The dream, though, soon turned into a nightmare as Nebuchadnezzar saw a messenger descending from heaven and giving the order for that tree to be chopped down. Let the animals flee from under it and the birds from its branches. Still alive, what remains is a mere stump, little taller than the grass that surrounds it. Nebuchadnezzar went immediately to the wisest men in the kingdom, but all, furtively, pleaded ignorance as to its meaning. The natural man does not need a special revelation from God to inform him that before him lies many trials until the last final humbling and tumbling into the grave.
Human experience tells all men of that fact.
Death lies before us all, and everyone's philosophy of life should take into consideration life's unavoidable realities. You and I are going to die. What the natural man needs is periodic awakenings to the sobriety of that event. How often does God through man's conscience and providence summon men to the great bar of judgment. It is as we look death squarely in the face that the grace and power of the Saviour take on new meaning.