Chronicles of the End Times

King Nebuchadnezzar, a servant of the living God? That doesn’t sound like what most of us may have heard. It is nevertheless true. Before researching for this book, I had never thought of Nebuchadnezzar that way. King Nebuchadnezzar was brutal, arrogant, and short-tempered. But God showed up and counted Nebuchadnezzar as one of his servants. If we haven’t thought of King Nebuchadnezzar like this, maybe we haven’t read Daniel carefully enough.

Pagan King Nebuchadnezzar thought he was expanding his kingdom and building a monument to himself. He had magnificent temples and palaces built in Babylon, with idols and altars gleaming with pure gold. The king didn’t know God was working out his own plans. When he conquered Judah and took the Jews captive, he was not only doing the will of the living God, but he was in for the experience of his life, because one of his captives was going to show him God. God used the Hebrew prophet Daniel to introduce both the pagan king and the Gentile world to God. How wonderful and like God to do amazing things such as this using the lives of ordinary people.

Despite all this, Jewish tradition names Nebuchadnezzar among a few men who are considered to be the most evil who ever lived. Among them is Haman in the book of Esther. Another more recent name of course is Hitler. But another is King Nebuchadnezzar. After all, he destroyed Jerusalem and the temple, ended the kingdom of Judah, and took the Jews captive. Nebuchadnezzar is referred to as “that wicked man” in the Babylonian Talmud. ²²

Yet, two very wonderful things happened because of what the “wicked” King Nebuchadnezzar did. First, the Jews, upon returning to the land of Israel after having lived as captives in Babylon for seventy years, never again indulged in idol worship as a nation. Before the Captivity, the Old Testament has recorded seemingly countless times the Israelites fell into idolatry. After the Captivity, it never happened again. So God used Nebuchadnezzar to chastise and cleanse His people.

Second, King Nebuchadnezzar himself became a servant of the living God and was used by God to declare His presence to the entire world. So, God not only disciplined His people whom He had taken care of as the apple of his eye for fifteen hundred years, He introduced himself to the rest of humanity through the most feared man in the world! That is quite an undertaking—something only God could have done.

The Talmud may refer to Nebuchadnezzar as “that wicked man,” but aren’t we all wicked without Christ? Indeed, we are all evil as Romans 3:23 says, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (NIV 1984). But God chose King Nebuchadnezzar as His servant, and to be one of His own. What a blessed thing it is to be chosen to be one of His own and be used as his servant, to see Him working in your life and know you are part of his kingdom!

In the times before Christ came, God could attribute one’s faith in God to that person as righteousness, as He had done to Abraham (see Gal. 3:6, Gen. 15:6). Therefore, prior to Jesus’ appearance, anyone could be counted as righteous, as long as he or she had faith in the God of heaven. This is how Nebuchadnezzar could have become an Old Testament saint.

The following is a list of the names God mentions directly in the Old Testament as “my servant.” In the following list after each name is the Bible reference where the phrase is first used for that person, and the number of times the phrase “my servant” is mentioned for each person:

1. Abraham (Gen. 26:24, one time)

2. Moses (Num. 12:7, five times)

3. Caleb (Num. 14:24, one time)

4. David (2 Sam. 3:18, twenty-three times)

5. Job (Job 1:8, six times)

6. Isaiah (Isa. 20:3, one time)

7. Eliakim (Isaiah 22:20, one time)

8. Jacob (Isa. 41:8, thirteen times)

9. Zerubbabel (Hag. 2:23, one time)

10. Nebuchadnezzar (Jer. 25:9, three times)

11. Jesus Christ (Isa. 42:1, six times).

In the Old Testament, there were many more righteous people who prayed to God addressing themselves as his servant, but this short list identifies the only ones God is specifically quoted as calling “my servant.” The first nine names are righteous men who will probably be familiar to you. (If you don’t remember Eliakim, he was one of the three men representing King Hezekiah when the Assyrian commander challenged Jerusalem in their native Hebrew language.) God referred to David this way most often, twenty-three times.

Number 11, of course, is the Messiah, the Son of God.

But, look at number 10, the only Gentile on the list, the once pagan King Nebuchadnezzar. He is actually mentioned more times by God as “my servant” than men like Caleb, Isaiah, and Abraham himself! Being called “my servant” by the living God evidently places one in a special group of saints, though, and no matter how wicked, anyone can be used by God (remember Pharaoh and his hardened heart in Exodus). Before King Nebuchadnezzar destroyed Jerusalem, and learned of God, the living God was already calling him “my servant.” All three references of “my servant” in regards to King Nebuchadnezzar were prophecies in Jeremiah 25:9, 27:6, and 43:10 saying God was going to use King Nebuchadnezzar to chastise the Jews and carry them off.

The “evil” King Nebuchadnezzar will likely be counted among God’s saints when Christ returns. Later in this section we will look at King Nebuchadnezzar’s personal testimony of his relationship with the living God. His testimony is amazing and shows that, yes, King Nebuchadnezzar repented of his ways and acknowledged the sovereignty of God. What an amazing witness of the living God King Nebuchadnezzar became as the king of kings, with absolute power over life and death (see Dan. 5:19), ruling the greatest city and empire on earth! God made a witness out of the greatest Gentile king ruling the greatest Gentile empire at the time.