Daniel 4:33 “The same hour was the thing fulfilled upon Nebuchadnezzar: and he was driven from men, and did eat grass as oxen, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, till his hairs were grown like eagles’ feathers, and his nails like birds’ claws.”

The word “sanity” means “Soundness; particularly, a sound state of mind; the state of a mind in the perfect exercise of reason.”

The opposite of sanity is “insanity”. When someone loses their sanity, they are said to be “insane”.

And that’s what happened to a guy called Nebuchadnezzar in Daniel 4, and this chapter is his personal testimony after his experience in insanity.

It’s worth noting that Nebuchadnezzar wasn’t just “any guy”, he was king of the mighty Babylonian empire, and regarded as one of the greatest kings humanity has ever seen.

But for all he had and did, Nebuchadnezzar lost the most important thing he could possess… his own mind.

God took his sanity from him for seven years, and for those years, the greatest man in the earth lived like a beast and thought like a beast.

It goes to show that nobody is too high or too low to be subject to God’s authority and the truth of his word.

But a story that seems pretty unusual actually finds great application in our society and personal lives today.

We enjoy living like kings on the earth as he was, and we likewise get to having this grossly inflated view of ourselves as he did.

If you read about Nebuchadnezzar, you’ll find he was a proud, selfish, egotistical man with all power throughout the earth… then this happened.

Nebuchadnezzar’s example shows us the stupidity of human pride and trusting in ourselves… because we get this view and esteem of ourselves that is kidding ourselves, we live like we are the truth, but we really aren’t.

In this age of “science”, technology, information, reason and knowledge… we are increasingly encouraged to believe in ourselves and trust in our rationality, discernment and understanding.

But trusting in yourself is really quite insane. Because you’re not God, even if you’ve made yourself God after deciding you’re more worthy of sitting in God’s seat than God himself.

A mind that has gotten to a place where it thinks itself higher than God and that declares independence from and rejects God’s word is seriously deluded. Given his achievements, Nebuchadnezzar of all people perhaps could’ve been forgiven for thinking this way, but yet we do the same.

Long before the soul of man is lost, the mind of man has already been lost, and the mind is lost when the mind turns from the truth of God’s word to vanity of the human imagination.

When you rebel against God’s word, you’re putting your own mind at risk. Our nation has departed from God’s word, and that’s why you’re seeing what is happening in society and wondering what is going on.

Maybe you’re accepting or getting used to the insanity… but it doesn’t make it any less insane. Past generations would have thought Nebuchadnezzar was off his head identifying and “transitioning” to being a cow in the field… but that’s becoming much less insane by the day.

And in our society it’s actually been flipped… it is the Bible believing Christian who is accused of being mental, but the soundest mind you’ll ever have is trusting in Jesus Christ, where a right mind is found and kept.

Because the reality is, and is being proven… that without God, there’s very little between you sitting dignified in your chair at the dinner table and grazing out in the paddock thinking you’re an ox.

Maybe you think you’re miles off that level yet… but maybe you’re much closer than you think.

To show how far we’ve drifted into insanity, perhaps even consider your own belief system. If it’s evolution, in your worldview, what difference do you believe even exists between you and the cow in the pasture? … If you’re honest, yeah not much. And that’s pretty crazy.

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