Theme: WE ALL Can See the Writing on the Wall
1) WE ALL have a great enemy at our doorstep
2) WE ALL have choices for deliverance
3) WE ALL are numbered, weighed, and divided
Daniel
5:13-30: Then Daniel was brought before the king. The king said to him, "Are
you Daniel, one of the Judean exiles that my predecessor the king brought from
Judah? 14 I've heard that you have the spirit of the gods in you, and that you
have insight, intelligence, and extraordinary wisdom. 15 Now the wise men and
mediums were brought before me to read this inscription and make its
interpretation known to me, but they could not give its interpretation. 16
However, I have heard about you that you can give interpretations and solve
problems. Therefore, if you can read this inscription and give me its
interpretation, you will be clothed in purple, have a gold chain around your
neck, and have the third highest position in the kingdom." 17 Then Daniel
answered the king, "You may keep your gifts, and give your rewards to someone
else; however, I will read the inscription for the king and make the
interpretation known to him. 18 Your Majesty, the Most High God gave
sovereignty, greatness, glory, and majesty to your predecessor Nebuchadnezzar.
19 Because of the greatness He gave him, all peoples, nations, and languages
were terrified and fearful of him. He killed anyone he wanted and kept alive
anyone he wanted; he exalted anyone he wanted and humbled anyone he wanted. 20
But when his heart was exalted and his spirit became arrogant, he was deposed
from his royal throne and his glory was taken from him. 21 He was driven away
from people, his mind was like an animal's, he lived with the wild donkeys, he
was fed grass like cattle, and his body was drenched with dew from the sky
until he acknowledged that the Most High God is ruler over the kingdom of men
and sets anyone He wants over it. 22 "But you his successor, Belshazzar,
have not humbled your heart, even though you knew all this. 23 Instead, you
have exalted yourself against the Lord of heaven. The vessels from His house
were brought to you, and as you and your nobles, wives, and concubines drank
wine from them, you praised the gods made of silver and gold, bronze, iron,
wood, and stone, which do not see or hear or understand. But you have not
glorified the God who holds your life-breath in His hand and who controls the
whole course of your life. 24 Therefore, He sent the hand, and this writing was
inscribed. 25 "This is the writing that was inscribed: MENE, MENE, TEKEL,
PARSIN. 26 This is the interpretation of the message: MENE means that God has
numbered the days of your kingdom and brought it to an end. 27 TEKEL means that
you have been weighed in the balance and found deficient. 28 PERES means that
your kingdom has been divided and given to the Medes and Persians." 29
Then Belshazzar gave an order, and they clothed Daniel in purple, placed a gold
chain around his neck, and issued a proclamation concerning him that he should
be the third ruler in the kingdom. 30 That very night Belshazzar the king of
the Chaldeans was killed, 31 and Darius the Mede received the kingdom at the
age of 62. (HCSB)
1) WE ALL
have a great enemy at our doorstep
Yesterday our nation celebrated its
birth and independence from the British Empire. Each year on the 4th
of July is a time of great joy and excitement. We are blessed to have the
freedoms of our land and it’s worthy to celebrate. But would it be appropriate
to celebrate if our nation was on the brink of destruction? If a foreign nation
had invaded our land and our nation’s Capitol was surrounded, would anyone be
busy celebrating? If this was the case, the fireworks would be real, not fake.
If our nation was under attack, we would
certainly have to question the sanity of any leader who chose to waste time celebrating.
This seems like common sense, but it’s precisely the situation that the
Babylonians found themselves in at the point of our text. Their nation was on
the brink of destruction, the Medes and Persians had joined forces and were
attacking their Capitol, and the Babylonians were feasting and celebrating at
the command of their ruler, Belshazzar. The event described here was also
recorded by a number of secular historians. They all record with great detail
how on the night that the Babylonians were conquered by the Medes and Persians,
they were holding a great feast.
It seems ridiculous to us, but what was
the purpose behind this madness? We’re told how Belshazzar called his servants
to bring the sacred vessels of the Temple of the LORD so that he could drink
from them. His ancestor, Nebuchadnezzar, was the one who brought these items
from Israel, when he sacked Jerusalem and carried off the Israelites to
captivity. Belshazzar’s goal in all this chaos was simply to get drunk and to
desecrate the true God in the process. We’re also told that he brought in a
host of idols and carved images, of which the Babylonians had hundreds, to seek
their approval. We look at this and say, “How foolish he was.” “What a sorry
example of a leader – getting drunk and blaspheming God when enemies were at
the door.” It’s true, Belshazzar was foolish, but we should recognize the
similarities in our lives.
Wasn’t Belshazzar simply doing what all
people do when faced with peril? They look for an immediate escape. They look for
some way to hide from the impending destruction, and way to forget about it
all. WE ALL have an enemy at our doorstep. Not an army of the world, but “spiritual hosts of wickedness in the
heavenly places (Ephesians 6:12).” We do not fight against flesh and blood
but the demon of darkness, Satan himself.
2) WE ALL
have choices for deliverance
What do we look to for deliverance? It’s
easy to criticize Belshazzar, but we so often choose the same things. When
Satan depresses us with evil and wickedness, we turn to the bottle so that
easily forget. When Satan tempts us with sin, we give in because it feels like
we’re finding fulfillment and purpose; it helps us forget about the real
problems we face, which only God can conquer. We condemn Belshazzar for
worshipping idols and desecrating God’s holy vessels, but don’t we do the same
with misplaced priorities and poor time management? We make time for
possessions and entertainment; we even change our schedules around for them. But
we offer up excuses for church, Bible study, and mission work. We seek more
exciting forms of worship, while forgetting the sacred vessels we have in the
Means of Grace.
You’re not in the same situation as
Belshazzar. You don’t have to worry about an entire nation looking to you for
help. But your individual heart is just as precious as an entire nation. And
you are faced each day with enemies at the door of your heart that threaten
your faith. What will you seek for deliverance? There are plenty of options.
There are plenty of escapes in the world to help you forget about the danger
that exists. There are plenty of substances that will alter your mind and
disposition so that you literally can’t think about what’s going on. There are
enough activities in the day that can make life so busy that you don’t have
time to think about sin or Satan. If you don’t think about it, then you don’t
have to deal with it, at least for a while. At the end of a long and exhausting
day it’s always easy to turn on a DVD or Netflix and forget about the world for
a while. You can accomplish the same escape by reading a book and taking
yourself away to a place outside of this world, where the pain and terror don’t
exist. These are innocent activities on their own but they should never take
God’s place in our lives. Too often we take leisure and entertainment too far
and give them more credit for helping with our problems than they really deserve.
This is really what Belshazzar did, just
a on a bigger stage. He took some things that are good by themselves: wine,
wood, stone, gold, the vessels of God’s temple, and he used them in a sinful
way to try and get rid of his problems. He looked to them instead of looking to
God. And all of the sudden, his actions don’t seem that crazy because we know
what it feels like. He was simply looking for deliverance, a way out, and he
tried what he thought was best.
3) WE ALL
are numbered, weighed, and divided
But in the end, none of Belshazzar’s
attempts worked, because they lacked true salvation. The writing on the wall
said it all: he (and his kingdom) would be numbered, weighed, and divided.
Despite the temporary escapes that Belshazzar indulged in, he could not escape
the Lord’s judgment, and that very night he was defeated.
The writing has the same message for us
and for all people too. But we don’t to have to use just the words written long
ago on the wall of the Babylonian palace. We have many more words from God.
Paul wrote to the Romans and said “Whatever
was written in the past was written for our instruction, so that we may have
hope through endurance and through the encouragement from the Scriptures
(Romans 15:4).” I suppose this verse could apply to writing on the wall; it
was written in the past and it was written for our learning. But it doesn’t
give much encouragement. We, too, know with great certainty that we will be
numbered, weighed, and divided. But where’s the hope?
God “numbers” you by knowing who you
are, even better than you know yourself. He searches your heart, He knows your
thoughts, He counts the hairs on your head, and He calls you by name through
the Gospel. There’s no escaping God; no matter who you are, whether you love
Him or resist Him, He knows you.
God “weighs” you in the light of His
Word. Think of God’s law as an old-fashioned scale, the kind you usually see in
connection with civil laws. The Words of God’s law, recorded in the Bible, is the
scale by which He weighs you. On one side is the standard that God sets and
expects – true righteousness; no sin whatsoever. On the other side are your
thoughts, words, and actions. Given such a picture, we receive the same
sentence Belshazzar did: “you have been
weighed in the balance and found deficient.” We are lacking because we
suffer from the same ailments as Belshazzar. We must confess as the text
states, that we have “exalted ourselves
against the God of heaven.” We have “failed
to acknowledge the Holy God.” We
have not “glorified the God who holds
our life-breath in His hand and who controls the whole course of our lives.” All
of those condemnations against Belshazzar equally fit into our lives too. Every
time we weigh ourselves on the scale of God’s law, the result is the same – we
are deficient.
The picture of weighing our thoughts,
words, and actions before God helps us realize the spiritual danger we are in.
No one can deny the authority that the law has over our lives. But the same
picture also helps us understand our salvation. When you think of scales, don’t
dwell only on the law. Think also of atonement through Christ. The idea of
atonement provides a real picture of how the scales can be tipped back in our
favor. In its literal meaning, atonement means to make “at one.” It’s an easy
way to remember what Christ does for us. But when we apply this to the scale of
God’s law, we also see a beautiful picture of true deliverance. Sin tips the
scale out of balance and reveals our many deficiencies before God. But through
Christ’s atonement on the cross, we are brought back on the same level as God;
we are literally made “at one.” The scale is balanced again, not by our
righteousness or works, but by Christ’s. When God now “weighs” us by faith in
Christ, we are not deficient. As the letter to the Colossians states, Christ
has “wiped out the handwriting of
requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us. And He has taken it
out of the way, having nailed it to the cross (Colossians 2:14).” Yes, the
handwriting on the wall speaks to us all, but for those in Christ, the message
is one of deliverance and salvation.
This is the greatest and most important
truth, because the third word still applies. There will be a day when God
“divides” us. Jesus Himself described the details of what will happen on that
day; from Matthew 25: “All the nations
will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a
shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And He will set the sheep on His
right hand, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on His
right hand, ‘Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for
you from the foundation of the world:’ Then He will also say to those on the
left hand, ‘Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for
the devil and his angels.’”
Belshazzar was divided from his kingdom
and from his life here on earth the very night the words appeared on the wall.
Our division has not yet come, but he serves as a reminder to us. At any point,
life here can end, and we will be divided, either to the right or to the left.
As with the first two words on the wall, this last one applies to us too. We
must be ready. We don’t have to be fearful of this division day because we have
salvation. Christ has made atonement for the sins of the entire world – those
words of Gospel are clear, easily read and understood by all. Jesus has given
us these words that we might have comfort and hope, not so that we may be
discouraged and fearful. That’s why He closed His prophecy of the final day by
saying that all those who have faith in Christ can “look up and lift up their heads” in these final days, because
their “redemption draws near (Luke
21:28).”
WE ALL can read the writing on the wall,
whether it be those few words in Belshazzar’s palace, or the words before every
day in the Bible. And WE ALL must take
them seriously because they apply to us all. We have a great enemy at the
doorstep of our hearts, every day. We have lots of choices for deliverance, but
not all are equal. And we are numbered, weighed, and divided.
It all seems very complicated at times,
but in reality it’s very simple. We can follow Belshazzar or we can follow
Jesus. Both offer some type of deliverance. We can hide our heads in the sand
and pretend the writing doesn’t exist. We can numb ourselves to the point where
we don’t feel anything at all, and all our problems seem to float away. We can
turn to other things to fill our time, to lend us purpose, to become our gods.
We can even lash out in anger by blaspheming God and despising His gifts. Those
were Belshazzar’s methods of deliverance, and we have access to them too.
Or we can confront the truth instead of
running from it. We can learn from what has been written instead of hiding from
it. We can apply the law by confessing our sins. We can have real hope and
salvation by believing in Christ’s atonement. We can’t escape from being
numbered, weighed, and divided, but we don’t have succumb to it. In Christ
alone, we have a path less traveled, but a path of true salvation. Amen.
The peace of God which surpasses all
understanding will keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
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