The Writing on the Wall | What Belshazzar's Feast Teaches Us | Daniel 5:1-31

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Hey, everybody, good morning. We are the Bible Guys. We're

glad to be here.

Absolutely.

And it's Friday.

It is Friday.

And who doesn't love a good Friday.

I love good Fridays.

Yeah, well, good Friday was good.

Yes, but we're not talking about that all the good Fridays.

All the Fridays are good.

We're saying. We're saying every Friday.

This is a particularly fine Friday.

Yes, it's a fine Friday.

Here we go.

There you go.

Hey, listen TGIF on the whole idea of everybody with weekends.

Uh, people love weekends, big fan of weekends.

And I always make a comment and say, we've lived

our lives a little backwards.

All of our.

Friends that we've made over the years would always say

stuff like, hey, let's get together and let's take a

trip up north and.

Let's leave for the weekend.

And I would always say, well, I can get away

during the week you know, I can go on like

a Wednesday Thursday.

And they're like, what are you talking about? We work.

I'm like, well, Okay, I just can't. We work on Weekndays,

we work on Sundays. So but nevertheless, that still doesn't

mean that we don't love the weekends.

That's correct, we do. We love the weekends, love the weekends.

So we are moving into a segment that's uh, I'm

going to read it because it's it's technically about you.

Here's oh, here's what I love segments about me.

Here's what it says.

Great, let's do it says Tomorrow is Jeff's birthday. Woo,

yes it is wo Actually, mation Mark, Well, today is Friday.

Let's have Jeff pick the segment today. He can either

tell us what made him happy this week, where you

can ask Chris what made him mad this week?

Happy early birthday.

Jeff, Happy early birthday? How nice? Thank you? Yeah, and

thank you for reading that, Chris. And you're gonna be fine.

Job, You're going to be super old fifty four.

I'll finally catch up to you.

Wow, I've been fifty four for weeks now.

Yeah, weeks so long, so long, three weeks kind of

falling apart. Yeah, so uh okay, so my birthday I

get to choose. It's my party. I can laugh if

I want to choose, choose if I want to. Yeah,

so let's do a happy one instead of what made

Chris mad this week? And I don't like talking about myself.

You know that I'm such a humble person.

Yes, I hate.

I hate bringing the focus on me.

Nobody is more humble than you.

I don't think it hardly ever, not that I've met.

Let me say it that way.

Not that I've met.

I haven't met there.

Maybe somebody out there, maybe I don't know.

I doubt it.

I doubt it.

I've been a lot of places, I've meant a lot

of people. I haven't met anybody humble as.

I've been around the world. Nobody as humble as me.

Remember the Brian Reagan thigures like I'm driving on the

Automa and it was a multi multinational corporation. Yeah. So uh, anyways,

let's not make it about me. Let's make it. I

like making it about you, but let's make it be

a happy Chris to Okay, So what made Chris happy

this week?

Well, I don't even think twice.

Oh so, my daughter got engaged to be married and

it was a surprise to her and and.

Our fans love her because she loves dad jokes.

Yes, well she's she's been they know her. She's been

a guest on this show. She's been featured a couple

of times.

Yes, yes, So anyway, toy, she's been dating our future

son law Christo's christ Los Levy and she's been dating

him since high school for seven years. And so I

told the story for the few that know.

This to way to finally get moving christs right.

Yeah, so he is a rocket engineer. Literally, he's a

rocket scientist, rocket scientist. He's a rocket scientist.

Cory married a rocket scientist.

Yes, and he's great. He's Greek.

Does he does he tell good dad jokes? Seems like

that's a priority in her life. No, so she have

to call into the show.

To get she's different than him.

Okay, so she's a big movie person like me, and

he is not a movie person, right, Like you're like,

what do you mean, I've never seen Star Wars?

You know that kind of guy?

Oh my gosh, you're letting you.

He's like Trey wow.

And so she's been introducing him to the zar Ba

culture and he's loved it. And so anyway, he's come

afar away just.

Like just like mother son in law. Brandon's now sort

of crossed over to the Zarba culture.

They say that usually daddy's girls married guys that are

just like their dads, and both of your daughters are

married to somebody exactly the opposite.

For me, actually, that's not true Brandon. Other than the

movie thing, Brandon is almost exactly.

Like Mer Yeah, exactly.

Really that surprises me because I really like that really.

So anyway, bottom line is, here's what happened. So about

seven years ago, one of the very first dates, he's

a pilot also, so they went on this big, long date.

They didn't want it to end. He's like, hey, can

I fly you around? They get a lot of stars

in the sky because he's a pilot, So get in

a plane. They fly up to an airport that's just

north of here, and they land and there's like the

you know those steps that they wheel up to the airplane.

They sit on the steps, she sees a shooting star.

He says, what did you wish for? She said, I

don't want to tell you what you wish for? And

she says, I wish that this would last forever. So

he remembered that hang on, hung on to her for

seven years and somehow, through a thousand deceitful scenarios, we

had to keep the truth from her for this surprise,

and finally she thinks she's there by happenstance, they pull

into the airport and he had taken those same steps

and put flowers on them, balloons, everything, and she's so

clueless that.

This is going to happen.

She literally looks at him and says, hey, somebody left

a bunch of stuff on that step.

She has no clue. And then he goes, well, let's

go see, and they.

Get out of the car, and then he took off

his jacket because he was just really nice because it

was Easter Sunday, and he takes off his jacket, and

then she understood what was happening. And of course, you know,

it's Easter Sunday, so our family is over his family's house.

When they came back, we had a big Greek celebration.

We even learned how to Greek dance Greek.

Yeah, you had to take classes.

We took little little classes for some friends, so we

danced Greek. We celebrated. It was wonderful, great celebration. She

was clueless, and I had shared with a bunch of

staff that it was going to happen.

You announced it, not with a bunch of staff.

Well, anybody who was present, which was about thirty people

that day, okay, so which we called it an all staff,

So it was supposed to be the all staff. But

how many people on our staf like fifty?

Yeah, well sixty, we have sixty people in the staff.

Okay, okay, so it was only like thirty there that day.

But yes, I I don't know what I was thinking. Yes,

but it was my secret to share, and I viewed

it as it would it be cool to share this

wonderful family moment, like people.

Would be like oh, And in my mind, I was.

Actually thinking, there's no way anybody in this room is

going to talk to Tory in the next week and

a half.

So I just shared it, not realizing that.

Toy I thought, oh no, yes, not realizing that Tory

was scheduled to come with us to that Financial Freedom

seminar like three days later. And then I'm thinking, is

she congratulations?

Right? And then uh?

And then for Easter services right, which would have been

like the day before it happened. But so she was

scheduled to be at the church twice, and so we

had to finagle uh you know, Brendan, Oh, I.

Got a stomach ache. Hurry, let's run out to the car.

Hey, are you sure you want to go backstage and

see all the workers and say hi and hug Trey's neck. No,

my stomach hurts, literally, that's the kind of stuff we

had to pull. But wow, but she was clueless. That's awesome,

totally surprised. Well, I'm so happy for you guys. So

that made you happy?

Oh, it made you wonderful, happy, wonderful.

Dad proud. Yes, having a young man proposed to your

daughter and we love him. You're happy because that's one

more that you're not going to have to feed up

in just a short month.

That's right, Get out of my house. No, just kidding,

but we love him, we love their family. It was wonderful.

We could not be happier.

Wow. Good, Yeah, well that's fantastic. Congratulations to the family, Yes,

and congratulations to Tory. Yes, we're so happy for you. Yes,

I feel like we should have looked up a dead

joke about proposals.

Really yeah?

Yeah all right, well maybe maybe as you prepare to

the transition, say the transition.

Uh, so you know she was a little oblivious because

even though the writing was on the wall, she couldn't

see it.

Oh that's pretty darn God. And then tell people why

that's well, because.

In the Book of Daniel, that's where that phrase, the

writing is on the wall came from, right in Daniel

chapter five. Yes, was that good? Was that a good transition?

That was terrible? Okay, well, let me read it to

you anyways, I'm gonna read Daniel chapter five. This is

amazing story. It says, many years later, King Belshazzar gave

a great feast. Okay, so this is many years after

nebie Kinezer's big engagement with God and all that kind

of stuff. Right, there's King Belshazzar now, and he gave

a great feast for one thousand of nobles. Before go ahead, please.

Before you get into the scripture, which you're already one

sentence in, let me put this to rest. I said

to chat GPT, tell me a good dad joke about

a proposal. Sure, here's a good jad joke. I proposed

to my girlfriend at the gym. I guess you could

say it didn't work out.

Okay, pretty good? Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's kretty good well,

good news. Christos didn't propose at the gym. It did

work out.

Yeah, is that a terrible transition?

There you go, all right? Back King scripture, so it

says many years later, King Belshazzar gave a great feast

for one thousand of his nobles, and he drank wine

with them. While Belchazzar was drinking the wine, he gave

to bring in the gold and silver cups that his predecessor,

Nebukinezer had taken from the temple in Jerusalem. He wanted

to drink from them with his nobles, his wives, and

his concubines. And so they brought these gold cups taken

from the temple the House of God, Jerusalem, and the

king and his nobles, his wives, and his concubines drank

from them. While they drank from them, they praised their idols,

made of gold, silver, bronze, iron, wood, and stones. Suddenly

they saw the fingers of a human hand writing on

the plaster wall of the king's palace, near the lampstand.

The king himself saw the hand as it wrote, and

his face turned pale with fright. His knees knocked together

in fear, and his legs gave way beneath him. The

king shouted for the enchanters and astrologers and fortune tellers

to be brought before him, and he said, to these

wise men of Babylon, whoever can read this writing and

tell me what it means, will be dressed in purple

robes of royal honor, and will have a gold chain

placed around his neck. He will become the third highest

ruler in the kingdom. But when all the king's wise

men had come in, none of them could read the

writing or tell him what it meant. So the king

grew even more alarmed, and his face turned pale. His

nobles too were shaken. But when the queen mother heard

what it was happening, she hurried to the banquet hall.

She said to bel Shazar, long live the king. Don't

be so pale and frightened. There is a man in

your kingdom who has within him the spirit of the

holy gods. During Nebuconezer's reign, this man was found to

have insight understanding a wisdom like that of the gods,

your predecessor of the king, your predecessor, King nebucan Ezzer

made him chief over all the magicians and enchanters and

astrologers and fortune tellers of Babylon. This man, Daniel, whom

the king named Belta Shazar, has exceptional ability and is

filled with the divine knowledge and understanding. He can interpret dreams,

explain riddles, and solve difficult problems. Call for Daniel and

he'll tell you what the writing means. So Daniel was

brought in before the king. The king asked him, are

you Daniel, one of the exiles brought from Judah by

my predecessor, King Nebucanezzer. I have heard that you have

the spirit of the gods within you, and that you

are filled with insight, understanding in wisdom. My wise men

and chanters have tried to read the words on the

wall and tell me their meaning, but they cannot. I

am told that you can give interpretations and solve difficult problems.

If you can read these words and tell me their meaning,

you will be clothed in purple robes of royal honor,

and you will have a gold chain place around your neck.

I guess they dressed like rappers. You would become the

third highest ruler in the kingdom. Daniel answered the king.

Keep your gifts or give them to someone else. But

I will tell you what the writing means, your majesty,

The Most High God gave sovereignty, majesty, glory, and honor

to your predecessor, King Nebukedzer. He made him so great

that people of all races and nations and language tremble,

trembled before him in fear. He killed those he wanted

to kill, and spared those he wanted to spare. He

honored those he wanted to honor, and disgrace those he

wanted to disgrace. But when his heart and mind were

puffed up with arrogance, he was brought down from his

royal throne and stripped of his glory. He was driven

from human society. He was given the mind of a

wild animal, and he lived among the wild donkeys. He

ate grassed like a cow when he was trench with

the duo Heaven, until he learned that the Most I

God rules over the kingdoms of the world and appoints

anyone he desires to rule over them. You are his successor,

O Belshazar, and you knew all this. Yet you have

not humbled yourself, for you have proudly defied the Lord

of Heaven and have had these cups from his temple

brought before you. You and your nobles, and your wives

and concubines have been drinking wine from them, while prising

gods of silver, gold, bronze, iron, wood, and stone, gods

that neither see, nor hear, nor know anything at all.

But you have not honored the God who gives you

the breath of life and controls your destiny. So God

has sent his hand to write this message. This is

the message that was written. Mene, Mene, tekel, and parson.

This is what these words mean. Mane means numbered. God

has numbered the days of your reign and has brought

it to an end. Tekel means weighed. You have been

weighed on the balances and have not measured up. And

Parson means divided. Your kingdom has been divided and given

to the Means and the Persians. Then, at Belshazzar's command,

Daniel was dressed in purple robes, a gold chain was

hung around his neck, and he was proclaimed the third

highest ruler in the kingdom. That very night, bel Shazar,

the Babylonian king, was killed, and Darius the Mead took

over the kingdom at the age of sixty.

Two, Yeahough, that is unbelievable.

Isn't that amazing? Many many Teckley Parson. Wow, So.

I'm trying to think of the name of the movie.

Of course, my mind's gonna go right to the movie.

Yep, oh, A Night's Tale. I don't even have to

look it up. It just came to me.

Oh, that phrase you have been weighed and you have

been found wanting was the phrase in The Nights Tale?

Did you see that movie?

It came from this passage.

It came from that passage.

Yet And wasn't it the guy who played Joker.

Yes, yeah, he Ledger yet so so, although that's not

the guy who said it, was the antagonist in the

story that said it.

But anyway, the bottom line is is, yeah.

It comes from this passage, and it is an unbelievable

thing anybody's talking about. He's talking about the scales, right,

the scales of how they would you know, trade, in

trade and in commerce, they would have scales that would

determine the worth of things, right, and so you've been

weighed and found wanting, meaning they put you on the

scales and you have been measured, you have been determined,

and you know you you're not worth as much as

you think you are, right, right, So you're he's not

saying you're worthless, but he's saying you're not worth very much.

Yeah, you're not worth what you thought you were.

Yeah, and so what an unbelievable picture. By the way,

First of all, Second of all is I will bet

you that if you took all of our listeners that

are listening to this, So what do we have, like

a thousand a day on YouTube or something like that.

Yeah, well we'll have in a month, we'll have several thousand,

many many thousands of unique listeners.

It's thirteen thousand or fifteen something of that. But on

this particular day, who listens to this?

Yeah, just on YouTube, it'll be over a thousand, and

on the others it'll be thousands.

Okay, yeah, so okay, out of the thousands that are

listening to this, I will bet you the majority probably

don't realize they've heard this saying in their lifetime, hey

have you seen the writing on the wall, or he

saw the writing on the wall, or hey there was

writing on the wall.

Whatever context is used, then it comes from this passage.

And so for you know, for centuries, we have repeated

this it has become a part of our culture, and

it's really now used to say, hey, I saw the

future before it was here, right because I read the

writing on the wall, meaning like I was able to interpret,

you know, before it came, and here it is right here.

So do you remember, was it yesterday when I mentioned Nabinitis?

Yeah?

Yeah, So Nabinitis was the king at this time. Belshazar

was the co regent. He was like the co king.

Belshazzar was the son of Nabonitis, and for a long

time in modern archaeology, we had a hard time with Belshazzar.

So everybody knew about Nabonidas. We had a hard time

knowing about Belshazar except from biblical things. But it says here.

Archaeologists have recently discovered Belshazzar's name on several documents. He

ruled with his father Nabanitas, staying home to administer the

affairs of the kingdom. All his father tried to reopen

trade routes taken over by Cyrus and the Persians. Belchazzar

was in charge of the city of Babylon when it

was captured. Isn't it interesting? So we've recently found his

name written and because everybodyknew about Nabaitis. But Nabonitis had

left to go and try to re establish trade routes,

left his son in charge of Babylon. And his son

was just drinking and having a party in the palace,

you know, profaning God. And God goes, yeah, let me

write on the wall and tell you was about to

idea happen to you, buddy.

Yeah.

And then so do you remember when when God had

told in the dream, had told nebu Keinezer, you're the

gold head in the stream. Yes, and then you're going

to be replaced. Your kingdom is going to be replaced

with a silver that's the Meads in the Persians right here.

So there's this there's this window of time where sixty

six years from the last strike against Jerusalem, so that

was six oh five BC, and then he dies in

six five sixty two BC, so he reigned for forty

three years. Then there's this instability in the leadership of

Babylon for a while, and that's why it kind of

weakened a little bit. They lost a lot of their

trade routes. The Meads and the Persians were starting to

take over a lot of them and making money and

then Nabinitis comes in re establishes things pretty strongly, and

his son, Belshazzar is an idiot, and so then Darius

comes rolling in, and Darius was just about as ruthless

and powerful as nebuk Cainiser was and wipes them out.

So it's a pretty pretty amazing moment. I don't think

it's gonna tell us here. It doesn't. They snuck in

to Jrusalm. Did you know this. They snuck into Jerusalem

through sewage tunnels. No, yeah, that's how they got into

the city and wiped them out. It's pretty pretty amazing.

So anyways, it's a whole other thing. But yeah, it's

a really astounding thing when God's word comes to be true,

right right right these people, And I love Daniel's accusation.

Daniel doesn't pull any punches with Belshazzar. It's interesting, you

know how incredibly diplomatic he was with Nebukinizer. He's not

diplomatic at all. Well with he.

Knows be Shazar is dying to night right, and so

he he wants to disassociate himself from anything he says.

He says, you can keep your gifts.

Yeah, I don't need to gets.

I don't want your gifts.

I only want to be a part of this, right

because I'm about to tell you something you're not going

to want to hear. And I don't want a gold

chain because of it. Right.

He says that you knew these stories about Nebu Kinizzer, right,

you are his successor Obel Shazzar, and you knew all this,

Yet you have not humbled yourself right right?

I mean he called him out, Yeah, I mean right

in front of everybody.

But you have not honored the God who gives you

the breath of life and controls your destiny. So God

has sent this hand to write this message. You've been

weighed and found wanting.

You've been weighed and found.

Wanting, and the kingdom is going to be divided.

Yeah.

So there's a there's a little note here that actually

shows the writing.

How do they know what the writing is?

But it's an Ameic script.

Aramic, but probably wasn't written in Aramic when you think

it'd be like something that nobody can interpret.

Right, But anyway, here's what it says.

It says, uh many many techol Parson written in airmax script.

Is what you're seeing here is literally.

Mina, mina shekel, half mina or half shekel, and mina

we're minas were units of measurements for gold and silver,

and a mina weight about fifty shekels or five hundred

grams shekels were units of weight. So basically, what it's

doing is it's sort of attributing that all of these

things are what people would have understood exactly what that meant.

Right right, right, Well, so when it finally comes and

says Parson, it's it's saying you only are half of

what the measurement was. That that's what it means. There,

So the the many men of many many mini mini

or minamina and then tekel is half and then parson

is you're the half, right right, That's that's what it's

telling them. There's pretty pretty crazy.

Yeah, And and by the way, what what a what

a thing to hear? So here you are sitting on

the throne, loving your authority, loving your power, abusing it,

obviously doing blasphemous things to drink from, you know, the

cups that were in the temple, and then as you're

doing it, you're you're worshiping all the other gods and

saying all these things and then for and then for

it to be called out and say, hey, you are

not measuring up at all. You're half the man of

your predecessor. You're you're you're not even close. You've been

found wanting means uh, your character, your your choices, your faith,

your demeanor, your value, all these.

Things to be called out like that.

And so it's amazing that he actually still promotes Daniel,

doesn't it.

It's amazing, Well he kept his word.

Yeah, and probably because he was too fearful to uh

to you know, Jerem Limb from Limb.

Right, he's also drunk, so he's unreasonable at this point.

Yeah, probably, so yeah, yeah, yeah.

There's a note here that says the writing on the

wall was a message for all of those who defy God.

Although Belshazzar had power and wealth, his kingdom was totally

corrupt and he could not withstand the judgment of God.

God's time of judgment comes for all people. If you've

forgotten God and slept into a sinful way of life,

turn away from your sin now before he removes any

opportunities to repent. Ask God to forgive you and begin

to live by his standards of justice.

Right and amazing, that's great, that's a great lesson for

this scripture. And we're going to pick up on Monday

with the famous story of Daniel and the Lions then,

which I can't wait, and so hopefully we will see

you then on the Bible.

Gosh,