Bearing Bad News

No one likes being the bearer of bad news. When everything seems to be going well, bringing bad news is not going to make you popular. When you’re already unpopular, the natural inclination is to just keep your head down and try not to be noticed. You don’t want to stand out. You don’t want to attract attention to yourself. You certainly don’t want to tell people something they don’t want to hear. But sometimes we have to.

For our next Lesson from Babylon, let’s look at the time when Daniel had to bring bad news to a king who was on top of the world.

In Daniel 4, Nebuchadnezzar has had another portentous dream. Daniel has to tell him its meaning: “You will be driven away from people and will live with the wild animals; you will eat grass like the ox and be drenched with the dew of heaven ... until you acknowledge that the Most High is sovereign over all kingdoms on earth and gives them to anyone he wishes.” (4:25). The king will live like an animal until his pride breaks and he acknowledges God.

Can you imagine having to give that message to the most powerful man in the world? The last dream he had was good news. This one was anything but. It’s no wonder Daniel’s “thoughts terrified him” (4:19). But he had a job to do. As David Helm put it in Daniel for You, “Fear is often the greatest enemy of faithful witness, for it makes us silent. In order to speak (or rather, in order to speak truth), Daniel would need to overcome it.” And Daniel did. He gave his king the bad news.

Which is our next lesson from Babylon: Be ready to deliver the bad news no matter the risk.

Two things we need to notice:

First, Daniel was a layman. He wasn’t a priest or a professional prophet like Isaiah or Jeremiah. He was a government functionary. You don’t have to be a professional Christian to give people the bad news. As Christians, we’re called to do a lot of things: To shun evil, to do good, to pray for our land. We’re also called to tell the truth, even when it’s hard. Daniel was facing someone who could have had the bearer of bad news killed. Few of us will find ourselves in that situation. But we can certainly make ourselves unpopular.

We probably won’t have to interpret dreams or deliver any new revelation like the prophets of old, but we have a lot of old revelation people need to hear. And they won’t want to hear it. So why do it? Because they need to hear it.

As Bishop Ryle said,*

“Let us never forget that our Lord is the same yesterday, today and for ever. He never changes. High in heaven at God’s right hand he still looks with compassion on the children of men. He still pities the ignorant and them that are out of the way. He is still willing to teach them many things. ... There is warrant in Scripture for telling the chief of sinners that Jesus pities them and cares for their souls, that Jesus is willing to save them and invites them to believe and be saved.”

We have good news, but we have to tell them the bad news for it to be good. We live in a society of idolaters no less than Daniel did. Among our culture’s gods are Pleasure, Greed, Comfort, and, of course, Me. Idolatry always provokes God to anger. We have to give them the same message Paul gave the Athenians: “In the past God overlooked such ignorance, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent. For he has set a day when he will judge the world with justice by the man he has appointed. He has given proof of this to everyone by raising him from the dead” (Acts 17:30-31).

We are like Ezekiel, God’s watchmen on the wall, sharing God’s warning of danger. They need to hear the bad news, that judgment is coming, so they will receive the good news gladly.

The second thing we need to note is that Daniel was not happy about delivering this news. We shouldn’t be either. Daniel’s first response to Nebuchadnezzar was, “My lord, if only the dream applied to your enemies and its meaning to your adversaries!” (4:19). Unlike Jonah, who wanted a front row seat to Nineveh's destruction, Daniel hated the idea of this judgment coming on his king. We have to have the same attitude. If we take pleasure in announcing the judgment to come upon our neighbors’ sins, we are not imitating our Lord who wept over the judgment that would befall Jerusalem (Luke 19:41).

Now who is supposed to do this preaching? And where, when, and how? This is not a call for all believers to become street preachers, announcing the doom of God on every corner. Most of this falls to the pastors of the churches, but sometimes it will fall to the layman. The believer in the pew will go to work or little league and be faced with the evils of our world. And that believer has to be ready to stand up for the truth.

The people around us need to hear that the things they love are going to destroy them. They need Christians with a tear in their eye and a croak in their voice to tell them of the judgment to come because God is always eager to forgive the repentant.


* Expository Thoughts on the Gospels, Mark 6:30-34.


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