Daniel 5:1-9; 17-31; The Handwriting on the Wall

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Daniel, chapter 5.

Daniel 5 · chapter mention

This morning we're going to continue our study through Daniel and let me make, as we look at this passage and prepare for this passage, let me make a couple of introductory comments before I read.

You'll notice, as I read this morning, there is an abrupt shift in the story and the narrative of Daniel is an abrupt shift in the story, in the narrative of Daniel.

Nebuchadnezzar, who at this point had been a prominent figure in the book of Daniel, is now dead and gone and the story actually fast-forwards 20 years to a new Babylonian ruler named Belshazzar.

Remember, as we study our Bibles I think this is important to interject here.

The purpose of the Bible is not to give you a detailed report or history of the Babylonian empire or the history of the world.

The Bible is given to encourage us and to nurture our faith.

It was given to these exiles to encourage and nurture their faith, and this story in Daniel, chapter 5 marks the last night of the Babylonian empire, one of the greatest empires in human history.

Daniel 5 · chapter mention

The other thing I want you to notice this morning is this passage contains lots of phrases that maybe you've heard throughout your life.

You've likely heard the phrase your days or their days are numbered.

You ever heard that?

Or maybe you've definitely heard the phrase the writing is on the wall.

Those phrases come from Daniel, chapter 5, and all of those phrases indicate gloom and doom.

Daniel 5 · chapter mention

They indicate that this is not going to end well.

They indicate something unpleasant and difficult, and that's certainly how they're used in this passage this morning.

Daniel 4 and 5 go together.

They create a bit of a contrast.

They're essentially about the same thing.

I'll show you the contrast in a second.

And the main point is God is able to humble.

If you were here last week, you remember this with Nebuchadnezzar God is able to humble those who walk in pride.

Except this morning we see a contrast.

We see Nebuchadnezzar who what?

He bowed the knee, he humbled himself before God and he had his kingdom restored.

Belshazzar is brought low in a very final way and he experiences the judgment of God for his pride.

This is a really difficult passage this morning, but it also, at the very same time, offers us great hope, if we have ears to hear.

Now follow along with me as I read this very vivid description of one of the last nights, or the last night of one of the greatest empires in history.

This is God's Word.

Belshazzar made a great feast for a thousand of his lords and drank wine in front of the thousand.

Belshazzar, when he tasted the wine, commanded that the vessels of gold and of silver that Nebuchadnezzar, his father, had taken out of the temple in Jerusalem be brought and that the king and his lords, his wives and concubines might drink from them.

Then they brought in the golden vessels that they might be taken out of the temple, the house of God in Jerusalem, and the king and his lords, wives and his concubines drank from them.

They drank wine and praised the gods of gold and silver, bronze, iron, wood and stone.

Immediately, the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall of the king's palace opposite the lampstand, and the king said to the hand as it wrote.

Then the king saw the hand as it wrote.

Then the king's color changed, can you imagine, and his thoughts alarmed him and his limbs gave way and his knees knocked together.

The king called loudly to bring in the enchanters, the Chaldeans and the astrologers.

The king declared to the wise men of Babylon whoever reads this writing and shows me the interpretation shall be clothed with purple and have a chain of gold around his neck and shall be the third ruler in the kingdom.

And then all the king's wise men came in, but they could not read the writing or make known the king's interpretation.

Then the king, then King Belshazzar, was greatly alarmed and his color changed and his lords were perplexed Down to verse 17.

And then Daniel answered and said before the king let your gifts be for yourself and give your rewards to another.

Nevertheless, I will read the writing to the king and make known to him the interpretation.

O king, the most high God gave Nebuchadnezzar, your father, kingship and greatness and glory and majesty.

And because of the greatness that he gave him, all people's, nations and languages trembled and feared before him.

Whom he would, whom he would he killed, whom he would he kept alive, whom he would he raised up and whom he would he humbled.

But when his heart was lifted up and his spirit was hardened so that he dealt proudly, he was brought low from his kingly throne and his glory was taken from him.

He was driven from among the children of mankind.

His mind was made like that of a beast and his dwelling was with the wild donkeys.

He was fed grass like an ox, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven, until he knew that the God Most High rules the kingdom of mankind and sets over it whom he will.

And you, his son Belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, though you knew all this, but you have lifted yourself up against the Lord of heaven and the vessels of his house have been brought in before you, and you and your lords and your wives and your concubines have drunk wine from them, and you have praised the gods of silver and gold and of bronze, iron, wood and stone, which do not see or hear or know, but God, in whose hands is your breath and whose all of your ways you have not honored.

And then, from his presence, the hand was sent and this writing was inscribed.

And this is the writing that was inscribed Mene, mene, tekel and Parson.

This is the interpretation of the matter.

Mene, god has numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end.

Tekel, you have been weighed in the balances and found wanting.

Perez, your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.

And then Belshazzar gave the command and Daniel was clothed with purple and a chain of gold was put around his neck and a proclamation was made about him that he should be the third ruler in the kingdom.

And that very night Belshazzar the Chaldean king was killed and Darius the Mede received the kingdom, being about 62 years old.

This is God's Word.

Three things We'll jump right in this morning.

If you're a note taker, we'll have three headings the story, the application and the hope.

The story, the application and the hope.

Let's take those in order this morning.

First of all, the story.

I just simply want to walk through the story this morning and bring out a couple of things about the story.

You'll notice, first of all, that Nebuchadnezzar is called Belshazzar's father.

That doesn't mean he was literally his father.

In the ancient Near East, if you were an ancestor, you were often called father.

The point here is this was another way of saying that Belshazzar was Nebuchadnezzar's successor.

This summer I was on sabbatical and I was with my girls.

We were flipping through the channels trying to find something to watch, and it's been on a thousand times, probably every time you turn on the TV.

But Titanic was on.

Maybe you've seen Titanic.

It's about the ship that sank over 100 years ago, killing 1,500 people.

It was on and the scene that was on was that eerie scene you probably remember this if you've seen it where the ship is sinking and the orchestra and the entertainment continues to play.

You remember that All the way to the end, until the ship is completely underwater, the orchestra continues to play.

And I begin that way because that's actually a great picture of this story.

The passage opens with a huge party.

Belshazzar is throwing this party and the Medes and the Persians are surrounding Babylon, pounding on the walls, ready to sink the ship, so to speak, and ready to take it down, and he continues to entertain and continues to party into the night.

Why is he throwing this party?

Well, we're not exactly sure, but the party is not actually the point.

What happens next is what the author really wants us to see.

Look at verses 2 through 4.

Again, if you have a Bible or your bulletin, we're just going to walk through this passage together.

Remember, in chapter 1, we heard about Nebuchadnezzar taking the holy vessels of the temple to Babylon with him after he destroyed Israel's capital, jerusalem, and Nebuchadnezzar actually treated these holy things with respect.

He stored them and cared for them.

Not anymore, not now, with Belshazzar.

He brings these holy things and these vessels out and he parties with these things and uses these holy things for common purposes.

And not only that, he actually pours out drink offerings with God's things.

He pours out drink offerings to his own pagan gods.

This is God's stuff, these are God's things, and this would have been a slap in the face and a supreme insult against Almighty God.

It is mockery.

Why is it mockery?

Because contempt for God's stuff is the same as having contempt for God Himself.

How does God respond to this mockery?

Well, look at verses five and six.

He responds immediately.

Immediately, the hand of God appears, and the hand of God we've seen appear a few times in the scriptures right.

The hand of God writes the ten commandments.

The hand of God comes and releases the plagues against the Egyptians.

And now we see the hand of God being formed here again and writes on the wall and, just like his predecessor, nebuchadnezzar Belshazzar is shaking.

He's deeply afraid and alarmed.

It says it's very descriptive his knees buckle and his knees begin to knock together and just like a broken record that we've seen throughout this series is.

Of course, the king wants to know the interpretation, he wants to know what this means, and so he calls the Babylonian wise men, says come in.

They're not up for the task and he needs help interpreting what he is seeing in this writing on the wall.

Verse 10, the queen mother reminds Belshazzar of Daniel.

Daniel, at this point, would have been 80 years old.

He's still in the king's court, but his role has diminished.

It's as if Belshazzar doesn't really know who he is, or at least has just simply heard of him.

But now the king needs him and so he calls him.

Daniel comes and interprets the writing on the wall, and here's what I want us to focus on.

Look at verse 17 through 21 with me.

Notice how Daniel begins.

He doesn't go right for the interpretation.

Instead, he backs up and gives a history lesson to Belshazzar, and he recounts essentially chapter 4 and reminds Belshazzar of Nebuchadnezzar's story.

And so it would have been clear that Belshazzar knew the story of Nebuchadnezzar, and he most certainly would have known chapter 4, verse 37, he who walks in pride.

God is able to humble.

And then we see verse 22, which gets right at the heart of the passage.

And you, belshazzar, have not humbled your heart, though.

You knew all of this.

If you have children, you've most likely said to your children you know better.

You've most likely said to your children you know better.

That's what God is saying through Daniel Belshazzar.

You know better.

You weren't paying attention with Nebuchadnezzar.

You saw what happened to him and yet you did not humble yourself.

You have not humbled yourself.

It has made no difference whatsoever in your life.

And he drives home the point.

Did you notice?

Verse 22 and 23, you and your is used 14 times.

The author is trying to point out Belshazzar's foolishness, the fact that he ignores God, his pride and his arrogance.

And then we see the interpretation verse 24 through 28, mene, mene, tekel and parsen.

And Daniel translates that as numbered, weighted and divided.

And he applies to Belshazzar saying Belshazzar, your days are numbered, you have been weighed and you have been found wanting and insignificant and your kingdom will be divided, among others.

And that's exactly what happens.

Verse 30, on that very night, belshazzar was killed by Darius the Mede and received the kingdom, thus marking the end of the Babylonian empire.

And this story here?

Two points that we've.

It communicates to us two points that we've seen throughout this study in Daniel.

Obviously, the first one is those who walk in pride, god is able to humble, but the other thing that is very clear through this passage is the kingdom of God is still standing and will last forever.

Daniel, 80 years old.

He starts the book of Daniel in his early 20s.

He's now in his 80s.

He has seen kingdoms come and go.

He's seen political revolutions rise and fall and Daniel has endured it all, showing us that God's people will go on and that God's kingdom will move forward.

Or we could say it this way the gates of hell cannot stand against the church.

Secondly, application what does this mean for us, as we like to say on a Tuesday at 2 pm?

First of all, I think it should lead us to reverence.

Look at verses 3 and 4 with me.

Belshazzar is mocking God by treating his stuff and his vessels very poorly, and at first glance we might read this or hear this and we're thinking all this talk about golden goblets and vessels and temples, that seems so foreign to us and maybe we're like I can check out and you think I can dismiss this.

How could I?

Possibly I can be guilty of a lot of things.

Maybe you say, but how could I be guilty of treating a sacred goblet poorly?

Well, not so fast.

The reason why we easily might dismiss something like this is because we tend to compartmentalize our spiritual life.

We have this tendency, don't we to create this sacred-secular dichotomy.

The Bible doesn't do that.

The Bible teaches that everything and everyone is God's stuff.

You might have heard the famous quote, kuyper quote there is not one square inch in God's world in which Christ, who is sovereign over all, does not look at and say mine.

And that truth should lead us to treat God's world and God's people differently.

Think about it this way Maybe you have some of these things in your home, but maybe you have a family heirloom that's been passed down for generations.

Or maybe you caught a foul ball at a major league game.

Or you've got a signed basketball by somebody a famous NBA player, or a jersey or a baseball card, those kinds of things and those things have been passed down.

Whatever that is, you don't use that every day.

For example, like if you've got a signed baseball by an all-star who's in the Hall of Fame, you're not likely throwing that baseball in the backyard or taking a basketball signed by Kobe Bryant and playing with it in the driveway.

No, what you set, you do you treat that differently.

You set those things apart.

Well, that's the same idea here.

There is a sense in which everything in life is that way the moments and the words and our work and every person that you come in contact with we are to treat as autographed by the hand of God.

And of course that doesn't mean that we're gloom and doom people.

That doesn't mean that we're somber and we don't have any fun and don't enjoy life and don't know how to celebrate.

But it does mean that we take God's claim over all things very seriously and that we treat everyone and everything as God's stuff, as belonging to God.

Your work doesn't belong to you.

Your work belongs to God.

Your body, it doesn't belong to you, it belongs to God.

We are, the Scriptures say, the temple of the Holy Spirit.

You are not your own.

You have been bought with a price.

And boy does that have some implications on how we treat our body and how we treat our body and how we look at ourselves.

And boy does that have implications on how we treat other people, your relationships with others, your marriage, your free time those things belong to God.

Students, when you open up your textbooks, those studies are holy unto the Lord.

Last week we said humility.

If we put a word to humility, what does it produce?

We said gratitude.

If we wanted, in chapter 5, to put another word added to that, we might say reverence.

Another word added to that, we might say reverence.

Humility produces reverence for all things because they belong to God, and the other application, I think, is that it should lead us not only to reverence but to reflection, some serious reflection.

Look at verse 22.

This is the verse that floored me this week.

You've not humbled your heart, though you knew all of this.

Belshazzar had seen King Nebuchadnezzar humbled and it should have impacted his life, it should have changed him in some way.

And the Bible says in Romans, chapter 1, that all people have a basic universal knowledge of God that leaves them without excuse.

Romans 1 · chapter mention

And the Bible also says that some have been given so much more, and I would say that's definitely true for us this morning, isn't it?

We have been given, have we not, so much more than Belshazzar.

He saw the humbling of a king, king Nebuchadnezzar.

We have seen the humbling of a far greater king, king Jesus, who came into the world to save sinners.

We had a baptism this morning.

Many of you have been raised in a Christian home.

You've been taught the Scriptures.

You've been taught theology.

You have been taught the Scriptures, you've been taught theology.

You have been taught the Bible.

We have the Word of God, don't we, in written form.

We've been given so much the promises of God.

What a gift God has given us.

But here is the kicker the Bible also says that we will be judged more severely depending on the level of knowledge that we have.

For example, james 3, verse 1, speaks to teachers and preachers like me, and it says we who teach will be judged more strictly.

James 3:1

Luke 12, verse 48, from those whom much is given, much will be required.

Luke 12:48

You see, all of this knowledge that we've been given just puts us on the hook.

And all of this knowledge, god says, and it just simply allows God to look at us and say you knew better, you know all of this.

And so here's my question what are we doing with what we've been given?

Where is Daniel saying to you this morning you have not humbled your heart, though you knew all of this.

There is a way the Bible teaches of knowing up here, and it never making it into our hearts and changing our lives.

And it never making it into our hearts and changing our lives.

And so what do we do?

Well, yes, of course pray.

Yes, of course we need Holy Spirit.

But it all begins, and that's the purpose of these two chapters.

It begins with humility.

It begins with humbling yourself.

That's the focus here.

That's our role.

1 Peter, chapter 5, it doesn't say wait for the Holy Spirit to work.

1 Peter 5 · chapter mention

It doesn't say wait on God to humble you.

You remember what 1 Peter 5 says Humble yourself under God's mighty hand.

God has given us the greatest gift of all, has he not?

The gift of his son.

He's given us his very self.

And so may we listen, may we pay careful attention to this check, to this warning that God gives us in this passage.

The last thing is the hope.

Think about if you were in exile and you were one of the Israelites and you heard this story Babylon had destroyed their homeland, had destroyed their people, their friends, their temple.

It's estimated that Nebuchadnezzar killed close to 50,000 Jews and so they most certainly, at some time in their long stay in exile, would have said God, are you there?

Are you going to deal with any of this?

Do you actually care?

And God's people would have most certainly been longing and singing God's justice.

We're actually singing for God's justice to come, and we actually see that in the Psalms, and you see very specifically for Babylon in Psalm 137.

And Daniel, chapter 5, is God's way of saying I hear you, I do care.

Daniel 5 · chapter mention

It's God's way of saying I'm going to set things in the world to right, because in this passage God brings the future day of judgment that will take place when Jesus returns.

He brings it that, that judgment, into the present.

You see that when Darius the Mede showed up in Babylon's doorstep, god's people would have believed that justice was here at last.

And this was a small step of God putting the world back to right.

And some of you hear that this morning and you're like I don't know, like that.

What you're talking about is why I'm not a Christian, and maybe that's where you are.

You're saying I can't buy this idea of God being a God of judgment, just only a God of love.

That's my God.

I'm glad that you're here this morning.

Please hear me out.

Deep down, human beings it's part of being human.

We want justice in the world.

Deep down, all of us want evil to be dealt with.

We want God to be just, because that means let's work this out that God actually takes sin and evil seriously.

God being a God of justice means that he takes the evils that have been done against you and some of you have had evil done against you through abuse and betrayal and wounds.

It also means that he takes the evil in the world and we could name a thousand things that we see, the oppression around us and the horrible things that have happened in the world.

Justice means that he takes those things seriously, because think about what kind of God would God be if he looked at all of the ugliness and things that have happened to us and the things that have happened in the world and he just shrugged his shoulders and said, ah, it's no big deal, they'll be okay, I'm just going to love them.

Now, if a human judge did that, we would run them out of town so quick.

But if you keep working this out logically, here's where it eventually leads.

If you're tracking this morning, if God is committed to punishing sin and evil, the natural question then leads to who Me?

What about the evil in me?

What about the things that I've done and the crimes that I have committed?

The good news of the God of the Bible and the good news of Christianity is that God is not a God simply of justice, but he's also a God of grace, and at the cross, god's justice and grace come together.

It's been said that they kiss, and in Daniel, chapter 5,.

Daniel 5 · chapter mention

It wasn't the only time that God's judgment intruded into the present moment.

There was another time when God's final divine judgment broke into the present moment and it didn't fall on a pagan king named Belshazzar.

It fell on the king, the king of kings, the Lord Jesus Christ.

You see, on the cross, jesus was experiencing divine justice.

It fell on him.

He stood under the weight of divine vengeance.

He was divided and crushed for our iniquities, for all of the evil and the cruel things that we've done and that have happened.

He took the punishment that we deserved.

You could say that on the cross, jesus was weighed by the scales of God and not found wanting.

Jesus was found weighty because Jesus was perfectly righteous and when you believe in Jesus by faith, you get his weightiness credited to you, so that you and I, through faith in Jesus, no longer have to fear the scales of God.

So now the writing on the wall is it is finished, your debt has been paid in full.

Friends, do you see it?

Unless you believe in a God of justice, unless you believe in God's judgment, then you'll never get the gospel, you'll never understand Christianity and why Jesus had to come, you'll never understand how deeply God loves you.

God is a God of justice and grace and love.

One of the privileges of being a pastor is that I get to talk to people every week it's part of my job about the most important things in life.

About the most important things in life.

This is the most important thing in life.

Hebrews 9, verse 27,.

Hebrews 9:27

Every person is appointed to die once and then face judgment.

You see what that means.

The handwriting is on the wall.

Our days truly are numbered, because death is undefeated and your good works cannot save you or tip the scales of God's divine justice.

Only Jesus can save you, because one day God is coming to judge the world in righteousness.

You will either die and face that judgment or he will come again.

And the question is for all of us is will we be like Nebuchadnezzar and bow the knee and throw our hands up to the God most high?

Or will we be Belshazzar, who didn't humble his heart, though he knew all this?

Will you humbly run to Jesus, or will you foolishly face the scales of divine justice on your own and be found wanting?

That's an invitation.

Let's pray Father.

A very difficult passage, but it's actually a gift that you've given us this morning.

Would you forgive us for having knowledge about you that doesn't change our lives?

Change us this morning, holy Spirit.

Give us grace to humble ourselves.

If there's someone here that doesn't know you, I pray that they would not leave this place without bowing the knee to Jesus as Lord and Savior.

Hear our prayers in Jesus' name, amen.