Daniel chapter 4 If you came in a little bit late, miss the announcements. We are on the radio, 88.5 FM. So if you need to close your windows up to turn your air on, we are on 88.5. And I think it'll reach everybody in the parking lot. So we are multi, I don't know what the term would be. We are audio, we are video, we are live. Amen. Daniel chapter four. Daniel chapter four. And I want you to look down at verse 37. Daniel chapter four, verse 37. Are we all there? All right, let's pray. Father, we come to this morning, and again, we are grateful and thankful for what Jesus did 2,000 years ago to go to a cross to pay for the sins of the world, including ours, We're thankful, Father, that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all unrighteousness. We're thankful, Father, that we can be called your children. We're thankful, Father, that we are your people. I pray this morning that you would minister to your people. Father, we live in a sin-sick world. You've been here, you know it. But Lord, this is a real mess that we're living in today. And Lord, we need to hear from heaven. And Spirit of God, we need you to minister to us. So I'm praying this morning, Spirit of God, you administer to your people. From the pulpit to the automobile, you administer to your people. Father, I pray that you take this piece of dirt standing up here. Without you, I can't do anything, and me and my flesh dwells no good thing. I pray, Father, that you would fill this vessel, this clay vessel, with your spirit. Lord, please don't let anybody hear from me. Hide me behind the cross. Father, you minister to us this morning. This is your time. We are your people. It'll be your word that's preached. You do what you need to do this morning in the lives of your people. Father, I pray that your passion would be felt, that your power would be experienced, that your wisdom would be understood. Lord, I pray you'd minister this morning. Well, thank you in Christ's name. Amen. Daniel chapter 4, verse 37. We're going to look at one verse this morning. He says, Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of Heaven, all whose works are truth, His ways judgment, and those that walk in pride He is able to abase. Nebuchadnezzar was quite the king, and he was the king of one of the greatest cities ever to come into existence, and that was the city of Babylon. Some believe that Babylon was actually the city that began to come into existence after the Tower of Babel. It was believed to be founded by one named Nimrod, who was an interesting individual, to say the least. But Babylon became a great, glorious kingdom. In fact, the prophet Isaiah refers to Babylon as the glory of the kingdoms in chapter 13 and verse 19, the beauty of the Chaldees' excellency. From what the archaeologists tell us and what the ancient historians tell us, that Babylon had walls. In fact, each side of the city was anywhere from 10 to 14 miles long, had walls 300 feet high, 100 feet wide, and they were doubled. And if I remember correctly, they would do chariot races on the top of the walls. The Euphrates River cut right through the heart of the city. And part of that area where the river went through, apparently they had blocked it off at one point and put porcelain or ceramic in the bottom of the riverbed. And then as the water came back and flowed through, you saw this beautiful clear water over this ceramic tile design. The architecture, from what we understand, was incredible. There are palaces in Babylon. There were towers in Babylon. There were the Hanging Gardens, which is one of the seven wonders of the world. So it's quite a city. And Nebuchadnezzar in his day is when Babylon reached the apex. But I want to preach a little bit this morning about Nebuchadnezzar. And let me make this statement to start out with. I believe Nebuchadnezzar is in heaven. And I believe when we get there, of all the people that we're going to get to meet and all the people we're going to get to talk to, Nebuchadnezzar will be one of them. And that'll be an interesting conversation. And the reason why Nebuchadnezzar will be in heaven is because he had a few encounters with God. In fact, if you look at his life, his life, as far as I can see, were based on five specific encounters with God that led him to the realization that God of the Bible was the right God. When I think about encounters, I think back, I think it was what, 1977? Which really wasn't that long ago, was it? 1977, 43 years ago. Wow. To me it was just yesterday. But there was a science fiction film that came out and that film was called Close Encounters of the Third Kind. How many remember that? That was one of the biggies. That was one of the best of the day, if you will. And it just had to do with a blue collar worker in Indiana that had an encounter with an alien and a UFO. They got the name Encounters of the Third Kind from a ufologist. Say, what's a ufologist? A guy that studies UFOs. By the name of J. Allen Hynek, who is the one that developed the classification of encounters. For example, he said the first kind, the close encounter of the first kind, was when you got within 500 feet of a UFO. The second was when not only were you within 500 feet, but it had an effect. One of the common things that people that study the UFOs say is that when a UFO gets near, batteries die. Electronics seem to quit. Others say that there's a feeling of coldness that comes around. You say, Preacher, do you believe in UFOs? Not the way you would think. Not the way these people want to make you think. I'm not a Roswell guy. But that's another topic for another time. The close encounter of a third kind is when you actually see an alien, either in a UFO or just outside of a UFO, and you see one of these aliens. The fourth kind is abduction. He goes all the way to seven different kinds. The seventh kind would match what you read in Genesis 6 with the sons of God, the daughters of men. But anyway, we came in the knowledge of this idea of encounters. And what I'd like to say this morning is Nebuchadnezzar had an encounter, not with aliens, but he had an encounter with the God of the Bible. And these encounters, step by step, led him to the knowledge of the one and true God. So we're going to look at those encounters that he had this morning. and see if we can glean anything from them. The first encounter that Nebuchadnezzar had was a dream. He had had a dream, and in his dream, in fact, when he came out of the dream, he really didn't remember the dream. He knew it was something, but he didn't remember the details of the dream, so he called the astrologers and the soothsayers and the psychic hotline and the tarot card readers. He called all this crowd in. And he said, I want you to tell me what my dream was, and then I want you to interpret it for me. Well, they said, King, you are absolutely out of your mind. There's no way we would know that. And he said, look, if you're a soothsayer, if you're an astrologer, if you're a mind reader, if you're a psychic, if you're all that stuff, you ought to know. And they said, we don't know. And so all of the Psychics and the soothsayers are sentenced to death by Nebuchadnezzar. Well, Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, which were their Babylonian name. Well, Daniel was a Hebrew name. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were the Chaldean names. They said, wait a minute, let us have a chance. And the reason they could say that is back in chapter one. If you take your Bible and turn back to Daniel chapter one, We find some things out about Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They had been captured, we know, in the first assault on Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar. He came three times, this will be around 606 BC, and on the first assault, Nebuchadnezzar took the brightest, the youngest, the brightest, the smartest of all the young people of Israel. Daniel, Shadrach and Abednego being four of those young people. Daniel chapter 1 verses 3 and 4 of the Bible says this, And the king spake unto Ashpenaz, the master of the eunuchs, that he should bring certain of the children of Israel, the king's seed, and the princes. Children in whom was no blemish, but well favored, skillful in all wisdom, cunning in knowledge, understanding science, and such as had ability in them to stand in the king's palace, and whom they might teach the learning in the tongue of the Chaldeans." So here is the plan. You take these young people out of Israel. you bring them back to Babylon, and you enroll them in a three-year course on Babylonian culture, Babylonian lifestyle, Babylonian religion, the Babylonian language, all that stuff, because their goal was to make Babylonians out of these young people. And he again took the smartest of these young people, and at the end of the three-year period, and again, we know the story, While they're indoctrinating these young people, four of them said, we're going to stick with our God. They tried to give them food that was against the law. And it was Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego said, wait a minute. We're not going to do that. Our God says we're not supposed to eat that. Now understand this. There are a lot of young Jewish people there. And they were being indoctrinated and they were falling into the Babylonian worldly lifestyle. They were getting into the Babylonian food. Food they'd never eaten before. They were getting into the Babylonian music, stuff they'd never heard before. They were getting into the sights and the wonders of Babylon. Except for Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They were being indoctrinated the same way and they were learning the same thing. And yet they had the character to say, we will remain faithful and true to our God if it costs us our lives. That's the kind of young men they were. There are a lot of smart young men, but there are very few smart young men with character. And Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego had character. And this proves that you really can go to ASU or AU and remain a Christian. You can go to a university, a secular university, and learn what you need to learn and still remain faithful and true to your God. It depends on your character. So, at the end of the three-year indoctrination, Nebuchadnezzar says to the captain there, he said, bring them all to me, I want to talk to them. He said, I want to ask them questions. which tells me that Nebuchadnezzar was a pretty smart guy himself. He probably had a vast knowledge himself of science, philosophy, maybe even mathematics, and languages. He was going to commune with these young men like he would any young man that he captured. He must have been able to speak their language. And it says in verse 19 of Daniel chapter 1, among them all was found none like Daniel, Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah. Therefore stood they before the king. So the cream of the crop are the ones with the character. The cream of the crop are the ones that are going to stand for their God. Proverbs 22 and verse 29 says, see is thou a man diligent in his business, he shall stand before kings, he shall not stand before mean men. These are some diligent young men. Verse 20 says, and in all matters of wisdom and understanding that the king inquired of them, he found them ten times better than all the magicians and the astrologers that were in all of his realm. Why do you think that is? Why do you think that is? The Bible says in Daniel chapter 1 that these four guys were favored by God. Why do you think they were favored by God? Because I think they had made up their mind a long time ago. that they were going to serve, they were going to live for, they were not going to turn their back on the God of the Bible. Whether it be in Israel or whether it be in Babylon, same God, same worship, and they were found in favor with God. And as a result, they are ten times better than any of the other young men. So they're brought into the presence. Daniel is brought into the presence of the king. And I think he had the power, the ability to stand before the king because he stood for God. Nebuchadnezzar, back in chapter 2, has a dream. And that dream, and I'm not talking Martin Luther King, I'm talking about a real dream, had a dream. And he saw in that dream an image which Daniel explains to him. Nebuchadnezzar, as I said earlier, had called all the other ones in. The soothsayers, the astrologers, the psychic hotline, the tarot card readers, the fortune tellers. He called them all in. He said, tell me. Tell me what I dreamed and give me the interpretation thereof. They said, we can't do that. Imagine that. They couldn't do it. The astrologers didn't have a clue what was going on. And can I help you with that? Astrologers today don't have a clue about what is going on. You know, one of the simplest refutations of astrology are what is called time twins. Astrology says if you're born at a particular time, you should have particular behaviors, particular characteristics, do things a certain way. So people said, all right, let's study twins. Because twins are born at the same time, should be under the same influence of the stars. And yet study after study after study has proven that twins are sometimes diametrically different. At least they're different. Why are they different if they're born at the same time? Proving that astrology is absolute bunk. It's a bunch of nonsense. Now, you can call the psychic hotline if you'd like. Say, Preacher, I'm going to call the psychic hotline to find out how my day is going to go tomorrow. Well, go ahead. While you're talking to them, ask them what the winning lottery numbers will be for that week. And they won't have a clue. They can't tell you real stuff. All they can tell you is somebody tall, dark, and handsome is going to come into your life. They didn't tell you it was the state highway patrol writing you a ticket. But that's all they can do. If the psychic hotline was what it was, if the tarot cards were what they were, if the fortune tellers could do what they say they can do, why can't they give you tomorrow or the next day's winning lottery numbers? If they could do that, I'd say there's something there. Anyway, Nebuchadnezzar's frustrated with these people, and he says, kill them all. So he has his captains start rounding them up. Well, Daniel gets word, and he says, what's going on? And the captain said, well, Nebuchadnezzar had a dream, and you guys can't give the interpretation, so he's going to kill you all. And Daniel said, wait a minute. Let me talk to the king. In fact, you send a message to the king. You tell him tomorrow morning I'll be in his office. And by the power of God Almighty, by the grace of God, he's going to get the interpretation. He's going to get what he wants to know. And so the next day comes, and Daniel goes in there. And Daniel says, here's what you dreamed. You dreamed about an image. The head was gold. That represents you, king. The arms and the chest were silver. That represents the Median Persian Empire. They're coming next. And then after them, the Greeks. And then after them, the Romans. And then after them, a ten nation confederacy coming out of the Roman Empire. And then there's this stone. Made without hands, it's going to come and destroy that image and set the kingdom up. He said, that's God. That's Jesus Christ. And Nebuchadnezzar is absolutely amazed when he hears this. You know, it's amazing. This first encounter that he has, he encounters something miraculous. A prophet who can tell him things. And he comes and encounters the truth about what's going to happen in the future. You realize that what Daniel interpreted that dream for him, he gave him eschatology 101. Eschatology is the study of last things. He gave him a prophetic lesson that nobody else in the kingdom would have any idea about. God uses prophecy many times to convince people. In fact, in the Old Testament, in Isaiah chapter 41, God challenges all the false gods. He addresses all the idols. And He says this to them. Produce your cause, saith the Lord. Bring forth your strong reasons, saith the King of Jacob. Let them bring them forth. Show us what shall happen. Let them show the former things what they be, that we may consider them and know the latter end of them, or declare us things to come. Show us things that shall come hereafter that we may know that you are gods. He challenges all the idols. He says, I challenge you to predict the future. Show us things to come. And there is no other god that can do that. Allah could not do that. Muhammad never prophesied in the Quran. Only the God of the Bible can show us the end from the beginning. And for many people, prophecy, lost people, prophecy is an interesting thing. A lot of churches will have a special study in the book of Revelation, because they know that lost people will come to church to hear about Revelation, because they want to know how it's all going to end. They want to know what's going to happen. And God uses prophecy to speak to lost people. So in this first encounter, Nebuchadnezzar will encounter a preacher who is able to tell him his dream miraculously. And he will be taught what all is going to happen from him to the kingdom of God. That's his first encounter. How does he respond to that? Well, look at chapter 2, verse 46. It says, then, the king Nebuchadnezzar fell upon his face, and worshiped Daniel and commanded that they should offer an oblation and sweet odors unto him. He made a mistake, which many lost people do. They have a tendency to worship the messenger and not the source of the message. Listen to me. Don't any of you go out of this church and say, well, the pastor said, the pastor said, the pastor said, the pastor said. You go out of this church and you say, the Bible says, the Bible says, the Bible says, the Bible says. I remember one time being in a meeting. I forget where it was. It might have been in Georgia. There was an old preacher that's gone home to heaven now. He was very, very popular, loved by his people, out of Houston, Texas. His name was Jack Wood. And many people had listened to him, loved him, would travel all the way to Houston just to hear him preach, just to go to his meeting. And Brother Wood was very influential with many men. The only problem I have is this. I heard his men preach a couple times, and I had the I had the idea, I'm listening to them preach, and I'm thinking, you know what, he's quoting Jack Wood more than he's quoting the Bible. I understand the love for the man, I get that. But listen to me, it's not the messenger, it's the source of the message. And then Nebuchadnezzar made this statement in verse 47. It says, the king answered unto Daniel and said, of a truth it is, now watch it. that your king is a god of gods and a lord of kings. Well, he missed it. He said, okay, your god's a god. Now the fact of the matter is our god is the god, not a god. But Nebuchadnezzar now is getting a little bit closer. His first encounter with the God of the Bible. Second encounter, go to Daniel chapter 3. Daniel chapter 3. Another interesting thing will develop. I don't know how long since that first encounter, but somewhere along the way Nebuchadnezzar says, you know what? I like the idea of that image that Daniel told me about. I'm going to build me one. Oh, and it's big, 60 feet tall, six stories tall, six feet in diameter. And it's made all out of gold. He ain't going to use silver or brass or iron. It's all made out of gold. And he sets that thing up in the plains of Dura. And he says, here's what we're going to do. I'm going to bring all the rock bands in. I'm going to bring all the CCM players in. And we're going to have a concert. And here's the deal. When everybody in the kingdom hears the band strike up, when they hear the drummers start to beat and the bass start to throb and the electric guitars start to flay away, and when people hear all that stuff, they're going to fall down. and worship that image. Well, there were three men in the kingdom who had two commandments, were taught two commandments, at least these two, from when they were little kids. Number one, thou shalt have no other gods before thee. Number two, thou shalt not bow down thyself to any graven image of the likeness of anything in heaven or earth or beneath the earth. Two commandments, no false gods, and don't you dare bow down to some idol. And so when the band struck up and the music was throbbing through the city, everybody bowed down except three guys. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They said, we can't do it. And the authorities went to Nebuchadnezzar and said, Nebuchadnezzar, there's three guys out there that they're not bowing down, they're Jews. So Nebuchadnezzar has them come forward. He said, what are you doing, guys? He said, look, you have to bow down. I know you're smart guys. I know there's something special about you. But the rule is you've got to bow down to that image when the band starts playing. And he said, if you don't, there's this furnace over here. And we use it to melt a lot of stuff. We use it to melt metal and gold and what have you. It's hot. And if you won't bow down, we're going to throw you in that burning, fiery furnace. And then he makes this statement. Dumbest statement he could have made. He says to Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in verse 15, And who is that God that shall deliver you out of my hands? Who is that God? Well, he's going to find out in just a little bit who that God is. What a dumb statement to make, but he made it. I like the response of Daniel, excuse me, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Say, preacher, where was Daniel at this time? I think he was out of town. But look at verse 16 of Daniel chapter 3. It says, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego answered and said to the king, O Nebuchadnezzar, we're not careful to answer thee in this matter. In other words, we're not going to try to talk you out of this thing. We're not going to try to talk you into a compromise. We're not going to try to work out a plan. He said, we're not careful. He said, verse 17, if it be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of thy hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up. what character these young men had. They said to the king, here's what's going to happen, king. We're either going to go in there and God's going to deliver us, or we're going to go in there and the next time we'll see you is at the great white throne judgment of God. But either way, we're not bowing down to that thing. Which made the king a little upset. That reminds me of Nancy Pelosi tearing up the speech. You know, he got real upset. And he said this, he said to his men, heat that furnace up seven times hotter. And they heated it up. In fact, the men that were throwing the wood or the coal in it, it got so hot it burnt them up. And he said to the other people, he said, take these guys, wrap them up, tie them up, and throw them in that furnace. And they took them and they threw them in that furnace. And then we read in verse 24 of Daniel chapter 3. Then Nebuchadnezzar the king was astonied. Oh, I like that word, astonied. It means to stun, to strike dumb with sudden fear, terror, surprise, wonder, amazed, confound, according to Webster. There's Nebuchadnezzar sitting there. He sees those young men get thrown in the furnace. He probably looks back at everybody else who are in shock that these guys are going in there. And then he glances back at the furnace and he is terrorized because he can see in the furnace. And he knew he threw three guys in there, but he's seeing four now. And he says, And verse 24, he rose up in haste, and he spake, he said to his counselors, did not we cast three men bound in the midst of the fire? They answered and said, yeah, king, just three. Verse 25, he answered and said, lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and lo, they have no hurt. And the fourth is like the form of the Son of God. He is absolutely terrorized as he looks in there and he sees four men walking around and they're not tied up anymore. And one of them has the form of the Son of God. I wonder what that form was. I think what he saw was what Peter, James, and John saw on the Mount of Transfiguration. A glowing bright, exceeding bright, being of light, standing in the fire, brighter than the fire. I think that's what he saw. And he saw Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego walking around. What do you think they were walking around and doing? I don't know. I don't know how much room there was to walk around in that furnace. I think someone might have walked around and walked up to the Son of God and kneeled down and worshipped Him and then got up and walked away and another one walked over and kneeled down and worshipped Him. I don't know what they did. Maybe they did one of those Hebrew dances in there, I don't know. But I know this, Nebuchadnezzar was absolutely terrorized. And he says this in verse 28. After he says, come on out, he says this in verse 28. The Nebuchadnezzar spake and said, blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. That's a good start. Blessed be the God of the Bible. Good start. The same God that he said, who is your God? He just saw him in the burning fiery furnace. And now he's saying, blessed be that God. What else he saw was this. He saw three young men. that were not afraid to offer their bodies in worship and obedience to their God. They were willing to die for their God. It's interesting, the effect that the ancient martyrs had on the people that witnessed their death. In fact, one account says this, The astonishing and almost supernatural fortitude of the martyrs, many of them, weak women and even children, was blessed not only in strengthening the weakened faith, but in convincing unbelievers. So the persecutions undertaken for the purpose of extinguishing Christianity were converted into powerful instruments for its wider dissemination. So what did they say, preacher? They said this, as the people watched these Christians die for their faith, they became more convinced that their God must be the right God and their Savior must be the right Savior, that that's the God that's true. And then Nebuchadnezzar saw how God can deliver His people supernaturally when He so chooses. So how does he respond to this second encounter with God? He says this, I'm going to make a decree. I'll make it illegal for anybody in the kingdom to speak bad about the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Oh, that's good. That's good. But he's not there yet. He's not there yet. He's getting closer. He said, I'm going to make a decree. I'm going to make sure I defend the God of the Bible. OK. I don't know about you. I've talked to people over the years. And I've said, so are you saved? Are you going to heaven when you die? Yes, sir, preacher. Well, how'd you get saved? Let me tell you, preacher. I had a heart attack, and they took me to the hospital, and I died three times on the table, and I came back to life, and some people, church people came by and prayed for me. In just a matter of a day, I was pretty much back to normal. It was amazing. And preacher, that's why I'm going to heaven. Really, really. Let me help you with that. That's not salvation. That's God working in your life. That's the goodness of God that leadeth thee to repentance. But that's not salvation. Oh, I've heard it. Preacher, I was going down the road one time. I fell asleep. I got in an automobile accident. And they had to use the jaws of life and pry me out. And I'd lost all kind of blood. There wasn't any way I was going to live. And I asked God to let me live. And I survived that, preacher. So I'm going to heaven. No, that's not the plan of salvation. I'm sorry. Nebuchadnezzar. Man, let me tell you what God did. He brought out Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego out of that furnace. I'm making a decree that nobody speaks bad about that God. Well, that's good, but that's not there yet. You're not there yet. Third encounter. Daniel chapter 4. He has another dream in Daniel chapter 4. Same situation. He brings in all the nutcases, the astrologers, the soothsayers, the psychic hotline. He brings in all the wackos. And he says, I want to know my dream and I want the interpretation thereof. Here we go again. Well, on this occasion, Daniel happened to come in last. And Daniel said, don't worry about it guys, I'll take care of it. Because I know God can answer it. So Daniel comes in. And Daniel says, here's what you dreamt, king. You dreamt about a tree. Big tree. Birds were building their nests in that tree. Wild animals were getting under the shade in that tree. That tree was such a blessing. But it got cut down. And cut down to the ground. But they left the stump in the ground. He said, let me tell you what that means, King, what that means. He said, that tree getting cut down is what your enemies are going to do to you. That tree getting cut down means you're losing your kingdom for a while. But the stump being left in the ground means you're going to grow out of that again. And when Daniel told him that, it took Daniel a little bit of time to tell it. Nebuchadnezzar said, Daniel, why do you look so depressed? Why do you look so sad? Just tell me the meaning. And Daniel said, I'm sad for what I have to tell you. You know what that tells me? That tells me that over the years, Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar had developed a friendship. That over the years, and I believe this, I believe Daniel was praying for Nebuchadnezzar maybe every day. Was Daniel a praying man? Absolutely. And he developed a love and a friendship for this lost heathen king. He said, preacher, can you do that? Yeah, you can do that. He never participated in his sins. He never compromised. You can love lost people. You can befriend lost people as long as you don't get into their sin and don't do what they do. In verse 19, at the very end, it says, My Lord, the dream be to them that hate thee, and the interpretation thereof to thine enemies. You say, is this the encounter? No, this is not the encounter. In verse 27, we have the encounter, the third encounter. Look at verse 27. Wherefore, O king, let my counsel be acceptable unto thee, break off thy sins by righteousness, thine iniquities by showing mercy to the poor, if it may be a lengthening of thy tranquility. So where's the encounter? The encounter was a friend going to another friend one-on-one and saying, look, there's a way out of this. Nebuchadnezzar, you won't have to go through what we just talked about if you'll repent and show works meet for repentance. If you'll turn from your sin and start helping out the poor and what have you." He said, God will hold off. That's the encounter. You say, just that? Well, I know the last one was really spectacular. And the first one was pretty cool too. This one, just a loving friend, warning a friend of impending judgment. So why is that an encounter? Well, Titus chapter 1 verse 3 says this, that the Word of God is manifest through preaching. So there's a manifestation right there of the Word of God from Daniel to Nebuchadnezzar with a warning and a way out. Third encounter. How did he respond to that? Well, look at verse 29, chapter 4. And we're going to look at the fourth encounter. Verse 29 says, at the end of 12 months, he walked in the palace of the kingdom of Babylon. He didn't change a bit. Daniel said, look, if you'll repent, if you'll get right with God, you've seen what God can do in the fiery furnace. You've seen what young men will do for their God. You've heard the prophetic truth. You've seen me interpret your dreams. Nebuchadnezzar, get right with this God." He never changed. Here's the fourth encounter. Chapter 4, verse 30. And Daniel had warned him. In fact, in that dream, that dream Daniel said, there's somebody coming from heaven And they're going to come down and they're going to take away your sanity. And you're going to have to go out for seven years and live like an animal. Nebuchadnezzar didn't believe him. That is kind of hard to believe, isn't it? Daniel chapter 4, verse 30. Twelve months later, Nebuchadnezzar walking in his palace. says, is not this great Babylon that I have built for the house of the kingdom by the might of my power and for the honor of my majesty? While the word was in the king's mouth, there fell a voice from heaven saying, O king Nebuchadnezzar, to thee it is spoken, the kingdom is departed from thy hand. Fourth encounter is the direct punishment of God. Look at verse 32 of Daniel chapter 4. They shall drive thee from men. Thy dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field. They shall make thee to eat grass as an ox. Seven times shall pass over thee, until thou knowest that the Most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will. And the same hour, after he shot his big mouth off, puffed his chest up, and said, Is not this great Babylon that I have built in the same hour? The messengers from heaven came and they took from him his sanity. And he began to suffer what we call, what the psychologists today call, lycanthropy. Lycanthropy is a form of madness involving the delusion of being an animal, usually a wolf. So all the stories about the werewolves have a little bit of truth to them. Dr. John Burke Blum, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, studied the archives of psychiatry and he found out that since the 1850s, there have been 56 original case descriptions of people who believed that they were turning into animals. Among them, 13 reports met the criteria for clinical lycanthropy, the medical term for having delusions of being turned into a wolf. What happened to Nebuchadnezzar? They took his sanity from him. And by the way, get this, God has the ability to take a man's sanity. Shake your fist in God's face all you want, blaspheme his holy name, mock him, but understand that God can take away your sanity like that. They came down and they took his sanity and the people rushed him out and said, get him out of here and took him out in the field where the cattle grazed. And there he began to eat grass like an ox. I don't know if he thought he was a wolf or a dog or an ox and I don't know. But the Bible says on those seven years his hair got so thick it looked like eagle's feathers. His toenails and fingernails grew like claws. I've seen guys like that around here. And for seven years, he is absolutely insane. And I imagine there were people of the kingdom that occasionally would look out to the field and see him crawling around and eating the grass and think, what a sad story. There are probably some in the kingdom that said, let's just, let's shoot him. Well, let's take a sword and stick him through. Let's put him out of his misery. But there was one man in Babylon said, no, no, no. After seven years, God's going to give him another chance. Let's wait after seven years. And there were probably times where after the third year, people said, he ain't getting no better. Fourth year, he's never going to come back. Fifth year, he'll never be normal again. And Daniel said, he will. God will give him another chance. But that's his fifth encounter with God. Now understand, listen, think about this. He's going to be nuts, or as the English would say, crackers, for seven years. He had a year before that to think it over. That's eight years. I'm imagining the other events that took place prior to this were probably at least two years. So we've covered 10 years so far, and Nebuchadnezzar is still not right with God. 10 years. Some of you have said, preacher, I've been praying for my loved one for, it's been a year now, preacher, nothing's happened. Nebuchadnezzar, 10 years. And then we have, The last encounter, Daniel chapter 4. Nothing spectacular, nothing really supernatural. Daniel chapter 4, verse 34, look at it. At the end of the days, end of the seven years, I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted up mine eyes into heaven. And my understanding returned unto me. So preacher, where's the encounter? In that little phrase, my understanding returned unto me. God said one more chance, one more encounter. I'm going to give you your understanding back. Let's see what you do with it. Two verses down, it said his reasoning came back also. Do you know what? How you define sanity? The ability to reason and the ability to understand. He had lost both of those. Now God encounters him one more time and he says, I'm going to give you your understanding back. I'm going to give you your reason back. Let's see what you do. Let's see how he responded. He said, My understanding returned unto Me, I blessed the Most High, I praised and honored Him that liveth forever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, His kingdom from generation to generation. He gets it right. And He'll be restored. Ten years, five encounters with the God of the Bible, and He finally gets it right. So a preacher would be pretty mean if God wasn't to take his sanity from him. If it gets him right with God and if he gets it into heaven, so be it. Understand this, God is working with people that are lost. And sometimes part of that is causing bad things to happen in their lives. And the bad things that happen are a way to get them to look toward heaven. You notice with Nebuchadnezzar, it said at the end of the seven years, I lifted my eyes toward heaven. Maybe he had never done that for seven years, but now he has because of what God put him through. Now let me ask you this, could he still have blown it? I think so. God could have given him his understanding back, his reasoning back, his sanity back. He could have looked up to heaven and said, you did this to me. You took my kingdom from me. I hate you. And God would have said, you're done. And loses his sanity again and dies and goes to a devil's hell. That's a possibility. But what God did was bring him as close as he could possibly get him to getting this thing right. And he did. He did. When I first started preaching, when I was 19 years old, and I'm glad we didn't use recorders at that time. What a mess that would have been. But when I first got saved, and I knew God had called me to preach, and we started going to a church, Me and another guy, the guy that helped lead me to Christ, I worked with him. And we joined this church, and this church was pretty big, and it'd go into nursing homes. So this guy said, let's do that, that sounds pretty good, let's do that. And I said, okay. And so he worked out a place in Perrysburg, Ohio, called Heartland Nursing Home, Heartland Care. And he got us into the second floor of that nursing home. Second floor was pretty much where the Alzheimer's patients were and those who were on their way. And so we got out there and we held a service. We went back the second week and held another service. He calls me up before the third week and he says, I don't want to do this anymore. So I called the pastor of the church. I said, what do I do? He said, well, you guys made an agreement. You made a deal. You better go. So for six months, I went to this nursing home by myself. I couldn't preach with a lick. I couldn't sing with a lick. Still can't. But there I am. And I didn't know any better. So I would get there. Now listen to this. I would get there about a half hour ahead of time. And I would go into every room that I could. And I would visit with every person and I'd try to lead every one of those people to Christ. And then when it came time to hold our service, three o'clock, I would help the nurses wheel the people down into the big room where we'd have our service. Then I'd preach. And then when the nurses were taking them back, I would go visit the other people I didn't have a chance to earlier. I spent some time visiting with these people, trying to lead them to Christ. I remember one little old lady, little elderly lady I should say, Pentecostal. She would come to every service with her Bible and her Pentecostal hymn book. And she'd see me and she'd say, she had that old lady voice, are you saved? I said, yes ma'am, I'm saved. And then sometimes after I preach, he'd look at me and say, are you saved? I said, yeah, believe it or not, I'm saved. And there was another guy. There was another guy that came. And you know how some of these rest homes are, they wheel them down on a chair and they have to tie them to the chair with a sheet, because they don't want them getting up. And he was la la land. They bring him down. I tried to talk to him, but he was like I said, la la land, except for one week. I think I went on Thursday nights, 3 o'clock. On this one occasion, I walked up to this man and I noticed he was looking at me. And I had, let me go back, previously when I first started to go, he wasn't in La La Land and I witnessed to him. Laid out the plan of salvation. I said, do you want to get saved? He said, no. Then he went off into La La Land. Well, on this particular night, this afternoon, I saw him looking at me. And I approached him. I said, hey, how you doing? He said, okay. Well, that was different. He was back from La La Land into reality. And so I said, you remember that talk we had about getting saved? He said, yeah. I said, well, would you like to get saved? And I kind of went through the plan of salvation again. I said, you know, would you like to trust Christ as your Savior? And he looked at me, and he shook his head no. I said, I'm going to ask you one more time. Would you like to right now? Trust Christ as your Savior. And I'll never forget the look. He looked off in our distance for a while. He looked straight in my eyes and he said, no. And he immediately went back into La La Land. And he never came out of it. I don't know if God allowed that sanity to come back to him for that time, to give him the opportunity to trust Christ one more time. But he said, no. He's probably in hell right now. Nebuchadnezzar could have said no, and would be in hell tonight. But he didn't. Five encounters with God, ten year period of time, but he got it right. He got it right. So what I'm trying to say is this this morning, and I'm done. that God is in the business of encountering people to get them to come to Christ. You know, this new evangelical, this contemporary nonsense of you need to get Jesus in your life, listen to me, He's been in your life ever since you were born. He's been in your life and He's working in your life and He's doing what He can do to bring you to that place where you can trust Christ. And God uses faithful and prayerful witnesses to get the message across. Like He used Daniel and Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego. He uses faithful and prayerful witnesses and loving witnesses. And sometimes he encounters people through the supernatural. Sometimes it's the teaching of scripture, prophecy. Sometimes it's a supernatural event to try to get people to look toward God. Sometimes it's the testimony of faithful Christians. Sometimes it's the one-on-one loving and warning encounter of a friend. Sometimes it's the direct judgment of God. But God will do everything He can to get any sinner to repent and turn to Jesus Christ. And you can look back at your life, I look back at my life, and I look back and I see events that God used. I didn't know it at the time. But as I look back, I'm thinking, yeah, that was an encounter right there. And that was an encounter. And that was an encounter. And you can probably do the same thing. Listen, thank God we have a God. that loves sinners, Jesus said, I came to seek and to save that which was lost. What he was saying was this, I have come to encounter mankind and I have been encountering mankind and I'll continue to encounter mankind because I'm willing that none should perish but that all should come to repentance. The Bible says he has no pleasure in the death of the wicked. God doesn't want anybody to go to hell. He wants everybody to go to heaven. But friend, it's your choice. It's your choice. It's your decision. He cannot violate your free will. You have to make the decision what you're going to do with Jesus Christ. But listen to me. Those of you that are here today, you're here. Because at some place in your life, the God of the universe encountered you where you were and got you to look in the right direction and got you to head for the right place. It's called Calvary. That's the God that we have. Praise the Lord for a God that doesn't just sit up in heaven and say, well, they can handle it on their own. We have a God in heaven that says, I'm going to get in there with them. and I'm going to help them, I'm going to do everything I can to get them into heaven and keep them out of hell. That's the God we worship. That's the God we have. Be thankful this morning that you have such a God. And remember this, if you're praying for relatives, if you're praying for co-workers, if you're praying for friends, neighbors, Nebuchadnezzar went through a 10-year process before he finally got it right. And the people you're praying for may have to go through a 10-year process or a 15-year process, maybe even a 20 or a 30-year process. Don't give up! Don't give up. God hasn't. Don't give up on them. Father, we thank you this morning for being such a loving God. Lord, I remember my life. You came and encountered me at various times. Stupid, wicked, dumb that I was. but you encountered me and pointed me in the right direction. I believe you did that for everybody here. So Father, we thank you for being such a God that will do everything He can to keep a sinner from going to hell. Lord, I pray this morning, anybody in the sound of my voice that has not trusted Christ as their Savior, there's a God in heaven. Lord, help them to understand there's a God in heaven that loves them. that doesn't want them to die and go to hell, that did everything he could 2,000 years ago to pay for sin at the cross, rose again from the dead, and desires them to be in heaven, desires a relationship with them. Lord, help them to understand. Help them to understand. Lord, thank you again for loving us. Thank you for being such a caring God. Will the Walter come ahead? Let's go ahead and turn our handles.