Pride’s Angry Partner - King Nebuchadnezzar

Nebuchadnezzar flew into a rage and ordered that Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego be brought before him.

Daniel 3:13

The eighteenth-century British physician John Hunter helped to pioneer the field of surgery, but his intense anger sometimes led to severe chest pains. “My life,” he used to say, “is at the mercy of any scoundrel who chooses to put me in a passion.”

Hunter’s words were prophetic. After a heated argument with a colleague at St. George’s Hospital in London, Hunter walked out of the room . . . and dropped dead.

Anger can erupt from a lot of things, but one of the most common is simple, human pride. The proud man tends to believe that he is owed something, such as respect and admiration. When he doesn’t get what he wants, he becomes angry.

The powerful Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar was a man whose pride often led to violent anger.

Nebuchadnezzar’s arrogance knew no bounds. Early in the book of Daniel, he showed some signs of humbling himself and turning to God, but his true colors showed when three Hebrew men named Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego refused to bow before his ninety-foot golden idol.

Nebuchadnezzar wasn’t used to hearing people say no to his demands. When these three devout men that he saw as “nothings” defied his order and told him that they would bow before no one but God, his pride kicked in, he flew into a rage, and he had them thrown into a blazing-hot furnace.

God used the incident to humble Nebuchadnezzar. Before that happened, the king made an example of how uncontrolled pride often finds an equally destructive partner: uncontrollable anger.

Are you a humble man? If so, you’re probably not given to fits of anger. Humility is like a fire hose on the short fuse of anger. If you want to keep anger from being a problem in your life, put a check on your pride. Don’t let pride take you down.