Summary
King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon, the bad boy of the Old Testament, composes one of the most beautiful songs in all of Scripture.
Daniel chapter 4 records how it happened:
Nebuchadnezzar dreamt of a great tree that was cut down to its stump.
Daniel informs Nebuchadnezzar that he is that tree.
Isaiah informed Israel that Israel was a tree that would be cut down to its stump.
The Lord says, “The holy seed is its stump.”
Jesus referred to every man as a tree.
And he said, “Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees.”
At the end of twelve months, Nebuchadnezzar stood on his roof and said to himself, “Is not this great Babylon… which I have built… for the glory of my majesty?”
A voice fell from heaven and declared to the king that he would eat grass like an ox until he knew that God ruled the kingdom of men.
Nebuchadnezzar lost his reason, ate grass like an ox, and lived like a beast.
He went insane . . . Or perhaps . . . He was going sane.
When was Nebuchadnezzar most insane?
…when he ate grass like a beast, or when he thought he was God?
…when he lost his reason, or when he had nothing but his own reason?
Perhaps the road to sanity is not in seizing control, but in surrendering control.
Perhaps you must lose your psyche, to find it.
A day is coming in which you will not be able to sustain one thought.
But on that day, you will discover that there has been One Thought that has always sustained you.
It’s the Holy Seed. It’s the Stump. It’s the Word of God, Reason of God, and Logic of God. It’s Jesus.
We all take Reason—like knowledge from a tree, try to grow a “me,” and everything dies.
And God gives Reason—like Life from a tree creates the new “me,” and everything lives.
We will return to the garden and find the tree of life growing in the spot where the tree of knowledge once stood . . .
Perhaps, it grows from the stump.
At the “end of days,” Reason returned to Nebuchadnezzar.
And Nebuchadnezzar knew: Reason is a gift.
And then, Nebuchadnezzar composed his song.
Or maybe, the Song composed Nebuchadnezzar: a baffled king composing Hallelujah.
You are not the thoughts you think; you are the thought that God is thinking.
God only thinks beautiful thoughts.