You know, as we approach the time of the Thanksgiving holiday in the United States, we see that people are really pretty good. It's the season of kindness, charity, feasting. Individuals and organizations give more food to food banks and homeless shelters at this time of year than at other times of year. Many churches have drives to fill laundry hampers with gifts for poor people within their congregations and outside of their congregations. The guy with the red kettle shows up on the sidewalk and people put money in rather than snatching the kettle and running away. Snow starts falling and people shovel each other's cars out, give people a push to get started in a slippery place, and share their mittens and scarves with others. Companies, big and small, throw parties for their employees and even ignore the fact that half the employees didn't get anything much done for the last half of the day before a paid holiday. We can look at our society and at ourselves and say we are pretty good. We've made this great culture, we are generous, we are kind, we are ready to help the poor, we are spreading prosperity all over the place.
Now look at Nebuchadnezzar. Are we acting the same way he did at the beginning of Daniel chapter 4? It would seem we are. We glory in our good deeds. We suggest that we are the savior of our nation. We claim sovereignty over all creation, though we didn't create it and we don't sustain it. We, like Nebuchadnezzar, are a people just waiting to be humbled. And when we read our selection in Revelation we see that those same Nebuchadnezzar-like tendencies are the character qualities of the people who are cast into the lake of fire in the end. Though we deny being adulterers, murderers and sorcerers, we cannot deny that we are liars. We cannot deny that we are ultimately faithless. We deceive ourselves and others, claiming goodness which is not ours. We put our faith in ourselves and our possessions rather than in God's provision for us in Christ. Truly we are people who are subject to God's condemnation.
Is there no hope for us then? Certainly there is hope and it is great hope. When we see our sin, our failure to measure up to the perfection of God, we are being humbled like Nebuchadnezzar. And look at the lengths to which God may go to humble someone and bring his eyes to see that his true provision is in God. He humbles Nebuchadnezzar about as far as a human can be humbled. May he never need to humble us that far. May our Lord give us a tender heart to hear his correction and receive his direction. May he turn our eyes to look at his perfection and see it in stark contrast to our sin. And may he make us to rejoice in the fact that in Jesus Christ all the wrath of God against our sin is poured out. May we gain hope in this season when we consider the resurrection of the dead and how Jesus is himself the firstfruits of the resurrection - rising to show the power of God over death, he will also raise us in the last day. Take heart and believe on the Lord. He is raising all people in the last day - those who believe on him to eternal bliss and those who do not believe on him to condemnation. May we cast our cares upon the Lord who is all our true goodness and righteousness.
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