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When Nebuchadnezzar, the
king of Babylon in the first century before Christ, fell from the glory,
honor, and brightness of the kingdom God had given to him, his thinking
was changed from the heart of a man to the heart of a beast. The thinking
processes of his mind changed. The base of his understanding, his soul,
shifted completely. He lost the capacity to observe, to comprehend, and to
enjoy the glory, honor, and brightness of his existence. He became driven
by the simple motivations and drives of an animal. Although he was still
the king of Babylon, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, he
experienced life as a lowly beast of the field.
The story of the fall of Nebuchadnezzar is the story of every man. It
seems that every man in the course of experiencing life loses sight of the
simple truth that God gives and rules the domain of which he lives. God
directs the course of events that transpires in every man’s life. When
any man perceives, as Nebuchadnezzar, that the world of his existence has
been built by the might of his personal power for his glory and honor, he,
too, will fall from the glory, the honor, and the brightness of the
kingdom given by God. When man toils and works at experiencing life
(attempting to control the times and the seasons of life), it has been
predetermined by God that man will struggle in life. He that seeks to save
his life will lose it. He will fall from the wonder of human existence to
act as a beast of the field.
When man becomes beastly, he attempts to live life in the nature of the
beast. He becomes animalistic in his motivations to experience life. All
the complexities of intellect, emotion, and will that enable man to
observe, comprehend, and enjoy the kingdom given of God are reduced to
three simple drives that dominate his thinking. The nature of the beast
puts man into the bondage of survival, procreation, and territorial
rights.
Becoming as a beast of the field, man’s primary purpose in life becomes
simply to survive. Everything that transpires in life is designed by the
man who attempts to control his life--to perpetuate his personal
existence. He is driven continually to hunt for food and for shelter--for
things that will meet his basic need to survive. This hunt for things
dominates his life.
Becoming as a beast of the field, man’s motivation for survival is
fueled by his procreative drives. He becomes consumed not only to
perpetuate his existence by fathering and mothering children but by the
greater urge to create life. The beastly ability and motivation to
perpetuate its kind becomes in fallen man the hunger to create the
happenings of life itself. Man becomes consumed with the notion and the
attempt that he can make life happen.
Becoming as a beast of the field, the drive for survival will force man to
protect the things and the happenings that he perceives is his life. He
will become territorial. He will mark the domain of his survival--the
place where he experiences his life. He marks them because he must protect
them. They are his rights. He becomes controlled by the self-preservation
of his existence.
When man falls from the glory and wonder of the kingdom given of God (by
grace, through relationships, and in innocence), there is nothing else he
can experience but the world of the nature of the beast. Working to make
life happen by the exercise of his own thinking, he becomes beastly in all
of his relationships. When the world he has created by his own effort is
threatened, he will attack with malice, guile, deceit, jealousy, and
defamation. He will strike out to destroy all that appears to challenge
his survival. Having his heart changed from the heart of a man to the
heart of a beast, there is nothing else he can do but attempt to protect
the domain which he has created to give himself purpose and meaning to
life. He has fallen from the kingdom given of God to a domain that is now
controlled by the nature of the beast.
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