Stuff Michael Meeks is doing

Up late, bank holiday. Breakfast with Bruce & Anne, out for a walk along the sea-front - not a particularly pleasant day, but a nice walk. Waited around while horatio the lobster was boiled in the fisherman's hut.
Lunch, packed up, drove back home in the pouring rain.
Gordon sermon on Getting Cut down to size Daniel 4
- Pride / self conciet vs. humility. The utmost evil is pride; pride leads to every other vice, it is the complete anti-God state of mind. Pride is why Satan fell. cf. C.S.Lewis' Mere Christianity
- Nebuchadnezzar in his 25 year span, as a general / King etc. built an empire larger than the Assyrians had in 300 years; re-built Babylon into a giant city, with massive walls, temples, etc. Plenty to be proud of.
- Meticulous records for first 11 years of his reign but not the latter period; but proclamations there start in exactly the same way.
- Nebuchadnezzar talks about miraculous signs and wonders; then we get a dream, Nebuchadnezzar looses his mind; then on his repentance his restoration. How God miraculously humbled this egotist; moving him from his self centered arrogance to humility. The biggest miracle: how he can change a human on the inside, and turn him around.
- What's wrong with a little self respect though ? is the cure not worse than the disease ? for a fat head - loosing it ? worth having a better sense of what pride is: not merely self respect, having a positive opinon of your worth; rather having an inflated opinion of it.
- Scripture doesn't want us to have a good or bad self concept, but an accurate one. Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgement, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you - Romans 12:3.
- People are not proud of being rich, clever, good looking - but are proud that they are richer, more clever, better looking etc. intrinsically competitive; hence the poisoning of relationship with each others, & ultimately God, who is better in every way. A proud man always looks down on others, which makes it hard to look up and see God.
- Scripture singles out leaders as being particularly prone to this temptation; Matthew 20: You know that the rulers of the gentiles lord it over them ... Not so with you. Instead whoever wants to become great among you, must be your servant ...: Jesus - washing others' feet.
- Pride makes us ungrateful; Deut 8: you may say to yourself "My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me", but remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth. If we are so filled with thoughts of ourselves, we can't worship God.
- Makes us incorrigable, so we can't recieve criticism. If you go to committee are the only insightful comments you rember your own ? cf. Prov 18:2.
- Don't imagine that God can change us without cost. True biblical wisdom isn't self hatred: His dream starts with a vision of his genine dignity and worth: a giant, strong, stable, abundant, beautiful tree. Kings are often trees cf. Ezek 17. Many extant examples of this iconography from the ANE.
- The gracious warning: you will be cut down to size. A hyper obvious intepretation: The other wise men cowards ? Daniel brings the message home - firmly cf. 4:27 be pleased to accept my advice, renounce these sins by doing what is right
- We sometimes talk about the use of a sick-bed to bring people to repentance; but less often about mental illness. Getting through to the learning center often requires terrible pain, and chastening. Even for Jesus: Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered.
- Nebuchadnezzar's syndrome has been written about extensively, but however we look at it, early Christians looked at this passage to realise that not all mental illness is simply the result of daemon possession.
- Post renaissance; C 14-17th, the consensus was that when people acted in bizarre ways - it must be daemon possession.
- In Psychological Medicine, Vol 14; Crowle and Bocroft(?), an exhaustive study of medical records before the middle ages: it was not so. Based on this text and Matthew's account of Jesus' healing ministry. pwrt Ch 4, that most mental illness is not the result of daemon possession; in fact most of the cases: 57 descriptions of mental illness from that earlier period were attributed to organic causes, or environmental factors, or sin. Organic, 'humors', poor diet, sinful patterns of work, response to grief etc. demonias, lunatics and the paralytics (Matthew 4).
- Is the cure worse than the disease ? Not Nebuchadnezzar's view; he praises glorifies and exaults God because everything he does is right, all his ways are just, and those who walk in pride he is able to humble.
Very personally challenging; bed.

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Stuff Michael Meeks is doing

2004-05-03: Monday