Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven for all His works are right and His ways are just, and those who walk in pride, He is able to humble.
– Daniel 4:37
What an ascription of praise to God. What a true attribution of glory to God from the lips, again of a pagan king, just like we saw in Daniel chapter three. Here’s Nebuchadnezzar saying, “I praise and extol and honor the King of heaven,” capital K, King, “for all his works are right and all his ways are just.” So this is the background for this chapter. Nebuchadnezzar has had a dream that so clearly reflects his pride, his self-centeredness, his narcissistic personality. And in this dream, it’s made clear that God alone is King over all, and Nebuchadnezzar has no reason for pride before the holy King of heaven.
So Nebuchadnezzar says, “Those who walk in pride, He is able to humble.” And his prayer leads me to encourage you, even as I’m encouraged my own heart, to pray before the holy King of heaven for humility in our lives. If a pagan king realized this, how much more should every one of us pray for humility before God? Even when you think about Jesus’ initial call to us as his disciples, “Anyone would come after me, he must deny himself, take up his cross, die to himself.” And what does he say in Luke 9:23? He says, “Do this daily.” We need to daily crucify our pride, our tendency to think of ourselves higher than we ought, our tendency even just to focus our thoughts on ourselves above others and above God, and our tendency to think we know what is best for our lives, that we are wiser than God, or we can do this or that in our lives apart from God.
Even when we are prayerless, don’t we realize prayerlessness is pride? If we’re not praying continually, that means we’re living continually in pride. We’re living as if we can do whatever we’re trying to do on our own when we can’t. So God, we pray right now for humility in each of our hearts. God, we want to die to ourselves. We want to die to our pride. God, we have nothing good in us, apart from you. Anything, everything good in us comes from you. You are the author of all good and every good thing in us originated in you and originates in you, every good thing we need today. So God, we confess John 15:5, Lord Jesus, apart from you, we can do nothing today. We need your help in every way.
Even as I say that, I just encourage you maybe to spend, once I say amen, a few minutes just confessing the specific ways you need Jesus’ help. Jesus, we need your help in so many ways. So many things coming to my mind right now. I can’t do it without you. I can’t do any of these things without you. And I can’t do anything good without you, oh God. You are the king of heaven, worthy of all praise and honor. All your works are right. All your ways are just. We pray for a proper humility in our lives. And God, we pray this for leaders like Nebuchadnezzar, in our day, around the world. We pray for humility and leaders of countries and kings and presidents. May they be humbled before you, oh God.
God, we pray for humility among the nations to bow the knee and call you Lord. We pray for the Shahari people of Saudi Arabia, a small people group. There are no known followers of Jesus among these 43,000 people. God, please bring them all to humble themselves before you, King Jesus, to receive your love and to die to themselves, take up their cross and follow you. We pray that over the Shahari people, even as we pray this daily in our own lives, Oh God, we praise you and extol you and honor you, the King of heaven. All your works are right, all your ways are just, and those who walk in pride, you are able to humble. We pray this according to your word in Daniel 4:37. In Jesus’ name, amen.
David Platt serves as a Lead Pastor for McLean Bible Church. He is also the Founder of Radical, an organization that makes Jesus known among the nations.
David received his B.A. from the University of Georgia and M.Div., Th.M., and Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. Some of his published works include Radical, Radical Together, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Don’t Hold Back, and How to Read the Bible.
He lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area with his wife and children.
