As history recorded, there are great men that do great things. However, there is the flip side of the coin. Great deeds are sometimes accomplished by great egos! And sometimes the egos are so great the deeds look mediocre.
In the Book of Daniel, there was an individual that we commonly refer to as a megalomaniac. Nothing was too good for this individual. If it was possible he would command the sun and stars to revolve around him! The tide would ebb and flow at his whim. He really thought that people should worship him as a god, with a capital G! Nothing should happen or nobody should do anything without his tacit approval.
The day came when his ego reached inter-galactic proportions. He ordered a statue built. This was no monument to modesty. The statue was to be ninety feet tall and nine feet wide set on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon. Was the statue a likeness of himself? Probably not, but it definitely represented his power and position when he ordered everyone to worship the statue. Did we mention that the statue was an image of gold?! Like everything, all good things must come to an end—sometimes, abruptly!
This individual was King Nebuchadnezzar. God had enough of his ego and decided to remove him from the pedestal he clung to. Daniel 4 records how God reminded King Nebuchadnezzar; it was the Most High that was sovereign over the kingdoms of men. Nebuchadnezzar’s illness was boanthropy (imagining himself to be like an animal, and then acting like it); only it happened. It was a bad transformation.
King Nebuchadnezzar had his kingdom stripped from him. He mocked God and did everything by himself for himself. Pride goes before the fall. King Nebuchadnezzar was walking on the roof of the royal palace mumbling his accomplishments when he heard a voice. “The words were still on his lips when a voice came from heaven, authority has been taken from you, King Nebuchadnezzar: Your royal authority had been taken from you. You will be driven away from people and will live with the wild animals; you will eat grass like cattle. Seven times will pass by for you until you acknowledge that the Most High is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and gives them to anyone he wishes.” Daniel 4:31-32.
“Immediately what had been said about King Nebuchadnezzar was fulfilled. He was driven away from people and ate grass like cattle. His was drenched with the dew of heaven until his hair grew like the feathers of an eagle and his nails like the claws of a bird” Daniel 4:33. God humiliated King Nebuchadnezzar and demonstrated the king was not so mighty and divine as he thought, rather, just an ordinary man.
The story however has a happy ending, after seven years, King Nebuchadnezzar acknowledges God’s absolute sovereignty, and his kingdom was restored to him.
Bottom line
“A man's pride shall bring him low: but honour shall uphold the humble in spirit.” Proverbs 29:23 Don’t force God to humble you unless you’re willing to be a vegetarian.
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