar reigned for 43 years. History tells us that he was one of the greatest kings of the Babylonian empire. It is interesting to read how God used Nebuchadnezzar. He even used him to punish the Israelites for their disobedience (Daniel 1 – 4). The first four chapters tell of the time when Nebuchadnezzar ruled. The fiery furnace was during Nebuchadnezzar’s time.
King Nebuchadnezzar acknowledged God. He saw God’s miracles and experienced them.
King Nebuchadnezzar to all peoples, nations, and languages, that dwell in all the earth: Peace be multiplied to you! 2 It has seemed good to me to show the signs and wonders that the Most High God has done for me. 3 How great are his signs, how mighty his wonders! His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and his dominion endures from generation to generation. Daniel 4:1-3
34 At the end of the days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High, and praised and honoured him who lives forever, for his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation;35 all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, “What have you done?” 36 At the same time my reason returned to me, and for the glory of my kingdom, my majesty and splendour returned to me. My counsellors and my lords sought me, and I was established in my kingdom, and still more greatness was added to me. 37 Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honour the King of heaven, for all his works are right and his ways are just; and those who walk in pride he is able to humble. Daniel 4:34-38
Up to this point I don’t know if Nebuchadnezzar served God, but God did something for him in the first verse of this chapter. How do we know this? The king wants to shout it from the mountain tops. He wants the whole world to hear this. What must the world hear? God has done something for me. I experienced it, I felt it. Something happened and it was God’s hand.
The first thing you experience when God works in your life is that you cannot keep silent. You want to tell people what God has done. Do we experience this? Can you say that God has done something for you? You don’t need to be a preacher but where you work or conduct business, can you tell people what God has done for you? If you can’t, maybe you haven’t experienced God’s working in your life. That is why you have nothing.
Up until this point we don’t know where this king stood, but God touched him, and he wanted to shout it out to the whole world. He was not shy. He wanted to tell the people that God had done something for him.
If you don’t have a message for the world, I doubt whether God has touched you. Maybe you are so hard-headed that God cannot touch you.
Charles Spurgeon says you must almost hold it back.
When God has done something for you, you want the next person to experience it. Isn’t that what Rev Stegen says in his testimony? He wanted people to experience what he had experienced. He had experienced God’s working and that is why he said, ‘I want others to experience it.’
Have you ever looked at a person and said, ‘Oh I wish this person could meet God.’ Have you ever looked at someone who is lost and said, ‘Oh God reveal yourself to this person.’ Why not? Because you haven’t experienced it. If God works in our lives, we want the next person to experience the same. We look for opportunities to help the next one.
Do you know the impact that a testimony has? It strengthens you. If you tell people what God has done for you, it helps you. Young people, when God has done something for you, testify about it. Speak about it. Tell your friends. It will strengthen you.
Recently I heard of an alcoholic who was helped. God touched him and set him free. Then he was asked to testify about what God had done for him but he didn’t want to. After some time, I’m not sure how long, he fell back into alcohol. What if he had testified to what God had done for him? He may not have fallen back. Others could have helped him when they saw him going back to drink. If he had testified, he might have been able to stand.
Until chapter 4 of Daniel, King Nebuchadnezzar had experienced much. He saw miracles. He proclaimed and acknowledged them. Read it in Daniel 2:46. In Daniel 3:29 he says, everyone should worship this God. He experienced them, saw them, acknowledged them with his mouth, however, maybe it was just with his mouth.
Is your Christian life real? Is it something within, something you feel, or is it just in your mouth, something you just see and speak about? It is a sad state if your life consists only of what you know you must do but you don’t feel it. If you cannot say that God speaks to you, leads you, convicts you and reprimands you when you do wrong, do you have a living relationship?
Is your life today still what it used to be as a Christian? If your life still at the standard it was when you met Christ. Maybe you have learnt much along the way, but do you have the same vigour, the same desire to do the right thing? We often forget things, slacken and take things less seriously. We miss out on the life God has for us.
King Nebuchadnezzar saw God’s wonders but something was amiss. Pride entered. He thought he could do it on his own with God in the background. Something possibly distracted him – his kingdom, his wealth. Something became more important. Somehow, he forgot what God had shown him.
Do you still serve God? Are you on fire for Him? Do you want to do the right thing? Do you still remember the things God taught you in the beginning? Do you still get up in the morning, pray and ask God what He wants from you during the day, as you did before? ‘God please help me today; without you I cannot do it.’ We often forget the things God has shown us.
I remembered this recently: When God began working in my life, He taught us was not to waste food. I even remember when it was that He spoke to us. It might seem like a small thing. If He taught you this, do you still do it? Do you teach your children the same? God taught us that He provides the food and we may not waste it. We tend to forget.
Do you remember long ago when God convicted you, how seriously you took it? Do you remember when God showed you something, how quickly you wanted to get to someone to get the sand out of your eye? Is it still like that, or have you forgotten? Have you grown slack? Have you taken things lightly? Have you forgotten the miracles God showed you before?
Is your marriage, husbands and wives, that example that God uses in the Bible? He often compares His relationship with the church to that of a husband and wife. Maybe when you got married you said, ‘Lord, I want this marriage to be an example for You, a blessing.’ Is it still like that today?
33 For God is not a God of confusion but of peace. As in all the churches of the saints, 34 the women should keep silent in the churches. For they are not permitted to speak, but should be in submission, as the Law also says. 35 If there is anything they desire to learn, let them ask their husbands at home. For it is shameful for a woman to speak in church. 1 Corinthians 14:33-35
Some use this text to say that women should not speak. One day I asked Rev Stegen what this verse meant because I knew of women who speak and it is blessed. He said that one needs to take this verse in the context of where it happened. At that time there was a church with a balcony. The men would sit below and the wives and women at the top on the balcony. The husband at the bottom would speak and his wife would shout from the balcony saying, ‘No my husband, it is not like this, it is like that.’ Rev Stegen explained that for that time and that reason it was said to them not to speak in the church. If the woman did not understand what her husband was saying, she should ask him at home. It was disrespectful for a wife to contradict her husband in public.
Tell me wife, do you contradict your husband in public? Your husband says something and you contradict him. Do you contradict him to the point where it is not honourable to God? Do you respect your husband in the way you should? You want people to respect your husband, (which wife doesn’t want her husband to be respected), but you yourself don’t respect him? How will others respect him? They will look at you because you know him the best and they will treat him according to the way you treat him.
Recently we walked through a particular factory with a person I didn’t know very well. It struck me how the people in that factory respected him. The respect they showed that person impressed me, and because we were with him, they also showed us the same respect. Because of the way the people respected him, I gained respect for him. Why? The workers know him, they are with him all day long. If they show that respect, it gains my respect as well. It tells me something about that person. In the same way, wife, the way you treat your husband tells other people something about your husband. Think of that next time you are with your husband.
7 Likewise, husbands, live with your wives in an understanding way, showing honour to the woman as the weaker vessel, since they are heirs with you of the grace of life, so that your prayers may not be hindered.1 Peter 3:7
Husband, it is God’s command to love your wife. Do you love your wife? God has told you to. A man once told me that he realised he no longer loved his wife. He said he went for prayer and he prayed to God that He would give him a love for his wife and God did so. God commands us husbands to love our wives. If it is not like that, pray that God will give you that love.
Husbands, we have a responsibility towards our wives - to treat them in a godly way so that our marriage will bring glory to God, the way that He intended it to. It cannot be a cat and dog affair, whether you two are alone or with people. God intended your marriage to be a blessing.
Do you remember when you first started serving Christ and said that you want to live for Him? Is it still like that? Do you still remember when you received baptism, whether water or the Holy Spirit, what you were like? How careful you were not to hurt someone? There was an awareness every minute of the day to do what God wanted you to do. You never wanted your foot to slip or to get irritated when something went wrong. Is it still like that? If not, go back to where you should be.
King Nebuchadnezzar talks about God’s miracle and His wonders. What is that wonderful thing He talks about? It is when he ate grass like a cow, this is what he is referring to. When God disgraced and humiliated him. This was the start of the miracle.
Dear Christian, use the circumstances where God has placed you - whether difficult or unbearable - to see as God sees. If He puts you through the mill, go through it. He wants to open our eyes. God made him eat grass like an animal in order for his eyes to be opened. You complain about your difficult life - why must I go through this? I’d love to do this but I must do that. Use the circumstances where God has placed you to open your eyes, so that in the end you can say that God is a God of wonders.
We do many things in life. We work, we make money, we build houses and this is not necessarily wrong, but we so easily become distracted and focus on the wrong things. We look at the situation we are in, focus on it and become distracted. Other things become important and all-consuming. Even though we say we still follow Christ, even though we think we are still on the right track, we have drifted far away. Possibly because you have taken things lightly it is necessary for God to put your head in the sand and dirt, like King Nebuchadnezzar, for your own good.
A king eating grass, lying in the field - wet with dew. That is madness! But through this, God opened his eyes. Are your eyes open? Do you see things God’s way? When you are confronted with a situation, do you see it the way God sees it or do you see it with your own mind? Can you say, ‘I will leave it because God wants me to.’ Can you say, ‘I will accept it because God wants me to.’ If God wants you in His work, will you accept it? If He wants to use you, will you accept it or do you say, ‘No – I have my plans’? Do you want God to humiliate you, like he did to Nebuchadnezzar, before your eyes are opened?
God and God’s Kingdom, can you see that? Can you see that we live for God, for eternity? We don’t live for what we see here. But if we don’t see things God’s way, we will burn in hell for eternity. So, you become distracted and consumed by everyday things and you forget what God has done for you, what He has taught you, how you should live and what you should do. You drift away from the way God wants you to live.
Not everyone is as fortunate as King Nebuchadnezzar. God humiliated him so that his eyes could be opened. Many people don’t have that privilege. God says, ‘Enough is enough.’
Dear Christian, what must one still say to convince you that it is God and God alone. What more do you need to hear? What more do you need to feel so that you can realise that we are here to serve God. Our lives should serve Him. He has given us the chance to serve Him. If we don’t, we will end in the flames of hell. Consider your situation. Consider how you see things. Consider carefully how you live. Consider carefully how you treat people. Consider carefully where you are going to. If you see that you are not where you should be, there is still grace.
May God help us. May He be with each one of us. May He speak to us and show us where we fall short. May each one of us be a part of the wonderful working of God, to be able to say what King Nebuchadnezzar said after eating grass - that God is wonderful! King Nebuchadnezzar was restored. His kingdom was restored even in a greater manner than before. Why? He bowed and God saved him.
Conclusion Jabulani Dube
We are thankful for what we heard. King Nebuchadnezzar’s matter should give hope to each one. God can still help you whether you have fallen or whether you are troubled by sin. It should give you hope that as a child of God you can be helped.
King Nebuchadnezzar experienced many miracles but after he had fallen, he ended up as an animal eating grass.
It is like that with people who live the life of the world and do things that are done in the world. You can also be restored like King Nebuchadnezzar so that you are able to live a respectable life, whether you are a preacher or a woman in God’s work, you can be restored.
Possibly the evil spirits ride you, you may be in jail with a long sentence or in a jail of sin, but you can still be helped.
We must be like Shadrack, Meshack and Abednigo who were commanded to bow to that image, but they stood. As a child of God, when you are tempted, you need to say NO, I will not do this.
Peter and Judas Iscariot walked with Jesus and saw the miracles. Satan entered Judas Iscariot. Peter denied Jesus, but he repented. Judas was unable to repent and ended hanging himself.
This king who had experienced so many miracles ended up eating grass like an animal because pride entered his life and he also found fault with God’s children. Nowadays, family members lust after their own family members. That is animal-like living - incest. That is evil. You can be in the revival but living a life like Judas Iscariot. You can be living in the revival but deny the Lord Jesus like Peter. You see the works of God, but you criticise.
The king commanded that the furnace be made 7 times hotter for the 3 men. In faith they entered this furnace. They told the king that there was a fourth man in the fire with them who was like the Son of Man. We have experienced similar things - in the papers and amongst ourselves. Our faith has also been tested. Have we been burned by the fire? It is still obvious in people’s lives if they were burned by this fire. The three men trusted God. They said they would never bow to the image and even in the furnace they trusted God. Do you trust God?
There is a song sung by the Lutherans that says: Satan where should I look if I leave this Gospel? They tried to extinguish it, yet it burns and spreads throughout the earth. This Gospel is a metal that corrodes other metals.
When Satan tempts you, speak to him and say, ‘Satan, I can’t do this. This sin will remove me from Jesus. Must I return to alcohol, smoking, dagga?’ Oppose the devil and say no. ‘Satan, must I defile my body? No.’ When Satan tells you to do things with your hands or fingers, say, ‘No, I won’t. It will separate me from Jesus.’ The prophet Isaiah says your hands and fingers are full of blood. If you sin before God like this, your hands are bloodstained. David says your hands are defiled if you sin. Daniel and his friends did not eat the food from the king’s table or bow to the idol.
You may say that the Bible does not say you must speak to Satan and oppose him. Yet the Lord Jesus did so in the wilderness. If that cell phone defiles you, speak to Satan and say, ‘Satan, I will never do this. It will separate me from my Jesus and the Gospel I have received. Satan, I will never do that. I will lose the Holy Spirit I have received.’ If Satan tells you while everyone is sleeping go to the bathroom and defile yourself, say to him, ‘I will not do that.’ These 3 men said they would never bow to the golden image. When they were threatened with the furnace, they would not bow. We need fathers and mothers who stand. This Jesus whom we received will never lead us into sin.
Ask Satan, ‘Where should I go to if I leave this Gospel?’ In the past, storms and fire came even to the branches and some got burnt but there were others who stood. Why? The grace of God.
How sad when the king of their nation ate grass like a cow. It is heartbreaking when a christian, a preacher or a brother has fallen into drinking alcohol. But there is still hope. Thank you very much for this service. How wonderful that there is hope.
Rev Stegen once preached about this text. He said that even though you live a life like an animal, Jesus can help you. If you commit incest, it is the life of an animal.
Sad things happen where siblings, in an effort to get wealthy, fall into the sins of incest, murder and even sacrifice a sister or child to acquire wealth.
You may have a big ego and be respected but if you sacrifice others to become rich, you live like an animal.
The king himself saw the miracles but ended up living like an animal. There may be someone who knew the revival, lived in it but lived an animal-like life. A person is married, has children, yet lives the life of an animal. Peter and Nebuchadnezzar were helped, but Judas with his criticism, betrayed the Lord Jesus.
A stone can be in a pool for years but the water does not penetrate to the centre. This is an image of someone who lives in the revival for years, but nothing happens. They have children but they get angry and irritated.
After the king was restored, he praised God. His lords and counsellors returned and revered him again. Child of God, do not lose hope even though you have gone to whatever extreme. The Lord Jesus can make you a new creation.
