Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Pride: The Case of Nebuchadnezzar

Episode Date: October 3, 2025

In sixth century B.C., Nebuchadnezzar was the absolute monarch of the Babylonian empire. He’d built maybe the most incredible city in history. He was at the pinnacle of power, and his life fell apart anyway. And here’s the incredible part: he’s glad it happened! He praises God for having done it. Do you know why? Because he says, “There was a spiritual cancer in me. There was something in me that was so bad, it was so dangerous, it had poisoned my soul so deeply that even as drastic as the treatment was, it was worth it to get it out of my soul.” What was it? Pride. Spiritual pride. Could it be that we need to know the same lesson he learned? This text teaches us four things: it tells us about 1) the sleep of pride, 2) the heart of pride, 3) the outcome of pride, and 4) the healing of pride. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on February 5, 1995. Series: The Seven Deadly Sins. Scripture: Daniel 4:24-37. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Welcome to Gospel in Life. Why is the world so broken? And why are we capable of inflicting such harm even toward those we love? People point to politics, poverty, or psychology, but none of these fully explain what we see in ourselves and in history. This month on the podcast, Tim Keller is teaching from a series exploring the question, What's wrong with us? Showing us how the Bible's teaching on sin offers the only explanation deep enough to face the truth in all its complexity, and the only hope powerful enough to transform us.

Let me read you the story of Nebuchadnezzar, which you actually just listened to. It's found in Daniel chapter four. It really starts at the very beginning of the chapter. And in the beginning of the chapter, Daniel is called in by Nebuchadnezzar that great king of Babylon to interpret a dream for him, and we'll get into that and describe that dream, but we take this up our reading at verse 24. This is Daniel speaking. This is the interpretation, O king, and this is the decree the most high has issued against my lord the king. You will be driven away from people and will live with the wild animals. You will eat grass like cattle and be drenched with the dew of the heaven. Seven times will pass by, for you.

you until you acknowledge that the most high is sovereign over the kingdoms of men and gives them to anyone he pleases. The command to leave the stump of the tree with its roots means that your kingdom will be restored to you when you acknowledge that heaven rules. Therefore, O king, be pleased to accept my advice. Renounce your sins by doing what is right and your wickedness by being kind to the oppressed. it may be that then your prosperity will continue. All this happened to King Nebuchadnezzar.

Twelve months later, as the king was walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon, he said, Is not this the great Babylon? I have built as the royal residence, by my mighty power, and for the glory of my majesty. And the words were still on his lips when a voice came from heaven. This is what is decreed for you, King Nebuchadnezzar. your royal authority has 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. Immediately what had been said about Nebuchadnezzar was fulfilled.

He was driven away from people and ate grass like cattle. His body 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. And at the end of that time, I Nebuchadnezzar raised my eyes toward heaven, and my sanity was restored. Then I praised the most high.

I honored and glorified him, who lives forever. His dominion is an eternal dominion. His kingdom endures from generation to generation. All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing. He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back his hand or say to him, What have you done? At the same time that my sanity was restored,

my honor and splendor were returned to me for the glory of my kingdom, my advisors and nobles sought me out, and I was restored to my throne and became even greater than before. Now I Nebuchadnezzar praise and exalt and glorify the king of heaven, because everything he does is right, and all his ways are just, and those who walk in pride, He is able to humble.

This is God's word. Now, the only thing funny about Nebuchadnezzar is his name. In the 6th century BC, he was the absolute monarch of the kingdom of the empire of Babylonia. Now, what did that mean? You know, Tom Wolfe and Bonfire the Vanities coined a phrase, Masters of the Universe. And these, of course, was a name that he put in the mind of some big Wall Street guy who felt he was on top of the world because he made seven figures.

And Tom Wolfe said, in his heart, he thought of himself as part of that elite little group of people, masters of the universe. By my mighty power, for the glory of my majesty, I have really gotten on top of the world. But, you know, here it's a real master of the universe. Not just somebody who lives, you know, around the corner here. They were the absolute monarchs of every part of the world they knew of. Every part of the world that he knew, or his civilization knew anything about, he was the absolute monarch of, and so he built maybe the most incredible city in history.

He built Babylon as his personal residence. Proportionately, to the rest of the world, it was much bigger than New York City as now, and he had had something else. Imagine New York, all of its power, all of its diversity, and green. Because what Nebuchadnezzar did, and you can, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, the hanging gardens of Nebuchadnezzar, what he did at Babylon was he made skyscrapers of the kind they were able to do then.

He created this incredible city, and it was like a park. The hanging gardens of Babylon. And yet, though here's somebody at the pinnacle of power, maybe a kind of power that only a half dozen people in all of history have ever known, his life falls apart anyway. And when it's done, here's the incredible part. He's glad it happened. He's glad.

He praises God for having done it. You know why? Because he says there was a spiritual cancer in me. There was something in me that was so bad. It was so dangerous that it poisoned my soul so deeply that even as drastic as the treatment was, it was worth it to get it out of my soul. What is it?

Pride. Spiritual pride. And I think there's no place in maybe the world where it's more important to talk about this particular guy in this particular case, because, you know, people come to New York with dreams. Dreams. You come to New York because you're good at something, and you come to New York with dreams of becoming maybe the best at something. and therefore there's maybe no more important place to ask these questions. Could it be that our own minds are as clouded as his was?

Could it be, as we're going to see, that our own sleep is being troubled by the same causes as his was? Could it be that your life is falling apart right now or your life is about to fall apart right now for the same reason that his did, for the same lesson that he learned. And if anybody here says, well, I'm not capable of spiritual pride, you should know that in the biblical diagnostic manual, that's the first sign of it to say something. Let's take a look. What does this teach us? Well, that's a dirty trick.

That, anyway, but that's what the Bible teaches. is, listen, this text tells us about pride for things. It tells us about the sleep of pride, the heart of pride, the outcome of pride, and the healing of pride. Sleep, the heart, the outcome, the healing go through. Sleep. You see, you notice it says here 12 months later. You see this? It says 12 months later.

Now, what happened 12 months before? If you read the very beginning of the passage, it goes like this. Here is one guy you'd think in the world that would not have any. worries, that there'd be nothing to disturb his sleep. There'd be nothing to disturb him. Here's the one guy in the world that can't ever worry about being fired. See? You know, nobody will ever downsize him, you see. Here's also, you have to say, ah, yes, but he's always worried some army. What army? He's the absolute monarch. Nobody else has an army. And he says in verse four, early on in the chapter, we didn't read it, in verse

He says, I Nebuchadnezzar was in my palace, content and prosperous, but I fell asleep and I was terrified by a dream, content and prosperous, but I was terrified by a dream. And the dream, in the dream, he saw a tree that reached to the heavens, and it was so cosmically large that everything in the earth was under the tree. All the creatures of heaven, everything in the whole world sheltered under the tree. And it was magnificent, but suddenly in the dream a voice from heaven comes and says, cut down the tree, strip off its leaves, scatter its fruit, and let the dew of heaven lie upon the stump for seven times. And what's the purpose of all this? The voice says, and I quote, that the living may know that the most high is sovereign over kingdoms of the earth,

and gives them to anyone he wishes and sets over them the lowliest of men. Well, he's very upset, of course, so Nebuchadnezzar calls Daniel, a man of God, and says, Daniel, let me tell you the dream, tell me what it means. And Daniel, the man of God, when he heard the dream, we're told he went white. He blanched. He was terrified. And he says, and these are his words in verse 22, you, O King, are that tree. And God is coming to humble you.

God is coming to cut you down. God is coming to show you that you are not a master of the universe, but that you are weak and you are lowly and you live only by his will. So look it, and you see Daniel speaking at the top of this text that we read. He says, God is coming. He's coming to humble you. And he's concerned. And he says, therefore be pleased to listen to me.

change turn repent humble yourself and maybe this won't happen to you but we're told that 12 months later something did happen but what do we learn here i'll tell you what we learned before we move on to really talking about the heart of pride what does this teach us it teaches us this no matter how accomplished you think you are or will be no matter how successful you think you are or will be. Contentment and prosperity. The two words that Nebuchadnezzar used. He says, I was content, I was prosperous, I was Lord of all that I survey, but I couldn't sleep.

No matter how content, no matter how prosperous you think you can get, it's never complete. Never. Nebuchadnezzar knew what only a few people in the world know. To really know this, to really know this, you've got to get to the top, and very, very few of us ever will. I was watching an A&E biography on Howard Hughes. Biographies, newspapers, personal acquaintance tells us that the people at the top top, the Nebuchadnezzers of life, are deeply troubled people. Why? because they come to learn

what the rest of us deny, and that is that human soul wants something that is so big that you can pour all the empires of the world into that hole, into that heart, you can pour all the empires of the world into your soul and it not be satisfied. What then is it that we're really after?

See, only the Nebuchadnezzar's of the world really understand this. That's why they're despair, because they can't get content and they can't get prosperous. They can't sleep. There's something wrong. There's something missing. What could it be that you could pour the entire world into, and the Howard Hughes's and the Nebuchadnezzers and the people like that are deeply troubled? They know what we don't know.

The human soul wants something bigger than the world. But what could that be? Ah, they didn't know that once 2,000 years ago, it was a little stable. that contain something in it bigger than the world. And that any heart, the simplest, the filthiest, the feeblest, can also have in it something bigger than the world that really satisfies. Therefore, no matter how, you see, pride cannot bring sleep. Success, achievement, a sense of being master of your universe,

You aspire to it. Most of us spend all of our life trying to get there, saying if we could finally get there, but the ones who have gotten there, they can't sleep. The sleep of pride. Okay, secondly, the heart of pride. And by the way, another thing we learn from this is that because God's a merciful God, and he sees the terrible outcome of pride, which we're going to look at here in a second, he will send you voices, he will send you dreams, and he will send you Daniels,

if only you recognize them for what they are. What are they? They're things that are here to tell you you're not in charge. You think you're in charge or you want to be in charge of your life, but you're not. Maybe a Daniel brought you to church today. I hope you recognize these voices and these Daniels and these dreams for what they are. The merciful messengers of God. Anyway, Nebuchadnezzar doesn't listen. Twelve months later, he gets up and he says,

Is not this the great Babylon that I have made, as my royal residence, and I have made it by my mighty power and for the glory of my majesty. That is pride. You want to see what pride is? When he talks about God humbling the proud, there's a kind of pride, there's a kind of thing we call pride that's good. There's a kind of thing we call pride that's good. And, of course, one of my favorite quotes in all of my life that I've ever read is that one that it describes it. It's by Esauk Denison, of all people, who said, pride is faith in the idea that God had when he made you.

Pride is faith in the idea that God had when he made you. And what she means there, what the Bible teaches is that you are not an accident. God created you. He created with dignity and with purpose. He created you with design. And when a human being comes to understand that and grasp what the Bible says, When you rejoice in it, and when you are ravished with that, and when you reflect on that, it creates a stability in you.

It creates a joy in you. It creates a kind of confidence in you. That can be called pride, but that's not the kind of pride that Democator is talking about here. When he says, he is able to humble the proud. What he's talking about is this. Pride, spiritual pride, is that which looks at life and looks at all the things in life, and says, I did it, and I'm do it. I did it. By my mighty power, I'm do it for the glory of my majesty.

Life is by me and for me. Let me break that down. Pride, first of all, is that which looks at the good things in your life and says, that's by me. I did it. I accomplished it. If things go well in your life, you look at that and you say, that's because I worked harder, The reason I'm doing better than other people is because I've worked harder than other people, or I've worked smarter than other people, or I've worked more ethically than other people, or whatever. You say, that's by me.

I did it. Therefore, secondly, pride looks at life and the good things at life and says, therefore, I deserve. Pride looks at life with a very deep sense of odeness. pride makes us look at life and say I am owed these good things now I'll tell you something pride has many forms and you've got to be careful

pride works in a good life or a hard life here's how pride works when your life is going well you say I'm getting these good things I'm doing better than other people because I'm working better than other people or I'm working smarter than other people are harder you see and you say I therefore I'm owed this

but when your life is going badly when things aren't working out what do you do? You look at life and you say I'm suffering more than other people things aren't fair I'm having a harder life than other people therefore I'm owed this

it's the same thing whether your life's going well or whether your life's going poor poorly what it means to be proud is to spiritual pride makes you look at life and say, I deserve more than I'm getting. Spiritual pride makes you look at life, whether things are going well or not,

and you say, I should be getting more than I have. I'm owed every bit of this. And I'm owed more than what I've got. Now, the contrast is humility in the Bible, and humility is very different. Pride, let me give you a definition. Pride is that which claims to be the author of what is really a gift.

Pride is what makes you look at your life and say, I'm the author of it, it's a sheer gift. Pride is that is a form of cosmic plagiarism. Something else has been brought into your life. Something's been given to you, and you say, I wrote it, I composed it, I did it. You claim to be the author of that which is a sheer gift. Humility is a completely different approach.

Humility looks at life like this. It's a gift. Humility looks at everything. I don't deserve this. If God gave me what I deserve, I'd be lost. But look at this and this and this. All these things, it's all gravy. It's all a gift.

Now, somebody says, oh, that's terrible. You mean you go around a humble person. You're saying a Christian person is humble, and you go around thinking you don't deserve anything, boy, that's terrible. That's low self-esteem. That's awful. You mean you walk around saying,

I don't deserve everything? That would make you hate life. No, listen. You're failing to make a distinction. Humility is that which receives life as a gift. There's a kind of false humility that says, I don't deserve this so I don't want it. I don't deserve this so I don't want it.

I'm too awful. I'm a failure. I'm a bad person. So I don't want this and this. I don't want friends. I don't want joy. I don't want these things. That's just a reverse kind of pride, you see.

What that is saying is, I should earn it. I want to earn it. and I won't take it if I haven't earned it. And of course you're miserable. And of course you're saying I don't deserve it. But deep underneath it is still that sense of odeness. Real humility says, I don't deserve the good things in my life

because if God gave me what I deserved, I'd be lost. But look, here they come. See, humility has completely gotten rid of the whole concept of pride, the whole system of pride. humility says I couldn't possibly even begin to merit the good things that God's given me, my health, my mind, my friends. What I do have, it's all mercy. And you say, look at this.

And therefore, everything you enjoy, every day is like dessert. Every day is a surprise. That's what a gift is. A good gift, you're surprised. It's better than you thought. You didn't know it was coming. It's absolutely free. It's undeserved.

Gift. And you look at everything that way. Everywhere we look, we see brokenness, wars, cruelty, and heartache. We feel it in the world around us and in our own lives. How did it get this way? And what can be done about it? In his brand new book that's releasing this month, What is Wrong with the World?

Tim Keller offers a clear and compassionate answer. Drawing from a series of teachings given at Redeemer, Dr. Keller shows how the reality of sin explains the pain we see all around us and how only the gospel offers lasting freedom and healing. Whether you're overwhelmed by the state of our world, struggling with your own mistakes or choices, or looking for hope and joy, what is wrong with the world will help you see how the gospel speaks

to both the heartache of our world and the pain within each of us. This newly released book, What is Wrong with the World, is our thanks for your gift this month to help Gospel in Life share the good news of Jesus. Request your copy today at gospelandlife.com slash give. That's gospelonlife.com slash give. Now here's Dr. Keller with the rest of today's teaching. Now, what's so bad about pride?

Somebody says, what's so bad about pride? I mean, Nebuchadnezzar looked around and said, didn't I earn this? And didn't he? Do you know he was really the greatest military genius of his era? You know, he risked his life every time he went into battle, and he beat all those people single-handedly. He wasn't an armchair at general.

Didn't just push buttons. He got in the cherry. It went out front. He was maybe one of the greatest political leaders in history. Didn't he do it? What's so bad about saying that? And here's what's so bad. Listen, John wrote, where are you, John?

John wrote, he composed that piece. What if I stole it? What if I put my name on it? What if I took it to somebody and said, here, I wrote this? And they say, incredible. Not only are you a preacher, you're a wonderful musician. You're an incredible composer.

Whoever heard of such a multi-gifted person? And what have I done? Why would John have the right to be absolutely outraged? Why would you be outraged if you found out about it? Why would you never come back if you found out about it? Why? Because you would say, you've robbed him of his due, and you've wrested control of his art from him.

You have this, because you see, the author owns the work. The author has control over the work. And the Bible tells us why we've got pride, why we don't want to admit that everything in our life is a gift, that nothing we've got we deserve, that we are dependent on God for every breath. Because, you see, if you admit that he's the author, if you admit that you are totally dependent on God,

then you have lost control. And we don't want that. Remember, Dorothy Sayer says sin is an deep interior dislocation. of the soul. It's a desire to keep control of the life. And the only way to justify the control of the life that you have, you have to blind yourself to how dependent you are on him. You say, I don't have control of my life. I'm a religious person. My friends, listen, this is how the human heart works. Even if you're religious, you say, I'll take into consideration, religious tradition, I'll take into consideration, but I am the final one who determines what I do with my body.

I'm the final one who determines what I do with my tongue, with my mind, with my money, me. I have to decide whether it's practical to obey the Bible. If you ever, ever think like that, you're still in charge. And the only way to justify that is to say, I'm not utterly dependent. I've earned. Look, here's never can. Listen, friends, you're so self-made. How much of what you are is really under your control.

You did not choose your race, you did not choose your gender, you didn't choose the century in which you were born. You don't think, you had nothing to do with the fact that you were born here and now instead of in 14th century Europe during the bubonic plague, you don't think that that has a little impact on what you are today? You say, I've worked hard with what? With the mind, with the talents, with the abilities,

with the friendships, with the connections that God and God alone gave you. You didn't choose your parents, you didn't choose your siblings. You didn't choose any of your early childhood experiences, all of which we all say are so formative. You didn't choose your basic abilities and talents and the level of those abilities. God says, what? You want to know what humility is? You want to know what pride is? Paul says in 1st Corinthians 4, 6 and 7, you will not, you will not take pride in one man over another

for what differentiates you from any other. what do you have that you did not receive as a gift? You will not take pride in one over another for what makes you different. What do you have that you didn't receive as a gift? And the Bible says that's what humility is. A joyous life is that which receives everything as a gift and a self-absorbed and therefore miserable life

is that which looks at everything. I'm owed this. I'm owed this. I oppose this. Now, Nebuchadnezzar becomes an animal. We understand what happened. We understand now that he went insane. It was a physiological thing.

It was a brain chemistry thing. We know something about this. He thought he was an animal. He began to live as an animal for seven times, which probably means seven months or maybe seven seasons, which would have been a year and a half or so. But for a period of time, he thought he was an animal. And we say, oh, this is one of those disasters that comes.

upon us, you know, mental illness. It's not, wasn't his fault, and it wasn't, but it was a lesson. You know what it teaches us? God is showing us that pride defaces your humanity. God was saying to Nebuchadnezzar, Nebuchadnezzar, listen to me, because you insisted on trying to become more than what I made you, you will become less than what I made you. Because you aspire to be more than a man, you become less than a man. And this isn't just an arbitrary action on God's part, he's trying to show Nebuchadnezzar what pride does to you anyway. I mean, when a child of mine lies to me, what do we do? Oh, good parents know that the discipline should be natural consequences. You say, honey, if you grew up to be a liar,

you're going to have no friends, you're going to be isolated, you're going to be in jail, your life will be a mess. Therefore, since we cannot trust you because you lied, you can't go outside for a week. You can't go play with your friends. You can't go out. Because we can't trust what you say. And he says, I've got to save you from the eternal consequences of what's happening to you. Pride, where you aspire to be more than a man, makes you less than a man. It's turning you into an animal. I've got to really turn you into an animal to show you what's happening to you. And you say, well, how does pride turn you into an animal? It's fairly simple, but look, listen, number one, how does this work? Pride makes you like an animal unable to

empathize with people. And I live with an animal. It's a cat. And you know, Cats sometimes look like they're sympathetic. You know, they come and nuzzle you when you're feeling bad, and you think, oh, and then you realize she's hungry. Cats, animals have no imagination, and because they have no imagination, there's no art, and therefore there's no empathy. Animals cannot imagine what other people are going through. Animals cannot, as the Bible says,

weep with those who weep and rejoice with those who rejoice. Can't do it. And pride is a cancer. that eats that up in you too. You see, there's nothing, you're never more human than when you're compassionate. You're never more human than when you're able to sense what somebody else feels. But what is pride? Pride is a way of justifying to yourself the control you have over your life.

The only way to justify that is to be constantly saying, I deserve this, I'm owed this, and it's pride that makes you walk into a room, and I see this happen all the time. You come to a new church. Maybe you're coming to a new church. You look around and you say, are these the kind of people I want to. to be with. Are these the kind of people that I feel like will understand me? Are these the kind of people that will sympathize with me? Are these the kind of people that will enhance my sense of who I want to see myself as? That's eating up your humanity. Pride makes you only think,

are they weeping with me? Are they rejoicing with me? Pride makes you so miserable because you're so absorbed in yourself that you cannot even notice people weeping over. in this corner and you can't even notice people over in this corner. Pride makes you like an animal unable to empathize. Let me give you another one. Pride makes you like an animal driven by ego survival instincts. There's a great place in C.S. Lewis's book on pride in which he says, in Mayor Christianity, he's got a great place, a chapter on pride in which he says this. Pride makes the heart want to keep well away from anything better or stronger or higher than it. Anything that might make it feel small or that shows it

it doesn't have the right to be the center of the universe it wishes to be. Now you know what he's saying? It's pride that makes you threatened. It's pride and only pride that would ever make you unhappy when you're in a situation where somebody makes you feel less attractive, somebody makes you feel less intelligent, somebody makes you feel less sharp, you get threatened. Only pride can do that.

It's that which makes you compare yourself other people. Only pride makes you hate situations in which you've got to admit vulnerability. You've got to admit weakness. You've got to admit I need some help. You've got to admit I'm powerless over my problems. We hate it. We won't admit it. And therefore, like a scared animal, we run from things that threaten us.

We run from people that threaten us. If you're ever threatened by somebody, if you ever... That's why C.S. Lewis at one point says, you know why? You know who hates bragging people the most? You'd have to be very proud to hate proud people. You have to be very proud because people who hog the center stage, the reason they hate you, that you hate them so much is because you feel like I deserve that center stage more than he or she. Pride makes you like an animal driven by ego, survival, instincts. Maybe last of all, pride like an animal, makes you incapable of joy. You say, wait a minute, wait a minute, now you're being unfair.

All along I've been upset about this. I'm kind of an animal lover. Animals can be happy. Don't tell me animals can't be happy. Haven't you ever heard a cat per? And the answer is, well, yeah, a cat can be satisfied, but a cat can't have joy. A cat, an animal, can only be happy under the right circumstances. Animals cannot rejoice in their tribulations.

Animals can never rise above their circumstances. animals never have anything, don't you see? They never have anything that enables them to have joy in spite of what's going on around them. Pride sucks all joy out of your life. You know why? Here's how it does it. If things go well, you say, well, of course, it's about time.

You don't say, oh, no, you say, it's about time. This should have happened five years ago. Don't you see what pride does? Everything is owed. I deserve this. See? And if things go really badly, you're so bitter, you say, this isn't fair. Pride destroys your ability to handle bad times,

and it sucks the goodness and joy out of good times. There's only one way, then, to be healed, and Nebuchadnezzar finds it. You know how it is how it happens? The only way for it to be healed is God has to do it. There's a great story in C.S. Lewis's Narnia tales about Eustace. He's a proud little boy, and in this particular fairy tale, he falls asleep with greedy thoughts on the horde of a dragon. He wakes up, and he's been turned into a dragon.

And, you know, he tries to get rid of his dragon skin by pulling it off, but he finds that he's still a dragon underneath. And he finally has to go to the Christ's figure to Aslan and say, and he hears the Aslan say, I'll have to address you. And he has to let Aslon do it. And, of course, Aslon's a lion. Aslan takes his paws and he rips and Eustace says I thought it was going to kill me I thought it would go right to my heart What Lewis is trying to show us is

Most of us realize that so much of our problem comes from pride We all send, why is it that you toss and turn at night Because you've been snubbed Don't you hate the self-concentration? Don't you hate the Don't you hate always thinking about yourself? Don't you hate the absorption? It's misery.

And so you try to change it with an act of the will. I'm not going to think so much about myself. You can't do it. You have to let him undress you. And the only thing that will undress you and that will heal your pride is you have to see two things together. You have to see that you don't deserve

anything from God but judgment. You have to see that your cosmic plagiarism. You have to see that you're taking your life and assuming any of the author when actually you owe everything to him is terrible sin. and that you don't deserve anything from God but judgment. And yet, at the same time,

you've got to see that you are the object of the greatest mercy of God. Together, you have to see them both. If you don't see them both, if you only see one and not the other, you won't be healed. But if you see them both, and that's what happens to Nebuchadnezzar. You notice, first of all,

Nebuchadnezzar says, look, he confesses, all the peoples are nothing. All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing. He's talking about himself. He gets up and he says, I've learned. When bad things happen to you, when the stroke comes in,

it almost seems to go to your heart. You can either receive it in pride and say, I don't deserve this difficulty or else you can do what Nebuchadnezzar did. And that is, Nebuchadnezzar realized, I deserve this. This shows me my fragility. This shows me who I am.

And he lets the stroke humble him instead of harden him. That's the first thing. Then the second thing, he recognizes that all the things that before he thought were his, by right, they've come back to him and he sees them all as a gift. You see his attitude?

They were restored. My counselor still wanted to speak to me. After all of that. See, now he sees everything as a gift. Because God only cut down the tree to the stump, he didn't uproot the stump. He showed mercy on Nebuchadnezzar. How could he show mercy?

mercy on Nebuchadnezzar. How could he forgive Nebuchadnezzar for all that? How could he do it? Well, Nebuchadnezzar didn't know, but you and I know why? Nebuchadnezzar was not master of the universe, but he took it as if he was. Jesus Christ was the only one who ever stood on the face of the earth, who was a master of the universe, and he let it all go. You know why? Isaiah 52, is a prophecy about the great coming servant, the Messiah, and it says, My servant will act wisely.

He will be raised and lifted up and highly exalted, but they will be terrified at him. His appearance was disfigured beyond human likeness so that he shall sprinkle clean many nations, and kings will shut their mouths because of him. Jesus Christ came and was so beaten and gourd, and he was so slashed and gashed and so pierced. that people who looked upon him were terrified because he didn't look human.

You know why he did that? The sprinkle is clean to take our sins. You know why he did that? Because in our pride, we try to be more than mere humans, and we act like God. Therefore, Jesus Christ had to become less than he was. He had to become even beyond. marred beyond human likeness so that we could become all that he was. God made him sin,

who knew no sin, that we might become the righteousness of God and Him. If you're healed of this pride, Daniel tells you what you're going to be like. First of all, you're going to look up to heaven like Nebuchadnezzar and you're going to say, you are right in everything you do. You know why that terribly interesting and seductive book sold so much, why bad things happen to good people? You know why people have so much trouble with the suffering of this world? There's an assumption. And I want to try, I want you to prove it to me. The assumption is the world is worse than we deserve. Oh really? Prove that to me. But that's the reason why people look at life and have so much trouble with it. When you're a Christian, you realize the world is much better than we

deserve. And therefore, you weep over pain, you weep over troubles, you weep over tragedies, but you look to heaven, and this is an acid test of whether you've been healed of your pride or the gospel, you look to heaven and you say, everything you do is right. Your ability to handle suffering will depend on whether you believe this world is worse than we deserve or whether you think it's better than we deserve, and that will completely depend on what you believe about the gospel. But secondly, Daniel says, remember when he says to Nebuchadnezzar, please, turn away and humble yourself so that these bad things don't come upon you. You know what he says? Do you see what he

tells him to do? He says, remember the oppressed. Remember the poor. Here's what he means. The acid test to know whether you've been humbled in your pride is what you do with your money. You know, you may say, oh yes, I believe everything is from God. It's all a gift. But here's the acid test. Are you generous with your money? Or do you act as if it's all yours? You earned it. Imagine people over the years have told me the idea, the biblical idea of tithing, of giving away 10% to the poor, to the church, the charity, is unreasonable. What if you turn to somebody and said, I'm in trouble, I need a loan? And the person says, how much? You say, $10,000.

I'll pay it all back. And the person says, I'll tell you what, here's the $10,000, and all I went back is $1,000. The rest is a gift. What would you say? How unreasonable. Unbelievable. That you would want $1,000 back on this loan. Incredible. Who do you think I am? No, you'd say, unbelievable grace. But God looks at you and says, give away 10% of your money to the people around you, and you say it's unreasonable. That proves that in your heart, you still believe you're your own author. That proves that you haven't really seen yourself as a sinner saved by grace so that everything, everything is a gift.

the irony is that unless you break yourself with that second kind of pride you'll never see yourself you'll never get the first kind of pride remember the pride that isaac denison talked about until you see that you're not in charge of your life that you're not your own author you will never see that he is your author and therefore you are a work of art are you an are you an accident are you a self-made person fine then you're free you can live life the way you want, but you're just an accident. Do you believe what God says? That I created you. I am your author. Well, in that case, you're not in control of your life, but now you're a work of art. And you know how artists feel about their art. They love their art. They labor over their

art. They sweat blood over the art. They cherish their art. They love their art, and that's how God looks at you. How will you know you are ravishingly beautiful to God? How will you have that kind of poison and that kind of stability that comes from knowing God loves me and values me? How will you know that? Only by losing control and saying, you are the

author. Which way are you going to live? He is able to humble those who are proud. Let's pray. Father, as we go to your table, we pray that you would give us the look at our sin and the look at your mercy that will heal us of our pride. Many of us right now are experiencing the kind of difficulties that come from being full of self-absorption, comparing ourselves to others,

having our feelings hurt, oh Lord, help us to see all life as a gift, help us to see even our troubles as part of your mercy, help us to see our material possessions as all part of your gift to us. help us to have the kind of easy joy, generous spirit, incredible confidence that comes from knowing that we don't belong to ourselves, but we are a work of art, the creator of the universe. Help us to understand that as we pick up the bread in the cup. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Thanks for listening to today's teaching.

It's our prayer that you were encouraged by it. and that it helps you apply the gospel to your life and share it with others. For more helpful resources from Tim Keller, visit gospelandlife.com. There, you can subscribe to the Life in the Gospel Quarterly Journal. When you do, you will also receive free articles, sermons, devotionals, and other great gospel-centered resources. Again, it's all at gospelandlife.com. You can also stay connected with us on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, and X. Today's sermon was recorded in 1995.

The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life podcast were recorded between 1989 and 2017 while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.