Nebuchadnezzar the king,
unto all people, nations, and languages, that dwell in all the earth; Peace be
multiplied unto you. I thought it good
to shew the signs and wonders that the high God hath wrought toward me. How great are his signs! and how mighty
are his wonders! his kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and his dominion is
from generation to generation … And at the end of the days I
Nebuchadnezzar lifted up mine eyes unto heaven, and mine understanding returned
unto me, and I blessed the most High, and I praised and honoured him that
liveth for ever, whose dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom is
from generation to generation: and all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed
as nothing: and he doeth according to his will in the army of heaven, and among
the inhabitants of the earth: and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What
doest thou? At the same time my
reason returned unto me; and for the glory of my kingdom, mine honour and
brightness returned unto me; and my counsellors and my lords sought unto me;
and I was established in my kingdom, and excellent majesty was added unto me. Now I Nebuchadnezzar praise and extol
and honour the King of heaven, all whose works are truth, and his ways
judgment: and those that walk in pride he is able to abase (Dan. 4:1-3,
34-37).
COMMON GRACE ARGUMENT:
“In Daniel chapter 4, we read
an account written by none other than unregenerate King Nebuchadnezzar, in
which He speaks of ‘the signs and wonders’ that God had wrought towards him. He
extols the Lord God for His power and majesty and dominion (v. 3); he ‘blesses’
and ‘praises’ and ‘honours’ and ‘extols’ the God who lives for ever and ever
(vv. 34-35, 37) and publishes a confession of the sovereignty and omnipotence
and might of God that would even make an Arminian and a hypo-Calvinist quake in
their boots … a confession of God’s absolute rule and awesomeness that would’ve
made Arthur W. Pink rub his eyes in sheer disbelief … a confession that
would’ve earned him a place of honor at the Synod of Dordt and the Westminster
Assembly! ... How on earth could an unregenerate wicked man like him ever come
out with such a God-glorifying confession … apart from common grace?”
(I)
Rev.
Angus Stewart
[Source:
sermon: “Nebuchadnezzar’s Confession That the Most High Rules” (Dan. 4:1-3,
23-37)]
The
number of God’s grace is one. God’s
grace is like God Himself—the grace of God is ‘the God of grace.’ God is one in being and the attributes of God
adhere to the one blessed being of God. There is but one grace in the Triune
God; one grace wrought through Jesus; one grace worked by the
Holy Spirit—one grace!
God
has no more ‘two graces’ (or three, or six, or four-hundred-and-sixty-nine)
than He has ‘two righteousnesses,’ or ‘two immutabilities,’ or ‘two eternities’
... etc.
Nebuchadnezzar’s
making this confession has nothing to do with a ‘common grace’ (which, by the
way, doesn’t exist; there is only ever ‘special grace’—in Jesus Christ and by
the Holy Spirit—that makes beautiful). It is a display of power that
causes totally depraved people to acknowledge (against their wishes) that He is
God.
Think
of times in the wilderness when Israel was rebelling—sometimes even going to
stone their leaders—and God came in the glory cloud and displayed His majesty. The
people fell on their faces and bowed down before Him. That wasn’t ‘grace.’ God came and scared the
wits out of the people! And they confessed that He really is God—it was utterly
undeniable.
In I
Kings 18, you read of the idolatrous Baal worshippers. There’s a great test: ‘Who
is God? Jehovah (represented by Elijah) or Baal?’ The story involves the priests of Baal
hopping up and down on their altar; but fire comes down from heaven and burns
up the sacrifice on Elijah’s altar, and the people fall down, saying, ‘The
Lord! The Lord! He is the God!’ That
wasn’t ‘common grace’ (which doesn’t exist).
Any unbeliever—even the most hardened unbeliever—who would’ve
seen the likes of that event would’ve fallen down on his face, scared out of
his wits, thinking that God might send down a bold of fire upon him!
Think
of Israel at Mount Sinai—the mountain burning with fire and the people of
Israel cowering. They were unregenerate.
Here’s
Philippians 2, referring to the last day and the final judgment: ‘[At] the name
of Jesus every knee [will] bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and
things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ
is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.’ To play the part of a fool, for a moment, and
speak as if there is this nonsensical ‘common grace,’ the greatest day
of common grace will have to be the judgment day—all the world (with
common grace coming in and changing them and making them something less than
totally depraved, and to make all the world and the antichrist and all the
papacy, and all the idolators, confess that Jesus Christ is Lord with their
lips, bowing down before Him) ... Its not ‘grace’ that makes them do that on
that day (and not this alleged ‘common grace’); it is the sight of the
awesomeness of God.
In
Daniel 4, with Nebuchadnezzar, we have God showing just a little bit of the
same power that He’s going to show in an absolutely unveiled, and majestic form
on the judgment day.
--------------------------------------------------
(II)
More to come! (DV)
Arguments for Nebuchadnezzar being
unregenerate:
Here are two other places where
God humbled a proud unregenerate king:
“And Pharaoh sent, and called
for Moses and Aaron, and said unto them, I have sinned this time: the Lord is
righteous, and I and my people are wicked” (Exod. 9:27).
“Then Pharaoh called for Moses
and Aaron in haste; and he said, I have sinned against the Lord your God, and
against you” (Exod. 10:16).
In Ezra 1:2-3, the pagan (unregenerate)
king of Persia, Cyrus, states: “The Lord God of heaven hath given me all the
kingdoms of the earth; and he hath charged me to build him an house at
Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Who is there among you of all his people? his God
be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the
house of the Lord God of Israel, (he is the God,) which is in Jerusalem.”
Further arguments:
(1) In verse 8 of chapter 4,
Nebuchadnezzar says “But at the last Daniel came in before me, whose name was
Belteshazzar, according to the name of my god, and in whom is the spirit of the
holy gods ...”
Notice that he doesn’t say “according
to the name of *what used to be* my god” (indicating that he no longer
worshipped that god), but “according to the name of my god.” “Bel” was still
Nebuchadnezzar’s god. Also, the words, “the
spirit of the holy gods,” says something too—he was still a polytheist (a
pagan).
(2) In Daniel 2, we recall that
Nebuchadnezzar is “the head of gold” on that statue that represents the
succession of antichristian world kingdoms—he is a type of the antichrist.
(3) There’s an acknowledgement
of God’s sovereignty and power, but no confession of sin or of grace.
(4) Regarding his references to
God’s kingdom and dominion, they’re amazing and rich, but the confessions about
God’s kingdom are not of God’s kingdom ‘of grace’ but of God’s kingdom of
‘providence’ (not His rule of ‘grace,’ but rule of ‘power)
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