Nebuchadnezzar showed such massive pride as always happens when unconverted men get into a place of authority and rule, either in the world or in the church. Don’t say, I am a pretty humble person. As soon as you get a leg up, that pride will come out. Pride can show itself in the church too with those who think they ought to be leaders; they feel thwarted if it does not happen.
How did this persecution come about, and when did this take place? Well, we don't know precisely when, but presumably he sets up this image at the height of his power, when he has subdued all his enemies, when his empire is as large as it could conceivably be, and now, so elevated and puffed up by pride, he thinks he can bring to submission all members of his administration, of his government regionally, including those Jewish governors. Those who do not submit to him will perish. He feels he's been undermined by them perhaps; mutterings at court from the Chaldeans who are jealous of the promotion and power of the Jews. He hears whisperings, ‘The king is weak. He tolerates people who will not bow to the Babylonian gods or regard them as supreme.’ That was the thinking of the pagan world. The conqueror’s gods must be more powerful than the gods of the conquered nations. If you were a conquered heathen, you could keep your gods and your own superstitions and beliefs, as long as you recognised that the gods of your conquerors were actually more powerful than yours, because that nation had conquered you. There was toleration of all the different national deities, divinities, gods. Nebuchadnezzar did not say, ‘You must only worship this god’, but he did not grasp the exclusive nature of the religion of Israel: one God. In the case of the Jews it was different, because the Hebrews believed that theirs was the only God, and no other existed, and all others were a myth and a lie and an abomination, and they would not accept them, acknowledge them, or worship them. So the Babylonians may have said, ‘The king is weak because he tolerates people with this unacceptable attitude, and it's an affront to him and his reign. We have seen a weakness in the king’, and the great king could not stand that. So now the Jews must be brought into submission.
But behind it all is, of course, Satan who has put this fury, and rage, and injured pride into the heart of the king, and the king thinks he's preserving his authority and unity of the empire and, of course, self-aggrandisement also. But actually it is Satan who wishes to destroy the plan of salvation, of redemption, who wishes to destroy the people from whom will come the Messiah, who wishes in whatever way he can to prevent the whole plan of God, which of course he cannot do. What is the solution going to be? Are masses of Babylonians – Nebuchadnezzar, his authority, his staff, his soldiers, his people – going to perish? Is there going to be a confrontation, because God will overrule in such a way that even that disobedient Jewish nation – because the promised seed must come; the Messiah must be born – are to be preserved at all costs? Will lives be lost? Will there be a confrontation? No, the economy of God is quite marvellous. There will be a miracle that will deliver three highly placed offenders that will change the mind of the king, and the only ones who will perish are a few of his leading hero soldiers who were unfortunate enough to be too near to the flames. What a remarkable thing that the whole course of history will be changed, a genocide edict or decree will be reversed, without loss of life. So the miracle is necessary. Because it's not the preservation of three men only, three believers; it is the preservation effectively of a coherent people of God. They are going to be destroyed if they will not renounce their faith and submit. That is the only way they can exist. So it's a remarkable passage. These are very sophisticated narratives, and you see in them the marvellous way in which God works.
Furthermore people say, there is no way in which even Nebuchadnezzar with his riches would have had that much gold. But then it was very likely constructed of timber and overlaid with gold. ‘Oh, but it says it is of gold.’ Yes, but that was the customary way of describing these objects. It is the same with the description of the temple. The things Moses was instructed to make by overlaying them with gold, are later described as being made of gold. It's a kind of shorthand. So it is quite acceptable to think that this was basically a timber core, overlaid with gold for its hugeness. But here it is, and it is put in the plain or rather the valley of Dura. Some people like to identify it as a place about six miles south of ancient Babylon, where there is a candidate for the base which has long been known to archaeologists: a huge brick foundation for such a statue as this.