As Ruthless as Nature

As Honest as Truth

“Deeper Beauty” in acrylic by Myra Alibrando

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Nebuchadnezzar, Ruthless World Conqueror

Nebuchadnezzar (yeah you try writing that name down) was called by God to destroy nations as punishment. He did not do it in service to God consciously, but clearly a tool of God. 

Nebuchadnezzar was a ruthless conqueror. You don't take over the known world by force with diplomacy. Also, many times, God has used nations to punish other nations.

By My great power and outstretched arm, I made the earth and the men and beasts on the face of it, and I give it to whom I please. So now I have placed all these lands under the authority of My servant Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon.  Jeremiah 27:5-6

After Nebuchadnezzar fell at Daniel’s feet paying honor to Daniel (more than God, really) for interpreting his dream, he promoted Daniel as ruler over Babylon. Daniel then appointed his 3 friends to manage things in Babylon.

Unpredicatable Nebuchadnezzar still went into a fit of rage for Daniel's 3 friends not worshipping the 90 foot golden statue and furiously sent them to their death in a great fire. Instead, the conqueror saw a miracle with his own eyes. 

Nebuchadnezzar declared, “Blessed be the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who has sent His angel and delivered His servants who trusted in Him. They violated the king’s command and risked their lives rather than serve or worship any god except their own God. Therefore I decree that the people of any nation or language who say anything offensive against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego will be cut into pieces and their houses reduced to rubble. For there is no other god who can deliver in this way.” Daniel 3:28-29

This time, it was not men Nebuchadnezzar honored, but God. He was not afraid to insult his own Babylonian gods in this declaration. At the very least, Babylonian gods were demoted.

As Honest as Nature

Nebuchadnezzar must have been scary to be around. He acted on what he understood. As far as I can tell, he was ruthlessly honest. He crushed his enemies, yet when he saw God deliver Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, Nebuchadnezzar did not find another way to punish them. He immediately repented and embraced that God was a great deliverer in a way he had never seen before.

Nature is like that. It is beautiful and brutal, and its lessons to us are never-ending. The graceful tiger will rip apart a beautiful antelope.  A rattlesnake bite is just as trecherous to a good person as a bad person. No matter how much your family needs food, if you are a farmer and plant your crops wrong, there will be consequences. 

Gruesome Reality

The very last Judean king was Zedekiah (named by Nebuchadnezzar) served then betrayed Nebuchadnezzar. How do think that turned out? Nebuchadnezzar showed up in person to judge Zedekiah.

They killed the sons of Zedekiah before his eyes. Then they put out his eyes, bound him with bronze shackles and took him to Babylon.  2 Kings 25:7

YouTube has endless videos of nature’s gruesome predator-prey episodes. Fighting for survival, insects eating insects, plants eating insects. There is an endless food chain in graphic display that makes us cringe. I am mortified by the universal end by death for everything that lives.

Beauty and Horror

I marvel at the way our bodies are afflicted with so many diseases, wounds, and toxins yet designed with such foresight to overcome all of them. And still, after all these years, I am awed by some sunsets reflecting hues of red, orange and yellow painted on the clouds. Also inspiring are the colors of flowers, the sparkling stars and the eyes God has given me to be able to behold all of this. 

There is this profound ebb and flow of horror and beauty in history, with life, and in nature.

Who Can Match God’s Power?

Without the Bible, life would be such a tragic mystery ending in dark death, but despite having terrible power far greater than Nebuchanezzar, God's mercy beckons me to light, and hope. I read and understand the curse that sin has brought to all the world and how God will destroy sin. No enemy of God will survive.

This powerful God, provides all the opportunity of forgiveness and adoption without ever removing the fredom to choose. But I understand what Nebuchadnezzar understood: for complete victory, the enemy must be destroyed without mercy. 

Paradise Via Conquest and Mercy

It is hard to imagine an earth and a universe without sin or rebellion against the Holy Creator whose love invented mercy to make a way for us. It does not seem warlike but echoed again and again in scripture.

What a mind-bending concept mixing love, mercy, forgiveness and conqest. Even death will be destroyed.

The last enemy to be destroyed is death. 1 Corinthians 15:26

God wins

Far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. Ephesians 1:21

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